• Private jets allow rich people to "get around a certain reality," the Disney heiressAbigail Disney told The Cut.
• Disney said that though her family had a 737 private jet, she decided to stop using it once she considered her carbon footprint and the cost her trips incurred.
• Private jets are popular purchases among many millionaires and billionaires looking for quick and easy travel.

Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos, and other billionaires may own private jets, but the heiress Abigail Disney has a different set of thoughts on the topic.

"If I were queen of the world, I would pass a law against private jets, because they enable you to get around a certain reality,"Abigail Disney recently told The Cut. "You don't have to go through an airport terminal, you don't have to interact, you don't have to be patient, you don't have to be uncomfortable. These are the things that remind us we're human."

Disney — who is the granddaughter of Roy Disney, a cofounder of The Walt Disney Co. — is an heiress to the Disney fortune. While she stayed mum on the exact size of her inheritance, she told The Cut that she could be a billionaire if she wanted to be and that she's donated more than $70 million since turning 21.

Her dad’s plane was a 737 with a queen-size bed and a shower, she said: "We would use the plane occasionally because I have four kids, so it was much easier, obviously, to ride on my dad’s plane with them. Then, at a certain point, I just said, 'No, I think this is really bad for everybody.'"

That defining moment, she told The Cut, came after thinking about her carbon footprint and the cost of her trip while riding on the jet alone for a quick trip from New York to California.

Read more: An heiress to the Disney fortune has given away $70 million, and teaches her kids that money is the least important thing about them

Owning a private jet is typically a hallmark among millionaires and billionaires, especially high-powered executives and investors working in the tech industry. For them, a private jet can allow for quick and easy travel if they need to be on the other coast on the same day, according to Business Insider's Paige Leskin.

Even the notoriously frugal Warren Buffett has his own private jet. He once told CNBC it's "the only thing that I do that costs a lot of money."

But design trends in planes are evolving: Business Insider's Katie Warren previously reported that the super-wealthy no longer want their private jets to look like private jets. Instead, they want them to look like extensions of their homes or offices, and they are designing them in clean lines and cool color tones.

Read the full story on The Cut »

SEE ALSO: People born into massive family fortunes go down 2 different paths, says a Disney heiress who has donated $70 million over the past 30 years

DON'T MISS: An NFL player who saves almost all his salary teaches a UPenn class called 'Life 101,' and his first assignment shocks students

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NOW WATCH: Elon Musk sent a $100K Tesla Roadster to space a year ago. It has now traveled farther than any other car in history.

• Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, and wife MacKenzie Bezos announced they finalized the terms of their divorce.
• After a 25-year marriage, the couple filed for divorce in January. 
• Bezos, who has a reported net worth of nearly $150 billion, lives in Washington, a community property state, meaning all assets acquired during marriage are to be divided equally, unless they signed a postnuptial agreement (according to TMZ, the couple did not sign a prenup).
• In a statement, Mackenzie Bezos said she's granting Jeff Bezos all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of the Amazon stock co-owned by the pair and voting control over the shares she's retaining.
• When billionaires like Bezos get divorced, they more commonly have to deal with complex and illiquid assets, company issues, and public perception, divorce attorneys say.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, and wife MacKenzie Bezos have officially finalized their divorce after 25 years of marriage. The couple, who has four children, filed for divorce in January following a trial separation.

A lot more was at stake for Bezos, the world's richest man with a reported net worth of nearly $150 billion, than there is in a typical divorce — as is often the case with high-net-worth couples.

"The major thing for billionaires is that most of the time, their assets are very complex and mostly illiquid — with Bezos, a lot of his assets are linked to Amazon stock," Jacqueline Newman, a matrimonial law attorney who is a managing partner of Berkman Bottger Newman & Rodd LLP, told Business Insider.

The Bezos' state of residence, Washington, further complicates matters for Bezos' Amazon holdings. It's a community property state, which means wealth accrued during the couple's marriage could be split in half, Karin J. Lundell, a matrimonial and trust and estate partner at Rower LLC, told Business Insider.

Such distribution could be altered if the Bezoses signed a prenuptial or a postnuptial agreement, she said: "Often, very wealthy people have prenups that lay out the division of their property. A prenup can carve out certain things and say, 'We'll divide this up.'"TMZ previously reported that the couple did not have a prenup, citing "sources with direct knowledge" of the situation. 

In a Twitter statement on April 4, Mackenzie Bezos said she's granting Jeff Bezos all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin, and 75% of the Amazon stock co-owned by the pair and voting control over the shares she's retaining.

Her remaining stake in Amazon is estimated to be worth about $35.7 billion at current prices, making her the third-richest woman in the world, according to Forbes' list, Business Insider's Avery Hartmans reported.

