In 2016, there are plenty of billionaires, some 1,810 to be exact, according to Forbes’ new billionaires list, with estimates using stock prices and exchanges rates of February 12, 2016. Many of the names on the list have are household names, such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, and Charles and David Koch, as they’ve worked their way up to vast wealth.
And then there are those who are barely known to the public, despite having joined the billionaire club at an incredibly young age. The world’s youngest billionaire is just 19 years old. Like most of the youngest billionaires, her wealth comes from family investments that have been passed down.
The question of whether it is good for someone young to inherit vast wealth has been a point of debate for many years. Andrew Carnegie wrote in 1889 that leaving such large amounts to heirs was “misguided affection” because “great sums bequeathed often work more for the injury than the good of the recipients.” Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Ted Turner, and many other billionaires have all sworn to give away the bulk of their money to charity in part because of such concerns, but clearly not all billionaires share that worry.
Below are the five youngest billionaires in the world, according to Forbes. Three come from Norway. A fourth is from Germany and one is from the U.S. The future will see what they do with what they have.
Alexandra Andresen
Age: 19
Location: Oslo, Norway
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Wealth source: Received from her father 42% of the family’s investment company, Ferd, whose portfolio includes companies in oil and gas, industrial equipment, textile and sporting goods, IT services, and transportation.
Katharina Andresen
Age: 20
Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Wealth source: Received from her father 42% of the family investment company, Ferd, whose portfolio includes companies in oil and gas, industrial equipment, textile and sporting goods, IT services, and transportation. The company was originally a tobacco company called Tiedemanns that the family bought in 1849.
Gustav Magnar Witzoe
Age: 22
Location: Kverva, Norway
Net worth: $1.1 billion
Wealth source: Received from his father in 2013 47% of the equity, although no control, in SalMar, one of the largest producers of farm-raised salmon that the elder Witzoe founded in 1991.
Evan Spiegel
Age: 25
Location: Los Angeles, California
Net worth: $2.1 billion
Wealth source: Co-founder of privately-held, tech startup Snapchat. It is on Fortune’s list of unicorns: startups that have a valuation of at least $1 billion.
Ludwig Theodor Braun
Age: 26
Location: Melsungen, Germany
Net worth: $1.2 billion
Wealth source: Owns 9.69% of B. Braun Melsungen AG, a major medical products company started by the family in 1839.
