In July 2022, with a net worth of $112.5 billion, the Indian man in front of him surpassed Bill Gates to become the world's fourth-richest man.
The top three richest people in front of this buddy are Elon Musk, a global Internet celebrity from Tesla.
Bernard Arnault, president of French luxury giant Louis Vuitton, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.
Next up is today's protagonist: Gotham Adani, founder and chairman of the Adani Group in India.
He was India's new darling, but he came from a low birth, from the lowest level of India, not even a low caste.
He dropped out of college, but relied on his keen sense of smell to dig out his first pot of gold.
It was such a new richest man who made all Indians envious, but a year ago he was only a little famous.
So why was Adani able to climb to the top of India's richest man in just one year?
Behind Adani's "Untouchable Entrepreneurial Background", does it represent the new rise of Indian capital, and is India beginning to be serious?
Adani: The birth of India's new richest man
Adani was born in 1962, and this year he is just 60 years old, and unlike other high-caste wealthy people, his origins are very ordinary.
Adani is the surname of the Cheva tribe located in the Katiwa Peninsula of Gujarat, which sounds a bit off the beaten track.
The name "Adani", which means "barbarian" in Hindi, translates to "barbarian".
Because the caste system in India is deeply rooted, it is well known that the caste system in India is divided into four categories: Brahmins, Chaturis, Vedas, and Sudras.
And Adani is not even a low-level Shudra, so some people call him the richest man in the "Untouchables".
In addition to his name as Adani, he also named the group he founded as the Adani Group.
From being poor and poor to having one of the biggest fortunes in India today, Adani's entrepreneurial journey is full of stories.
Adani has 8 siblings, and his father's ancestors lived in the Indian state of Gujarat, which is probably located on the map of India.
Gujarat is the westernmost state of India, India's famous Mahatma Gandhi was born here, in addition, there have been many celebrities born here, and there is a nobleman who has made great achievements in Adani's career, specifically who we sell first, press the table.
In addition to the brilliant spirit, Gujarat has a strong economic strength, known as the lifeblood of the Indian economy, somewhat similar to the status of Guangdong Province on the mainland.
Growing up in a place with a strong commercial atmosphere, Adani's sense of smell for business cannot be said to be innate, but it is also a bit of an ear.
Adani's father was a textile merchant, and in those days, Adani's family was not particularly poor, at least his father could solve the family's food and clothing problems.
As Adani grew up, he was supposed to inherit his father's family business, but suddenly felt that he could not make a few dollars by inheriting the family business, and he wanted to study first, and reading meant a broader vision.
So the young Adani came to the famous business school in Gujarat for further study, but after only two years of studying, Adani could not sit still, this Indian business school is not as good as learning well, Adani thought to himself, instead of listening to the Indian teacher here to talk about utopian knowledge without practical experience, it is better to touch it himself.
So Adani dropped out of school early in his second year of business school and went to Mumbai, a large Indian city, to find his business ambitions.
Adani, who came to Mumbai, started as a diamond sorter, and after getting up early and getting busy, Adani discovered the business opportunities in this industry, so he quit his job and asked his father for money, because he wanted to start a business!
After receiving the idea of his son's business, Adani's father sold the spinning machine that the family relied on to support Adani's entrepreneurship.
With his father's angel investment, the confident Adani painted gourds and started the diamond trade.
With the development of the Indian market, Adani followed the trend of the times, earned his first pot of gold, and became the new millionaire in Mumbai.
After earning money, Adani did not expand in Mumbai for the first time, but chose to return to Gujarat with funds, because he had greater ambitions, he wanted to complete his childhood dream, which was to win gujarat's largest commercial port, Mundra Port.
According to Adani's own account:
"I was a little boy with no background, and all I saw was a small boat, but in my eyes it was a big dream ship."
The ship I saw in the harbor as a child became Adani's dream.
In his heart, he felt that his business would be related to the port, and the fact was that he had made the right bet, and the port business of Mondella became the key to the wealth gate of the Adani Group.
From 1988, Adani began to start a business until 1991 Adani's group expanded.
Then in the late 1990s, the Adani Group took the port of Mundra and determined the development route.
After decades of development, in modern times, the Adani Group, led by this seemingly unassuming guy, has mastered India's largest industrial port developer, the largest private airport operator, the largest private power company, the largest city gas company and the largest edible oil producer.
That is to say, Adani has become a veritable "king of infrastructure" in India, from cement to ports, from electricity to oil and gas, he has all the business, can this not be rich?
Of course, the most fundamental business that makes his wealth rise all the way up the river must be new energy.
It seems that in the wealth myth of new energy, the whole world is the same, and India is no exception.
Seeing this, do you think that India's richest man from a commoner is full of legends?
But for The Author, Adani still has two thrilling experiences of fate, and a nobleman who can change his fate.
