the current richest people in the world
like elon musk
jeff bezos and bill gates all have
fortunes worth well
over 100 billion dollars
and yet if we account for inflation
their wealth is not even close to making
them the richest people
ever so today we're delving into the
past
to explore the richest people in history
and how they made their unthinkably
large
fortunes and we start with number one
john d rockefeller the oil magnate
that's widely considered the richest
self-made man
in modern history with an approximate
net worth of around 400 billion
dollars in today's money even after
giving a substantial amount of his
fortune
away and yet he started from very humble
beginnings
john d rockefeller was born into a large
family with a
father who was frequently absent and was
regarded as a con man
who sold worthless potions so from a
young age
john needed to help provide for the
family and took on odd jobs
like looking after the neighbor's
turkeys or selling potatoes and candy
even though these things didn't pay a
lot jon was really good at them and
worked really hard
so he was able to save enough money to
start offering small loans
to other people so even as a young boy
that entrepreneurial instinct was there
but when he turned 16 he dropped out of
school
and got his first real job as a
bookkeeper earning just 50 cents a day
however after working there for around
two years
his employers still refused to give him
a meaningful raise
and so he decided to start his own
produce business
as he had a goal to make one hundred
thousand dollars
and he knew he'd need to build something
of his own to reach that target
luckily this first job had already
taught him a lot
and gave him the experience connections
and reputation
to raise four thousand dollars for
starting his own venture
a business selling goods like meat hay
and grain
which did well in the first year of
trading
it made almost half a million dollars of
course
rockefeller didn't keep all of that
himself a lot of it went back into
business expenses and loans but it meant
when a big opportunity arose
rockefeller now had some real money to
invest
and that opportunity was oil
in 1859 the first american oil well was
discovered
which began at the pennsylvania oil rush
however rockefeller realized that while
most people were trying to get rich
from drilling oil the bigger profits
were actually in oil
refinery so at just 24 years old
he used the money from his first
business to build an oil refinery
now around this time he met a man named
henry flagler
who was interested in investing in his
business
and so together they incorporated the
standard oil company
and began the process of buying out all
the smaller
nearby oil refineries that they were in
competition with
whenever any of these refineries refused
to sell their business to him
he simply started selling his oil at a
loss
so that all their customers flocked to
him instead
which would put these smaller companies
out of business
these kind of practices allowed the
standard oil company
to keep expanding across the entire
country
they kept buying out rivals undercutting
competitors
and cutting costs wherever possible the
more they grew
the more negotiating power they had so
they could push for better rates and
prices
and discounts on everything rockefeller
was also known for some secret shady
deals
and so with all of these factors
combined by the 1870s
rockefeller's oil company owned 90
percent of the world's
oil refining industry he also hired the
owners of the oil refineries he bought
as board trustees which meant that all
the smartest oil experts
were all working within one super
company
with rockefeller at the head of it he
owned
twenty thousand oil wells had over a
hundred thousand employees
and at the very peak some estimate its
total value
would today have been worth almost a
trillion
dollars this kind of empire was pretty
unheard of
but rockefeller wasn't done yet at this
point in time
the two biggest industries were oil and
railroads
so rockefeller set out to do a similar
thing he'd just done with oil
with railroads however as he began
monopolizing another industry
he also began to become a bit of a
public enemy
he was depicted as the ultimate symbol
of corporate greed
and cruelty in response to rockefeller's
ever-growing empire
legislation was passed to try and
prevent these kind of monopolies
in particular the sherman anti-trust act
was passed
which would lead to the breakup of
standard oil into different subsidiaries
except over time many of these
subsidiaries would simply merge back
together
and are still around to this day such as
bp
and chevron and since rockefeller kept
his share in all those companies
even after they split up it meant that
at the time of his death
he was still the richest person in the
world and likely the richest self-made
man
in all of modern history now
what should we actually think about john
d rockefeller
[Music]
on the one hand he made oil an
affordable commodity
and brought it to the masses he went
from nothing
to building a business empire that may
never be matched again
he gave around 540 million dollars to
charitable causes
which when you adjust for inflation
makes him one of the most accomplished
philanthropists ever however
on the other hand rockefeller was a
greedy
ruthless tyrant of business who often
bullied
extorted and exploited others on his
merciless path
to dominance especially the tactics used
to crush the competition
biographer ron chernow argues his good
side was
every bit as good as his bad side was
bad
seldom has history produced such a
contradictory figure
but what's undeniable is he will always
be remembered
for his insanely vast fortune and the
impact he had
but wait we now need to travel back in
time
even further to someone who was arguably
much richer than rockefeller
and yet many people have never heard of
him
however quick side note before that the
further back in history we go
the harder it is to definitively rank
wealth
when we're talking about modern history
it's a lot easier
for example we can say with a good level
of certainty
but andrew carnegie had an empire worth
around 310
billion dollars as he founded the
carnegie steel company
which later became u.s steel the first
billion dollar company in the world we
also know that henry ford had an empire
worth around 200 billion dollars
when he died in 1947 because
he founded ford motor company and
pioneered assembly line
mass production and so with businessmen
like that
it's much easier to calculate their
wealth but
once we start talking about the value of
owning countries
and land things get a little blurrier
even in present day some people would
disagree with the forbes rich list
that puts elon musk and jeff bezos as
the richest people in the world
it's been argued that someone like
vladimir putin
may be the real wealthiest person alive
today it's just
difficult to verify exactly what he owns
so bearing all of that in mind let's go
back to our list of the richest people
in history
and venture all the way back to the 14th
century
where we find mansa musa considered by
many historians