Read more: There are 2 types of contracts married couples can sign to protect their money — here's what it means if divorcing billionaires Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos never signed one

A fortune tied to company stock, like Amazon, complicates divorce for billionaire couples

Having a net worth tied to company stock is an issue billionaires like Bezos often have to contend with in a divorce. Deciding what to do can get tricky — you could transfer the stock itself, but if you do, you could lose control of the company depending on your stake, Newman said.

But running a company brings more issues for divorcing billionaires than the possibility of having to transfer or sell a stock to fund a settlement and possibly lose company control.

"Most of the time, it's valuation issues — how to value assets in business," Lundell said. "The publicly traded stocks are easy to value — you don't want to sell because that causes fluctuation. Business interests that are harder to value and are more complex assets, The Washington Post, we don't know the value of that."

Read more: Billionaire couple Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos live in one of the best states in the US to get divorced if your spouse is loaded — here are the rest

With assets that are hard to value and hard to liquidate, divorce proceedings can take longer because there's a more complex evaluation, according to Newman.

And for billionaires in the public eye, like Bezos, there's also the issue of how the divorce will affect the company, Newman said: "They could be distracted or emotionally charged, there could be concern about whether there will be a transfer of actual shares and who's running the company — stocks could go down."

For high-net-worth people not tied to a company, such as an actor, their public image could be just as important, Newman added.

But for Bezos, she said: "The concern is the company and the shares. That's the biggest issue. Beyond that, children are involved. When you're dealing with people of these levels, there are a lot of cooks in the kitchen, a lot of vested interest."

• Read more:
• Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife, MacKenzie, announce they are divorcing
• A look inside the 25-year marriage of the richest couple in history, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos — who met at work, were engaged in 3 months, and together owned more land than almost anyone else in America
• We did the math to calculate how much money Jeff Bezos makes in a year, month, week, day, hour, minute, and second
• See inside the secretive Seattle suburb that's home to Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, where streets are lined with opulent waterfront mansions behind tall gates and security cameras

SEE ALSO: Billionaires Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos may be divorcing, but research suggests the richer people are, the more likely they are to get — and stay — married

DON'T MISS: Jeff Bezos' divorce could rank among the most expensive of all time — here are the 10 costliest divorces ever

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos is worth over $100 billion — here's how the world's richest man makes and spends his money

• Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have finalized the terms of their divorce after 25 years of marriage, the couple announced on Thursday.
• As part of the divorce agreement, MacKenzie Bezos said she would give Jeff Bezos 75% of their Amazon stock, plus all the couple's interests in The Washington Post and Blue Origin.
• With his revised stake, Bezos' net worth will decrease, but he'll still holds the title of the richest person.

The richest couple — Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos — is in the midst of finalizing their divorce. But when the dust settles, the Amazon CEO's reign as the richest person is unlikely to end. 

The couple released separate statements on Thursday announcing they had "finished the process of dissolving" their marriage of 25 years. As part of the divorce agreement, MacKenzie Bezos said she would give Jeff Bezos 75% of the Amazon stock they co-owned, as well as all of her interests in the Washington Post and Blue Origin.

MacKenzie Bezos' 25% stake in Amazon positions the novelist to become one of the richest women, with a net worth of about $35.7 billion at Amazon's current stock price.

Read more: Jeff Bezos' divorce won't affect his voting power at Amazon, because MacKenzie is giving him control

However, the billionaires' list isn't a new place for her soon-to-be ex-husband, Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder and CEO has held the title of the richest person since surpassing Bill Gates back in October 2017. Bezos has been steadily building his fortune since then, and the latest Forbes' billionaires ranking had his net worth at $131 billion.

But with the divorce agreement, Bezos' net worth is set to decrease. His 75% stake will give him 59.1 million shares in Amazon. Based on current market prices, Bezos' post-divorce revised stake in Amazon is worth an estimated $107.4 billion.

That Amazon stake alone stands to put Bezos' net worth above that of Bill Gates, whose net worth is an estimated $96.5 billion, according to Forbes. 

It's unclear how the couple will be splitting up their massive stockpile of real-estate holdings. A 2017 report listed the Bezoses as the country's 28th largest landowner, with properties in Medina, Washington; Van Horn, Texas; Washington, DC; Manhattan, New York; and two mansions in Beverly Hills, California.

• Read more about the Bezoses' divorce:
• Jeff Bezos and MacKenzie Bezos have finalized their divorce agreement, and he's getting 75% of the Amazon shares and voting control of the rest
• A look inside the marriage of the richest couple in history, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos — who met at work, were engaged in 3 months, and got divorced after 25 years together
• Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos have finalized the terms of their divorce — and she's set to come out of it as one of the richest women in the world
• Jeff Bezos' divorce won't affect his voting power at Amazon, because Mackenzie is giving him control
• Wannabe suitors are flooding MacKenzie Bezos with creepy messages now that she's poised to become one of the world's richest women after her divorce

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We tried the Samsung Galaxy S10 to find out if it's worth the $1,000

• A millionaire couple is tearing through a New York City street to build a $100 million mansion with a 60-foot pool, The New York Times reported.
• Neighbors have been forced to wear earplugs and $400 noise-canceling headphones in their own apartments to deal with the constant noise that's persisted for the past year.
• One resident partially blames the renovations for her new $5,000 hearing aids.
• Another woman said she had to give tranquilizers to her miniature poodle to calm him down amid the racket.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more.

