Net Worth: $4 Billion
Industry: Real Estate
Notable Member(s): Ben Ashkenazy
Claim to Fame: Ashkenazy Acquisitions
Ben Ashkenazy may not be the richest person on this list, but you can bet that he was the youngest one to start a (successful) business! Ashkenazy opened up his first company before he even turned 18.
He went to scope out a location for a fast food place that he was interested in opening, but he wasn’t satisfied with the terms of the lease and he ended up searching out investors to buy the property. Because of that decision, Ashkenazy now enjoys a fortune of over $4 billion. His company, Ashkenazy Acquisitions, owns commercial and residential real estate all over the world. Some of the properties under their belt include part of the Plaza Hotel in NYC, where the headquarters is located. All in all, the real estate giant owns more than $12 billion worth of buildings.
The Sobratos
Net Worth: $7 Billion
Industry: Real Estate
Notable Member(s): John A. Sobrato
Claim to Fame: Sobrato Development Co.
John Sobrato grew up with a mother who worked in real estate, and who launched the family’s real estate business back in the 1940s. He was lucky enough to get in on flipping houses when he was still a student, attending Santa Clara University in California at 18 years old. He still operates as an advisor to the company, which is known today as The Sobrato Organization.
When he first began working in the family business, it was called Midtown Reality, but he ended up selling that company to launch his own in the form of The Sobrato Organization – a move that would make him the billionaire that he is now. The company owns thousands of commercial offices that belong to big names like Netflix. John had three children, including a son, also named John, and two daughters, Sheri and Lisa. All of his children that got their hands on a portion of the family’s wealth invested it in something – such as a piece of the San Francisco 49ers. John M Sobrato also currently works as Chairman of the board for The Sobrato Organization.
The Cargill-MacMillans
Net Worth: $43 Billion
Industry: Agriculture, Energy
Notable Member(s): James Cargill
Claim to Fame: Cargill Inc.
You may not necessarily recognize the Cargill name, but they really don’t need you to. Why? Because this family is packed full of billionaires – more than any other family in the world. Cargill Inc started as a small farming company in 1865 and has grown into one of the most profitable private businesses on Earth – grossing nearly $120 million per year.
Actually, the corporation is the single largest one in the United States, producing everything from livestock to energy. The company’s website is full of industries that it’s cornered – industrial, beauty, risk management, pharmaceutical, and transportation, among others. The family members are reportedly worth over $1 billion each, but most of them remain very secretive and try to keep their lives and affairs private. But don’t worry – how could you not trust secretive billionaires that control every single egg that gets used at each McDonalds and was found in violation of human rights acts after they got caught using (forced) child labor in 2005. Seems super legit.
The LeFraks
Net Worth: $6.5 Billion
Industry: Real Estate
Notable Member(s): Richard LeFrak
Claim to Fame: Jersey City
The LeFrak name is another that’s a huge player in the real estate world. In fact, the LeFrak empire has spanned over 10 decades and accumulated over $6 billion since its inception in 1883. Richard LeFrak took over the family business when his father, Sam, died in 2003.
The family even has an entire city named after them near Manhattan that includes over 20 buildings and 5,000 apartments and is considered to be one of the biggest names in real estate in the New York area. They mainly focus on providing apartments to the middle class, but they’ve recently expanded into luxury, as well. The LeFrak family basically owns all of Jersey City, being that Samuel LeFrak bought the most of it 1985, and Richard turned it into what it is today. Richard has two sons, Harrison and James, that are both vice chairmen on the board of the family organization today. The company is one of the largest privately-owned real estate firms in the country.
The Bezos
Net Worth: $153 Billion
Notable Member(s): Jeff Bezos
Industry: Sales, Aerospace, Media
Claim to Fame: Amazon
Today, Jeff Bezos is one of the wealthiest people in the world, but he hasn’t always had quite so much money. In fact, Bezos’ childhood probably wasn’t much different than many children who are chasing the American dream. Now, he owns Amazon, one of the greatest e-commerce sites in existence. But Amazon is just one of many businesses that Bezos controls.
Let’s back it up to when he was a kid because Bezos was not by any means handed all of this wealth. He grew up getting his hands dirty on his grandfather’s ranch in Texas before heading off to study at Princeton. He graduated cum laude from the University and went on to work on Wall Street for a period of time before he launched Amazon as an online bookstore in 1995. As the years progressed, so did the website, which began selling more and more products and services every day. The business has gotten so large that they beat out all of the other services combined in shipping times – getting packages to their customer’s doors in two days or less. In 2004, Bezos started an aerospace company called Blue Origin, and in 2013, he bought The Washington Post.