How Russia Became the World's First in Number of Self-Made Billionaires

Researchers from the German company Data Pulse studied the origin of money of billionaires from 34 countries and found that 67% of the world's richest people earned their fortunes independently, and 33% simply inherited their capital. In Russia, 97% of billionaires made their fortunes independently. And this figure puts our country in first place in the rating, on par with China.

An interesting indicator: the more self-made billionaires there are in a country, the faster the economy develops. When it comes to such people who have built their empires on their own, the first people to come to mind are Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk , Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin , Mark Zuckerberg with his Facebook, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos , Apple founder Steve Jobs and others. In other words, these are people who have changed the face of the modern world. Humanity uses their developments every day.

It is hard to find famous visionaries from other countries. We can recall the British Richard Branson , who is now, among other things, creating ships for suborbital space flights, and the founder of Alibaba Group (known in Russia for the AliExpress marketplace), the Chinese Jack Ma .

With Europe, everything is more or less clear: large industrial enterprises belong to old families. For example, Volkswagen is controlled by the Porsche and Piech families - descendants of Ferdinand Porsche , the creator of the famous Volkswagen Beetle and tanks for the Wehrmacht. The result is logical: European companies now rarely become trendsetters in the field of high technologies designed for a wide range of consumers. The same Volkswagen is closing factories in the EU and fired 20 thousand employees.

By this logic, the Russian Federation should be ahead of the rest of the world in terms of implemented innovations. Why don't we notice them?

It all started in 1997, when six dollar billionaires from the Russian Federation were included in the Forbes rating for the first time: Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky ( recognized as a foreign agent by the Russian Ministry of Justice), Vagit Alekperov, Rem Vyakhirev, Vladimir Potanin and Vladimir Gusinsky . But the number of our billionaires in this rating has been steadily growing since 2001 - there are already eight people in it.

Currently, the Forbes rating is headed by Vagit Alekperov (Lukoil) with a fortune of $28.7 billion, Alexey Mordashov (Severstal) - $28.6 billion, Leonid Mikhelson (Novatek) - $28.4 billion, Vladimir Lisin (NLMK) - $26.5 billion and Vladimir Potanin (Norilsk Nickel and Interros) - $24.2 billion.

All of them formally belong to the category of self-made billionaires. It is logical: in the USSR there was no private property in the usual sense, which means it was impossible to inherit a successful business. At least formally. The situation is similar with China: it is difficult to inherit something with a developed state economy.

But what new things have the leaders of the Russian Forbes created? Vagit Alekperov was the CEO of Kogalymneftegaz back in Soviet times, and later the Deputy Minister of the Oil and Gas Industry of the USSR. Under his leadership, three enterprises in Langepas, Uray and Kogalym (hence the first part of the name Lukoil) were united into a concern. After the privatization of 1993, Alekperov became the president and shareholder of the concern, which became JSC Lukoil.

Alexey Mordashov also gained control over Severstal as a result of the privatization of the enterprise and the purchase of shares from workers. Leonid Mikhelson headed the Kuibyshevtruboprovodstroy trust from 1987, which in 1991 became the Samara People's Enterprise Nova JSC. Later, the enterprise was transformed into Novatek JSC. Vladimir Lisin held senior positions in metallurgical enterprises from 1989, and bought NLMK shares from foreign investors in 1997. Vladimir Potanin worked in structures involved in foreign trade since 1983, including Soyuzpromexport, and in 1995 he came up with the idea of ​​holding collateral auctions, during which control over Norilsk Nickel was gained.

Many Russian billionaires did not have to create a new unique product from scratch that would be in demand among the people in the conditions of healthy market competition. In fact, they inherited the Soviet industry through administrative resources and privatization. And how much the largest enterprises cost then, said the former State Duma deputy and one of the organizers of the first privatization by the team of Anatoly Chubais Grigory Tomchin .

— In the then post-Soviet Russia, almost the entire economy had a strict military-state nature, and civilian products were only derivatives of it, some kind of "waste". The same Rostselmash did not belong to agricultural engineering, but to the defense complex. And it was very difficult to determine the price of these enterprises. More precisely, they were worth exactly as much as the products they manufactured. So, at the time of the beginning of privatization, most of them were worth nothing at all. Zero.

Unlike other countries, self-made billionaires in Russia did not start by developing a unique product, but by gaining control over financial and industrial assets. Here is the result: the billionaires themselves continue to get richer (they have increased their wealth by $22.5 billion since the beginning of the year), but the world is more likely to recognize the creator of Telegram Pavel Durov than Vagit Alekperov and Vladimir Potanin .