On a previously quiet residential block in New York City, a millionaire couple has spent months renovating a $100 million brownstone and digging a pool in its basement, The New York Times reported.

The house in question, which will include a 10- by 60-foot marble-clad basement pool, belongs to a 64-year-old Frenchman named Pierre Bastid, who according to the Times, "made a fortune in energy, and recently dabbled in Alpine hotels, restaurants and pharmaceuticals," and his wife, a Haitian-American jazz singer named Malou Beauvoir.

The couple knocked down the majority of two brownstones to start work on a mansion that may cost as much as $100 million, according to the Times. It will include "an underground theater and a recording studio, a Jacuzzi and a sauna, free-floating elliptical stairs (whatever that might be) and a wall of sculpture depicting trees, animals and birds of the jungle."

While constant construction is an unfortunate fact of life in New York City, the noise, vibrations, and dust from the millionaire couple's project have wreaked havoc on the neighborhood for the past year, the Times reported, with some neighbors forced to wear earplugs or noise-canceling headphones in their own homes and others to move away. 

Read more: I spent a day on NYC's Billionaires' Row. Here's your ultimate guide to one of the city's glitziest streets, which borders Central Park and is home to the most expensive apartment ever sold in the US.

"'Noise' isn't strong enough," one resident said of the renovations. "'Mindless hell and chaos' would be better."

Deborah Brown, who's lived on the block since 1969, told the Times she partially blames the loud construction for her new $5,000 hearing aids. She now wears her $400 Bose Noise Blockers headphones while at home in her apartment.

Others have gone so far as to move out of their homes.

Thirty-six-year-old Gabrielle Fink, whose family has a history of pulmonary problems, told the Times the ongoing renovations prompted her to spend $5,000 she couldn't really afford to move after eight years in her building because "her nerves were frazzled."

And it's not just the human residents who are affected. One neighbor said she's had to give her miniature poodle Trazodone, a tranquilizer, to calm down the pup amid the racket. 

For some, the construction has become a symbol for New York City's ultra-wealthy trampling on everyone else.

Read more: 2 men who studied millionaires for over 20 years developed a formula that classifies Americans in 3 different categories of wealth

"This is about how the whims of a plutocrat can upend the lives of an entire city block, challenging the culture and the well-being of the people who live there," David Margolick, who lives a block away, wrote in the Times. "It's about coming to terms with everyday existence in New York, where the rich run rampant and the rest of us have to deal with it."

In a statement obtained by the Times, Beauvoir said she and Bastid "deeply regret the inconvenience caused to the neighborhood, despite our efforts to limit it from the onset. Unfortunately, we have all experienced the disagreeable aspects of construction and the unpredictability of the process."

Business Insider reached out to Beauvoir for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication.

SEE ALSO: A British millionaire has been ordered by a French court to demolish his $64 million mansion in the south of France, which includes 18 suites and 2 helicopter pads

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• In San Francisco, trash pickers are going through the garbage of billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg, The New York Times reports.
• The trash pickers then sell the items they find to make a living.
• Recent discoveries include a coffee machine, designer jeans, and Nike sneakers.
• It highlights the severe inequality in San Francisco, which is the worst in the US.

San Francisco trash pickers rummage through their billionaire neighbors' garbage and sell the discarded treasures they find, The New York Times revealed in a story published Sunday.

One man The Times profiled — Jake Orta, a 56-year-old military veteran — lives in government subsidized housing near Mark Zuckerberg's roughly $10 million home. Orta has uncovered a hair dryer, a vacuum cleaner, and a coffee machine (all still in working condition) in the Facebook CEO's trash, and an iPad in someone else's.

Orta sells what he finds, with a goal of earning about $30 to $40 a day, according to The Times.

Read more: San Francisco is so expensive that households making over $100,000 a year qualify for low-income housing

The Times notes that trash picking is illegal in California, as the contents of garbage bins on the sidewalk are property of the trash collection company — but the law is seldom enforced.

The trash-picking trend illustrates the growing gap between San Francisco's wealthiest and poorest residents. An analysis of 2017 US Census data by Bloomberg found that the chasm between the top and bottom 20% is widest in San Francisco ($339,900).

Other trash-pickers have made similar discoveries: The blogger Financial Panther published a post about making over $1,000 selling items he found in a single dumpster in the garage of a luxury apartment building. Those items included a coffee table, bar stools, and clothes with the tags still on.

