The pattern · Starting from scratch
Traits of billionaires: starting from zero
Two in three of the 2024 Forbes 400 built their own fortune. What research says about those who start from zero, and how to develop that trait.
The most common trait among today's billionaires isn't inheritance. According to Forbes, most of the richest people in the United States built their own fortune. And a small but real share came from the bottom: from poverty, from the welfare line, from having no ground to stand on. Starting from zero isn't the exception in the story of those who built something big. It's a frequent starting point.
What the research shows
Since 1982, Forbes has published the list of the 400 richest Americans. Since 2014, it has given each one a score from 1 to 10 to measure how much of the fortune was built or inherited. From 1 to 5, the person inherited most of it. From 6 to 10, they built it.
On the 2024 list, 267 of the 400 scored between 6 and 10: 67% are classified as self-made. The most common score is 8, which indicates a middle-class background. Only 25 people scored 10, the score for those who lived below the poverty line or faced heavy adversity along the way (Forbes, 2024).
The number says two things at once. The first inspires: building is the most common path among those who got there. The second is honest: coming up from absolute zero is rare, and those who did faced more than average. That's why these stories deserve to be told with care, without turning the exception into the rule.
Who lived it
Jan Koum was born in Ukraine and arrived in the United States at 16, with his mother. The two of them lived on food stamps for a time. Years later, Koum founded WhatsApp with Brian Acton. In February 2014, when he signed the sale of the company to Facebook, he chose a place: the door of the old social services office in Mountain View, where he had stood in line to collect benefits. The scene was recorded by Forbes (Forbes, 2014).
The gesture conveys the trait better than any definition. Those who start from zero don't forget where they came from. They carry the starting point as a measure.
In Bairo's journey
Bairo Leandro Gonzalez Martinez came to Brazil in 2002, brought by an education company, in a management position. The boyhood dream had come true. Until the day he wanted to follow his own path and leave the company.
That's when he discovered how an immigrant can lose the ground under his feet: without documents in hand, far from home, afraid. Hard years followed, without direction and without a safety net. He sums up that time in one sentence: the sun is for everyone, but shade, in the heat, is for the few.
The fresh start had a neighborhood address. With his partner, when their daughter was born, he opened a salon. It didn't work out as well as they wanted, but from it came a course in hair treatments, in a field that only years later found its place in Brazil, trichology. It was zero becoming one. Everything he built afterward started from that point.
How to develop this trait
- Take stock of what's left. Those at zero are rarely in a void. Write down what you still have: a skill, a contact, a language, a person by your side.
- Start with the smallest business possible. Bairo started with a salon. Koum, with a simple app. The first step doesn't need to be the size of the dream.
- Sell what you know how to do. A course, a service, a consultancy. Knowledge is the capital of those who have no capital.
- Keep the starting point. Write down where you were. It will serve as a measure and a reminder on good days and bad.
- Ask for help without shame. Public programs, entrepreneur associations and immigrant networks exist for this. Using them isn't weakness.
Starting from zero doesn't decide the end of the story. It only decides where it begins.