This week, Forbes released the latest 2024 Global Billionaires list, which shows that the number of billionaires and the total wealth of the world's billionaires have reached a record high this year. From the changes in the accumulation of personal wealth, we can also gain insight into the direction in which global capital is flocking now. One of the major phenomena worth paying attention to is that the AI boom has given rise to a number of "tech upstarts".
According to the data, the number of billionaires worth more than $1 billion in the world reached 2,781 this year, 26 more than the record set in 2021. And their total wealth has reached an all-time high of $14.2 trillion, an increase of $2 trillion from last year.
In the past year, the combined wealth of 10 people in the world has reached about $507 billion, and 8 of these 10 people are US tech tycoons, and 6 are related to the current US tech giants. And most of their wealth growth has been driven up by the market's appetite for generative AI, which has driven the company's stock price higher.
Among them, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is the person who has seen the most increase in wealth in the world over the past year. After mass layoffs and big bets on AI and the metaverse, Meta's stock price has soared over the past year, with Zuckerberg's net worth increasing by $112.6 billion, and his ranking on the Forbes rich list has risen sharply from 16th last year to 4th this year.
Another thing that should not be overlooked is Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who has benefited from the surge in Nvidia's stock price, and this year he became one of the world's 20 richest people for the first time, with a wealth increase of nearly $56 billion from last year.
In addition, more than a dozen technology upstarts in the field of artificial intelligence are worth more than $1 billion this year, including Liang Jianhou, the founder of Supermicrocomputer Inc., which has a deep cooperation with NVIDIA, and his wife Liu Qiuzhu. There is also Lisa Su, the CEO of the semiconductor company AMD, whose personal net worth now reaches $1.2 billion.
Doug Clinton, co-founder of Deepwater Asset Management: The most important reason for the rise of this wave of technology stocks is that the current global industry focus has shifted to AI, and the companies that have benefited the most are companies whose business focuses on AI research and development.
In addition to listed companies, the founders of AI start-ups have also joined the list of rich people because of their capital.
Zhao Yi, the founder of the multi-functional note-taking software Notion, has a company valued at $5 billion and has become a billionaire this year because of his stake. In addition, Brett Adcock, founder of Figure AI, an AI robotics company valued at $2.6 billion, also made the list.
AI-focused startups raised nearly $50 billion last year against the backdrop of a slowdown in overall venture capital, according to startup database Crunchbase. Among them, OpenAI received the most investment, with a valuation of more than $80 billion. This year, OpenAI's CEO Altman is also on the list, becoming one of the billionaires.
Article source: Reprinted by CCTV Finance
Image source: Reprinted by CCTV Finance
Editor: Wang Haoyi
Review: Huai Nan
Producer: Zhao Min, Zhong Xiao
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