For some people, though, discovering the treasures in other people's trash is more of a hobby than a way to make a living. The New York Post reported on a woman in her 60s who owns more than $8 million worth of New York City property — and goes around collecting the items in garbage cans for fun.

As for Orta, he told The Times, "It just amazes me what people throw away." That night, he'd turned up a pair of designer jeans, Nike running sneakers, and a bicycle pump. "You never know what you will find," he said.

See the full story from The Times »

SEE ALSO: It takes a $300,000 salary to be middle class in cities like San Francisco and NYC, and a financial expert gives the 'sad' breakdown of why

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NOW WATCH: Watch Google's Stadia video-game-platform event in 5 minutes

• An unknown buyer just paid $34 million for a condo at 220 Central Park South, The Real Deal reported.
• It's the same building where billionaire hedge-fund manager Ken Griffin bought a $238 million penthouse in January, breaking the record for the most expensive home sale in the US.
• Other known buyers in the Billionaires' Row tower include singer Sting and his wife, hedge-fund executives Richard Leibovitch and Andrew Zaro, and Hong Kong heiress Karen Lo. 
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

An unknown buyer just paid $34.4 million for a condo at 220 Central Park South, the Billionaires' Row tower in New York City where Ken Griffin bought a $238 million penthouse in January. Griffin's purchase broke the record for the most expensive home ever sold in the US.

But Griffin isn't the only billionaire in the building, which borders the southern end of Central Park and is still under construction. 

Read more: I spent a day on NYC's Billionaires' Row. Here's your ultimate guide to one of the city's glitziest streets, which borders Central Park and is home to the most expensive apartment ever sold in the US.

Here's a rundown of the other ultra-wealthy hedge funders, executives, and heiresses who have bought (and in some cases, already sold) units in 220 Central Park South:

• Singer Sting and wife Trudie Styler, purchase price and date unknown
• Hong Kong heiress Karen Lo, purchased Sting's apartment for $50 million in 2018
• Och-Ziff Capital Management chairman Daniel Ochs, purchase price and date unknown
• Arel Capital founding partner Richard Leibovitch, purchased a $26.2 million unit in December 2018
• Brazilian construction billionaire Renata de Camargo Nascimento, purchased a $30.191 million unit in January 2019
• Cavalry Portfolio Services chairman Andrew Zaro, purchase price and date unknown
• Paramount Group chairman Albert Behler, purchased a $33.5 million unit in February 2019

Many of the tower's major transactions went into contract in 2015, when the Manhattan real-estate market was stronger than it is today, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The 79-story tower, designed by Robert A.M. Stern, is expected to be completed later in 2019 at a total estimated cost of $1.4 billion.

SEE ALSO: A millionaire couple is tearing through an NYC street to build a $100 million mansion with a 60-foot pool, and neighbors are resorting to wearing $400 headphones and tranquilizing their pets to deal with the noise

DON'T MISS: An $88 million mansion in NYC with a panic room and a Versailles-inspired dining room has gotten a $26 million price chop over 6 years — take a look inside

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Silicon Valley has long been a hotbed for tech start-ups. The valley includes Bay Area cities such as San Jose and Palo Alto.
• According to Forbes real-time billionaire data, the richest 25 people in Silicon Valley range from tech founders to successful venture capitalists.
• The top three seats include the founders of Facebook, Oracle, and Google.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

Silicon Valley is home to many of the world's tech giants — and its high-ranking billionaires.

Consistently ranked as one of the most expensive places to live in the US, Silicon Valley encompasses the Santa Clara area and includes company headquarters based in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Mountain View. The tech titans — with executives ranging from Google to Uber— who work in these areas are among some of the richest in the industry.

Read more: Tech CEOs in San Francisco are paying up to $10 million to throw ragers when their companies go public — and they're going all out with ice sculptures, A-list celebs, and themed concerts

Looking at the top 25 richest people working in Silicon Valley based on real-time data from Forbes, the list includes social behemoths such as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack Dorsey, alongside Tesla founder Elon Musk. Also on the ranks are successful venture capitalists, real estate moguls, and the legendary filmmaker George Lucas.

There is some disagreement about the geographical boundaries of Silicon Valley. While some stick to Santa Clara County borders, for the purposes of this list, we included billionaires whose work is based in cities throughout Santa Clara County, including San Jose, and reaching up as far north as San Francisco.

Keep reading for a look at the 25 richest billionaires in Silicon Valley.

SEE ALSO: Silicon Valley is facing an 'exodus of young employees' and recruiting tech talent is becoming harder, new survey reveals

NOW READ: Someone is selling a $500 Silicon Valley investor 'starter kit' as a joke about how venture capitalists all dress the same

25. Scott Cook

Source of wealth: Intuit

Industry: Technology

Net worth: $3.95 billion

Scott Cook cofounded software company Intuit in 1983, and retired as the firm's CEO 11 years later. However, he has remained Intuit's chairman and holds 5% of shares in the company — now worth over $5 billion.