The legendary experience of India's richest man
In 1998, the spirited Adani made money while enriching his life.
He and his friends were traveling when they were accidentally hijacked by a group of robbers who offered $2 million.
In order to redeem Adani, Adani's family agreed to the robbers' terms and paid a huge ransom of up to $2 million.
The rescued Adani was interviewed by reporters, and he was very calm:
"There have been a few unfortunate things in my life, and this is just one of them."
Originally it was just a lament of bitterness, but what happened afterwards did prove that Adani's life experience was really unusual.
In 2008, there was a terrorist attack in Mumbai, and the famous movie "Mumbai Hotel" tells this tragic historical event.
Adani happened to be dining at the Taj Mahal Hotel, which was also one of the targets of terrorists at the time.
He witnessed the terrorists running in front of his eyes, and fortunately the future richest man was not discovered by the terrorists in the emergency moment at that time, but followed the lobby manager to the basement and was finally rescued.
On the tenth anniversary of the Mumbai attacks, Adani wrote in the Indian Express:
"They saved my life that night. I still remember some faces—people I'll never know, people I'll never be able to repay. ”
Experiencing more hardships has made Adani more aware of the meaning of life, but the person who has the greatest impact on Adani's life is neither his father nor his partner in the business sea, but a good buddy of his many years, a fate nobleman - Narendra Modi
The noble man who changed his destiny
Yes, the man behind the richest man is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The 12-year-old man of The Great Adani, also born in Gujarat, has maintained a friendship with Adani for many years.
Why is he said to be a nobleman of Adani? Of course, this is not a clever statement (the author) said indiscriminately, that is because many Indian scholars have raised many questions about the huge wealth growth of the Adani Group in recent years:
The first is the operation of the port of Mundra, in 2001, Adani signed a contract for the port on the front foot, and the back foot of Mondera became a special economic zone in India, and the time is highly coincidental.
This was followed by the 2018 government, which opened up privatization bids for 6 airports.
As a result, the Adani Group won all the bids and became the largest private airport operator in India overnight, and the embarrassing thing is that the Adani Group did not have any previous group experience related to aircraft, and it seems that managing airports in India is a talent, the kind that everyone understands.
Finally, the 19-year-old Jakhand BonGoda Special Economic Zone, abbreviated as the Goda Indian Special Economic Zone, coincidentally, there is Adani's largest power company here, so it has enjoyed a huge wave of after-tax incentives.
It can be seen that the Adani enterprise where Adani is located has also suffered a lot of criticism in India, and Indian netizens believe that this "untouchable" richest man has a vain name, where is the civilian, this is clearly the richest man in the circle!
Seeing this, we finally analyze the darling of the Indian era, and by the way, let's talk about the future of India's richest man in the context of new energy.
India is starting to get serious?
Does Adani represent a new rise in Indian capital, and is India beginning to take it seriously?
First of all, to answer this question, as Indian netizens complained, Adani is more like a "circle richest man", similar to the Chaebol of South Korea, the group of Japan, the oligarch of Russia, but Adani is the Indian version.
Secondly, India's development is uneven, whether it is Adani, or other of India's richest people, or even the famous Tata Group, are giants in various industries in India, with certain monopoly attributes.
As for Adani, india's new energy outlet has contributed a lot to his wealth.
According to the Oil and Gas Vision 2025 for the Indian oil and gas sector, by 2025, india's share of natural gas consumption will increase from 14% of all energy in 2010 to 20%.
This is India's own plan, and the Adani Group has the largest city gas company in India.
According to the International Energy Agency, India's energy demand growth will account for 30% of global growth in 2040, and energy consumption will account for 11% of total global consumption, which means that in the energy sector, India's gap is huge.
With energy comes a head start, and India has been obsessed with its status as a great power for many years.
As India's founding Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru famously said:
"India, with its current position, cannot play a second-class role in the world. Either be a big country with a sound and color, or disappear.
In this way, India's ambition to seize the right to lead the discourse and the right to regulate and formulate in the global oil and gas resources, world energy affairs, and future new energy development can be seen.
But the ideal is very full, the reality is quite bone, to know that India is still in the coal age, the vast majority of rural population is even in the fuelwood era, the development is extremely unbalanced, and the modernization process is slow, but also India has to face the pain point.
Not to mention all kinds of strange tax regulations, land disputes, backward power grid construction, and even the frequent phenomenon of electricity theft in rural areas.
Under various constraints, it is not impossible for Adani, who has an unfathomable relationship with Modi, to carry the banner of India's new energy.
But overall, the problems facing India are not something that can be changed by one person.
Whether the future is the death of the elephant or the so-called "miracle of the East" can only depend on how the Indians choose.
But no matter what, a disunified third brother is a good third brother!