as the richest human to ever live
mansa musa ruled the mali empire in
africa for 25 years
which was extremely rich in salt and
gold
in fact some sources estimate they were
the largest gold producer in the world
and had more than half of the world's
total supply and so
mansa spent the early part of his reign
expanding mali's trade routes
which allowed them to trade their gold
and salt all across
africa and asia under his leadership
the mali empire tripled in size he
conquered
24 major cities and it's believed he
never lost a battle in his lifetime
however
manta also got many territories to join
the mali empire
willingly due to the relatively high
quality of life
that its citizens had however
manta wasn't content with that he wanted
to truly put the mali
empire on the map to the whole world now
since he was a devoutly religious muslim
he'd already planned to go on a
pilgrimage to mecca
and then he realized he could use this
trip as an opportunity
to capture the world's attention and
thus
in 1324 he began at the most extravagant
pilgrimage
in human history the voyage which would
span an estimated 4 000 miles
was travelled by mansa musa with tens of
thousands of soldiers
slaves and heralds draped in persian
silk
and carrying golden staffs one account
estimated
up to 60 000 people travelled with him
each carrying
up to hundreds of pounds in gold it's
fair to say
it was a spectacle that got noticed but
mansa also gave away huge amounts of
gold to the poor that he met along his
route
and it was also reported he built a
mosque every friday
having said that his generosity somewhat
backfired
because it's also claimed that he spent
so much gold on souvenirs during his
journey
that he destabilized the local economy
and caused
mass inflation since these territories
had never had so much gold before
and he was handing it out so freely and
if you really think about that it
highlights how absurdly rich
mansa musa was that he essentially
caused a financial crisis
by spending too much on his travels
when he did finally return from his
pilgrimage though the mali empire had
annexed
timbuktu under his orders and he
established that
as the epicenter for commerce in the
region he'd also brought back with him
scholars and architects who helped him
build schools
and mosques mansa even established the
first major university in the region
which could take up to 25 000 students
and had one of the
largest libraries in the world all of
these different building projects
further elevated the city's reputation
and helped attract even more top
scholars
from all over africa and beyond and
therefore
many historians credit mansa with
leading the mali empire
to even greater prosperity and
development
however whilst mansa did indeed put the
mali empire on the map
like he wanted it didn't quite have the
intended consequences
as news of their huge wealth and gold
supplies made its way to europe
several european powers saw an
opportunity to conquer the empire
and take the resources for themselves
but
by that point mansa would have died and
already cemented himself in history
as one of the richest people to ever
live
now as for how rich he was some
estimates put mance's modern day wealth
equivalent
at between 400 and 500 billion
dollars but remember it's extremely
difficult to accurately compare
today's money with a fortune that was
built on
salt gold and territory so i guess you
could say
take this estimate with a very big pinch
of salt
however because historians can't quite
agree on how to compare wealth
from so many centuries ago that means
the title of the richest person ever
is still up for debate so let's finish
this video
with three very honorable mentions who
may be contenders
one person that could have been the
richest in history is technically
genghis khan
the fierce and mongol leader conquered a
mind-blowing 12 million square miles of
land
between 1206 and his death in 1227
more than anyone else in history as he
conquered all of these different
kingdoms
he also took their wealth and
possessions which
combined with the value of the land that
he took would arguably have been worth
trillions of dollars or in other words
incomprehensibly large amounts that's
difficult to even quantify
it's an extremely brutal way to build
your fortune but it was certainly
effective
another candidate for the richest person
in history is jakob fuga
also known as jacob fuga the rich and
you don't get a name like that without
having a pretty giant fortune
in fact if you took europe's entire
economic output
at the time jacob was alive he owned 2.2
percent of
all of that of the entire continents
now jakob was the 10th of 11 children
but would go on to become
a banker who financed kings explorers
and religious leaders what's crucial
here though
is that before fuga came along
christians could not legally charge
interest on loans but he managed to
convince the pope to change this
and then profited from that rule change
immensely
in a biography written about him the
author explains that fugu just seemed to
have a gift
for making money and spotting
opportunities
especially when it came to business and
investments for example
when the archduke of austria desperately
needed a loan
fuga decided to offer it when no other
banker would
and it paid off big time he also had a
great talent for convincing other people
to lend him money
so that he can invest it and turn it
into a much bigger profit
he was undeniably very strategic and
shrewd
and built a fortune that would today be
worth an estimated 400 billion dollars
but now it's time for one final
candidate for the richest person
ever and that is caesar augustus
the first roman emperor reigning from 27
bc
until his death in 1480 time magazine
once estimated his equivalent net worth
today as being 4.6
trillion dollars because he personally
owned
all of egypt but again going back this
far in time
it's virtually impossible to put an
accurate number on his wealth
so we can't say for certain who takes
the title of the richest person ever
but we can definitively say that all of
these names mentioned in this video
had obscene levels of wealth and were
amongst the wealthiest humans to ever
live with fortunes far bigger than jeff
bezos or elon musk
at least for now of course both of these
men
are still working and growing their
business empires
so if either of them have some more
major breakthroughs like
colonizing mars then who knows how vast
their fortunes
may become but now a question for you
what are your thoughts on all of these
incredibly wealthy historical figures
i know for some people hearing about
wealth can be kind of motivating
whereas for other people it can just
seem really unfair
but if you do feel that way then it's
worth remembering
that the fact you have access to
antibiotics
electricity internet and so on means
that in many ways
your quality of life is greater than
some of the richest kings
emperors and business magnates in
history that we've just heard about
after all you can do something that
rockefeller
mansa musa and all the others never
could
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cheers