24. Dagmar Dolby

Source of wealth: Dolby Laboratories

Industry: Technology

Net worth: $4.13 billion

Founded by her late husband Ray Dolby, Dagmar Dolby currently owns roughly 38% of Dolby Laboratories. Known for its sound systems, the San Francisco-based company revolutionized audio in tech.

23. Jensen Huang

Source of wealth: Nvidia

Industry: Technology

Net worth: $4.63 billion

Jensen Huang is the cofounder, CEO, and president of Nvidia, a company specializing in computer gaming chips. The billion-dollar company is based in Santa Clara, California.

• Self-made millionaires do things a little differently from everyone else.
• They allocate their time and energy differently, focusing more on personal growth, their thoughts, investments, and work.
• They also exhibit heightened levels of certain traits, like frugality, resiliency, conscientiousness, and consistency.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

Self-made millionaires didn't get to three-comma club without doing things a little differently from the rest.

Various researchers who studied hundreds of self-made millionaires for several years have found that many tend to practice different habits or display heightened traits that help them build wealth. Many millionaires, for example, allocate their time differently — they spend more time focusing on personal growth, planning for investments, and working, and less time sleeping.

They also gravitate toward similar wealth-building strategies, like saving as much as they can and bringing in multiple income streams. And when it comes to investing, millionaires love low-cost index funds and real estate. Millionaires also tend to be frugal, conscientious, and resilient — all traits that help amplify their wealth-building actions.

While some of the behaviors above may also ring true for non-millionaires, millionaires often exhibit them at a stronger level and with more consistency.

Here's what sets millionaires apart from everyone else — besides a seven- to nine-figure net worth.

SEE ALSO: A woman who studied 600 millionaires discovered that most of the superrich have surprisingly affordable homes. Here's what some of those look like.

DON'T MISS: Inside the lives of surprisingly frugal millionaires and billionaires, from businessmen like Warren Buffett and Richard Branson to A-list celebs like Jay Leno and Jennifer Lawrence

They're frugal.

Frugality — a commitment to saving, spending less, and sticking to a budget — is one of the wealth factors that help millionaires build wealth, according to Sarah Stanley Fallaw, the director of research for the Affluent Market Institute and an author of "The Next Millionaire Next Door: Enduring Strategies for Building Wealth," for which she surveyed more than 600 millionaires in America.

Many of the millionaires Stanley Fallaw interviewed stressed the freedom that comes with spending below their means.

"Spending above your means, spending instead of saving for retirement, spending in anticipation of becoming wealthy makes you a slave to the paycheck, even with a stellar level of income," she wrote.

They keep their housing costs low.

A prime example of frugality is that millionaires typically live in a home and neighborhood they can easily afford, according to Stanley Fallaw.

She said that most of the millionaires she studied had never purchased a home that cost more than triple their annual income. The median home value for millionaires in her latest study was $850,000 (3.4 times their current income), with a median original purchase price of $465,000.

They save a lot of their income.

Being frugal and living in an affordable home enables millionaires to save. They recognize that income isn't enough — they have to save what they're making.

John, who runs the personal-finance blog ESI Money and retired at 52 with a $3 million net worth, has interviewed 100 millionaires over the past few years and found that the median millionaire spent $90,000 a year while earning $250,000 in income — a 64% savings rate. Saving it, he said, allows for investment.

While this savings rate might be slightly off because of things like not counting taxes as spending, the main takeaway, he said, is that millionaires "save a large portion of their income."

If you make $250,000 and spend $250,000, "you are no better off at the end of the year," he wrote.

• From Rihanna to Emily Weiss, more young women are disrupting the beauty space with cosmetic lines that thrive on social media.
• While millennials are leading the way with the industry's disruption, other generational outliers — notably 21-year-old Gen-Zer Kylie Jenner and 62-year-old Anastasia Soare — are also key players in the trend.
• Over time, beauty industry marketing has evolved from word-of-mouth and traditional ad campaigns to Instagram tutorials and user-generated content, making it easier than ever to launch a new brand.
• This has opened the door for celebrities and influencers to create their own beauty brands and sell them to their strong social media followings, transforming fanbase numbers into revenue.
• This has given rise to a new generation of wealthy women, who sit on top of beauty empire fortunes they created with their own digital prowess.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

Social media has minted a new type of money maker: the "selfie-made billionaire."

That's what Natalie Robehmed of Forbes dubbed Kylie Jenner, the world's youngest self-made billionaire ever. 

Jenner's $1 billion net worth comes largely from her eponymous cosmetics line, Kylie Cosmetics, which launched in 2015. Three years later, revenue was an estimated $360 million, the company worth $900 million, Robehmed reported. 

While Jenner may be one of the more extreme examples, she isn't an anomaly — a long history of women have accrued wealth by building beauty empires. The first female self-made millionaire, Madam CJ Walker, built her fortune off a line of hair care products she developed in 1905, according to Isis Madrid of Broadly. Beauty mavens Estée Lauder and Bobbi Brown started their brands decades before the millennium.

In 2018, Jenner was a newcomer to Forbes' richest self-made women list, along with Forbes' other "Instagram-savvy makeup moguls"— Anastasia Soare, Huda Kattan, and Kim Kardashian West, who all also have their own beauty lines.

Then there's Emily Weiss, founder and CEO of cult beauty brand Glossier. On March 19, the direct-to-consumer beauty brand hit unicorn status with new funding that put its value at $1.2 billion, reported Katie Roof and Yuliya Chernova of The Wall Street Journal. 

While these women aren't the first of their kind to build wealth by tapping into the beauty industry, they are part of a growing number of women who have successfully done so by leveraging social media. What's changed isn't the idea of starting a cosmetics line, but how millennials are disrupting the process in today's technological age while propelling fast company growth and amassing personal fortune.

Read more: Meet the 7 women who made Forbes' richest self-made women list for the first time, including almost-billionaire Kylie Jenner

Estée Lauder and Bobbi Brown got their start through word-of-mouth

"Getting a brand known has from the beginning involved word-of-mouth and getting attention from an influential journalist," Geoffrey Jones, a professor at Harvard Business School and author of the book "Beauty Imagined," told Business Insider.

Consider Estée Lauder: "She gave away 80 of her lipsticks as table gifts for a charity luncheon in the Waldorf-Astoria," Jones said. "The rich guests then walked over to the nearby Saks Fifth Avenue to ask for it."

In 1947, Lauder received her first major order for $800 worth of products from Saks. She grew her business with traditional print advertising and word-of-mouth campaigns, believing that women who liked her products would spread the word. In 2018, the company reported $13.68 billion in net sales and Bloomberg estimated the Lauder family to be worth $24.3 billion.

The beauty behemoth now has nearly 30 brands in its portfolio; in 1995, it acquired Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, making the line's namesake founder a millionaire, reported CNBC's Catherine Clifford. 

Being bought by a big firm is a sign of success, Jones said. Bobbi Brown, who told Inc. she began the line with $10,000, also favored a word-of-mouth strategy. By talking to strangers and friends, she found a business partner, landed a mention in Glamour magazine, conducted market research, connected with a Bergdorf Goodman cosmetics buyer, and secured regular appearances on The Today Show, according to Clifford.

But that was before the disintegration of traditional distribution channels, which Jones said has happened over the past decade.

Look no further than Soare's Anastasia of Beverly Hills line to see this shift in action. According to Forbes, it's one of the first beauty companies to use a successful social media strategy — but Soare didn't begin that way.

The aesthetician first became a celebrity favorite in the early 1990s for perfecting the eyebrow. In 2000, she took the traditional route, launching her first line of products in 20 Nordstrom stores, reported Forbes. But it didn't really take off until Soare took to Instagram in 2013 with a viral social media campaign, which helped land her products in Sephora.

Today, the company's Instagram has 19 million-plus followers, and the company has a Forbes estimated value of $1.5 billion. Soare herself is worth an estimated $1 billion, making her one of the world's richest self-made women.

Read more: This self-made billionaire built her fortune after fleeing communism in Romania in the 80s and building a salon beloved by Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian

A shift to digital means brands can make the consumer an influencer

As Soare's success indicates, "Social media has become the new door-to-door," Jensen said, adding it "allows consumers to research, investigate, and gather information on everything from ingredients to brand values to see if they align to their own. The brands that use social media well are leveraging it to build a two way street of communication with their followers and because of that, they get buy-in to the brand."

Consider Weiss, who realized that social media was "transforming the way beauty products were talked about and bought," and intended to disrupt the industry, wrote Amy Larocca of The Cut, hailing her as the millennial Estée Lauder.

"There are a handful of beauty conglomerates, and it's difficult for them to innovate," Weiss, who uses social media as market research, previously told Business Insider. "Beauty has really gone online, because that's where the customer is."

In 2010, she launched the blog Into the Gloss. It soon became popular among beauty mavens, amassing 10 million page views per month, according to Alyssa Goacobbe of Entrepreneur— a solid platform on which to launch the first four Glossier products in 2014.

Instead of aiming at wholesale, Weiss intended to crowdsource — through social-media platforms, affiliate sponsorships and links, and gossip, wrote Larocca. As Gaby Del Valle of Vox puts it, Glossier's success lies in treating its customers like influencers.

To market a new blush, Cloud Paint, Weiss hired makeup artists to use it on Oscar-attending celebrities and post the results on social media, Giacobbe wrote — regrams resulted in 1,700 user-generated images in one week; by one month, Instagram had 6,368 Cloud Paint images.

In a recent podcast interview, Weiss said that Instagram"has been an incredible tool to show a lot of user-generated content." 

While Weiss' net worth is unknown, the $1.2 billion value of Glossier says enough.

Read more: This beauty startup has become so popular that it has 10,000 people on a waitlist for lipstick

A social media following equals revenue for celebrities foraying into beauty

"Having a large social media following equates to sales," Jensen said.

A strong social media presence is so directly tied to revenue that it can lay the whole foundation for a beauty empire's success — those with stardom and a following already have a fanbase with built-in customers, and nowhere is that more visible than in Kylie Jenner's and Rihanna's respective beauty empires.

"It's the power of social media,"Jenner told Robhemed. "I had such a strong reach before I was able to start anything."

Jenner launched Kylie Cosmetics to 50 million Instagram followers on her personal account, reported Sarah Grossbart for E! News. Nearly four years later, that number has more than doubled. "With more than 100 million Instagram devotees, she need only post a selfie touting her shade of the day and her young followers clamor to add it to their carts," Grossbart wrote.

Dubbed "Cosmetics Queen"by Forbes, Jenner continues to push direct-to-consumer Kylie Cosmetics by sharing products, announcing launches, and previewing new items to her 175 million-plus followers across Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, Robhemed reported. 

"I don’t pay for advertisements,"Jenner told Fast Company. "I don’t do commercials. Social media is the only way I push it: Snapchat, Instagram."

She didn't sign her first distribution deal until three years later, with Ulta, which she pushed with her "usual social media," Jenner told Robhemed — it sold an estimated $54 million worth of products in the first six weeks.

Read more: How Kylie Jenner became the world's youngest self-made billionaire, from starring in a reality TV show at age 9 to running a $900 million cosmetics empire at 21

Similarly, Rihanna, who has an estimated $260 million net worth and nearly 69 million Instagram followers, launched Fenty Beauty at New York Fashion Week in 2017 — and she first alluded to with an Instagram teaser. In just one month, it made $72 million in earned media value (the potential value it would have earned if paid for all exposure on social media platforms), outpacing Kylie Cosmetics according to a Tribe Dynamics' Cosmetics report released by WWD.

About 132 million people watched Fenty beauty tutorials in the first month of its launch, reported Janice Williams of Newsweek. Within its first 40 days, Fenty brought in $100 million in sales, according to Vogue.

"Fenty Beauty’s social media game has had a clear impact on its success,"Williams wrote. "While Rihanna's social media handle flooded Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube with photos, videos and tutorials, millions of people used their own social media accounts to show off their products and offer testimonials."

In its first year alone, Fenty made $566 million, reported the Business of Fashion, citing an LVMH report — it took Estée Lauder 10 years to earn $500 million, according to WWD.

Read more: Rihanna is reportedly launching her own line with one of the biggest luxury companies in the world as her fashion empire continues to grow

Youtube creators translate their personalities into beauty brands

Not every beauty influencer is a celebrity — some gained notoriety because of YouTube or Instagram, and successfully translated their social media personalities into massive beauty brands and multimillion-dollar net worths.

Huda Kattan, called one of the most influential beauty bloggers in the world by The New York Times, began sharing makeup tutorials, how-to videos, and tips on Instagram and YouTube in 2010. Her following grew so much that when she launched synthetic and faux mink lashes in 2013, they sold out on her first day. Today, she has over 577 million Instagram followers between her personal and private accounts and 3.1 million YouTube subscribers.

Kattan told CNN Instagram was the turning point. "It was the catalyst that changed everything," she said. "It changed the dynamics in which people not only communicate but are inspired as well."

Retail sales for Huda Beauty hit $1.5 million the first year — revenue for 2018 was expected to be $300 million, according to Forbes. Forbes valued her company at $1 billion and Kattan herself worth $500 million, based largely on their "valuation of her stake in the company." 

It's a similar success story for influencer Michelle Phan, who got her start sharing beauty tutorials and guides on YouTube — 40,000 people watched her first video the first week; the now defunct channel has nearly 9 million subscribers.

Phan, reportedly worth $50 million, parlayed that success into the cosmetics industry with makeup subscription company Ipsy in 2011, valued at $800 million with more than 1.5 million subscribers just five years later, according to Yahoo. In 2013, she launched her own cosmetic line for L'Oreal called EM Cosmetics. 

"Influence is the new power — if you have influence you can create a brand,"Phan told Forbes.

Beauty is booming

It's easy to see why more influencers and celebrities are entering the beauty space — and the effect they're creating when they do. The beauty industry has grown exponentially over the last three decades, Jones said. As of 2010, the beauty industry had global sales of $330 billion worldwide, according to "Beauty Imagined."

"In the past, luxury brands sold through department stores and mass brands sold through drugstores," Jones said. Now, though,"the whole market has fragmented, providing the opportunity for the launch of many new brands."

Over 1,000 beauty brands have entered the prestige market since 2015 because it's lucrative, healthy, and profitable, Larissa Jensen, beauty analyst at The NPD Group, told Business Insider.

It's also easier than ever before to create and launch a brand, Jennifer Walsh, co-founder of retailer Beauty Bar, consultant, and brand marketer, told Business Insider. And the power of digital has made it even easier to reach consumers.

"For decades, we had to rely on print media and TV to introduce a brand or products,"she said."Now, we can have our own channel online. If you have a great product, beautiful packaging, and are good at storytelling, you can truly get your message/product out to others quickly."

SEE ALSO: We did the math to calculate exactly how much money billionaires and celebrities like Jeff Bezos and Kylie Jenner make an hour

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Join the conversation about this story »

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• New York City is a well-established home for real-estate businesses and media conglomerates — along with the firms that invest in them.
• According to Forbes' real-time billionaires data, the 25 richest people in New York include Wall Street moguls, along with billionaires in fashion and food.
• Two of the three top seats belong to media moguls, with Michael Bloomberg in first and Rupert Murdoch in third.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

New York is home to many of the United States' real-estate moguls, media empires, and hedge fund billionaires.

For years, New York City held most of the world's ultra-wealthy population, until Hong Kong surpassed it in 2018. Still, with Billionaires' Row for real estate, Wall Street for the stock exchange, and Fifth Avenue for fashion, many of the world's richest people still work — and often live — in Manhattan.

Read more:I spent a day on NYC's Billionaires' Row. Here's your ultimate guide to one of the city's glitziest streets, which borders Central Park and is home to the most expensive apartment ever sold in the US.

For this list, we included people and families whose companies are based in Manhattan. That left many notable tech titans out of the ranking, as many dwell in Silicon Valley. And though Ken Griffin recently purchased a $238 million penthouse near Central Park, his hedge fund, Citadel, is based in Chicago.

Notable dynasties, such as the Waltons, also have companies based outside the Big Apple, leaving the bulk of the list to Wall Street brokers and real-estate moguls.

Keep reading for a look at the 25 richest people in New York.

SEE ALSO: The top 25 richest people in Silicon Valley

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25. Leonard Stern

Source of wealth: Hartz Mountain Industries

Industry: Real estate

Net worth: $4.8 billion

Stern built his real-estate empire by purchasing warehouses, most of which are in New Jersey. After over 50 years in the business, Stern owns over 42 million square feet of property. New York University's business school bears his name, following his $30 million donation to the university.

24. John Paulson

Source of wealth: Paulson & Co.

Industry: Finance and investments

Net worth: $5 billion

Founder of the hedge fund Paulson & Co., Paulson previously worked at the New York investment company Bear Stearns. According to Forbes, Paulson "made his fortune betting against subprime mortgages at the peak of the 2007 credit bubble."

23. Sheldon Solow

Source of wealth: Solow Building Company

Industry: Real estate

Net worth: $5.16 billion

Solow earned fame and fortune upon completion of the Solow Building, at 9 W. 57 St. on Billionaires' Row. The skyscraper houses the fashion label Chanel, Leon Black's Apollo Global Management and Henry Kravis' KKR — two other New York billionaires who are on this list.

• Bernard Arnault just pledged to donate €200 million, or $226 million, to help rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral. The cathedral was damaged in a fire on Monday evening.
• Arnault is the third-richest person in the world, having surpassed Warren Buffett in March, Bloomberg reported.
• The 70-year-old French businessman is worth an estimated $91.7 billion.
• Arnault is chairman and CEO of LVMH, the world's largest maker of luxury goods that brought in nearly $53 billion in revenue in 2018.
• Four of Arnault's five children work at LVMH brands that include Louis Vuitton, Rimowa, Berluti, and TAG Heuer. 
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

French businessman Bernard Arnault just pledged $226 million to rebuild Notre-Dame.

Arnault announced the news on Tuesday morning in a company tweet. The 800-year-old Notre-Dame Cathedral caught fire Monday evening, damaging its spire and roof. Collectively, France's superrich have already pledged over $450 million towards its repairs.

Arnault is the richest person in Europe; he overtook Warren Buffett in March to become the third-richest person in the world, Bloomberg reported. Arnault is worth an estimated $91.7 billion and Buffett is worth $86.3 billion, according to Bloomberg. At the time, Arnault surpassed Buffett by about $100 million.

Arnault is the chairman and CEO of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, known as LVMH, the world's largest maker of luxury goods, making him the richest person in the fashion industry. LVMH, which recorded more than $53 billion in revenue in 2018, is made up of 70 companies including Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Dom Perignon Champagne, TAG Heuer, and Rimowa.

Arnault's wealth is now exceeded only by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

Read more: Meet the Wertheimers, the secretive French brothers worth $42 billion who control Chanel, own vineyards in France and Napa Valley, and breed racehorses

Four of Arnault's five children are part of the LVMH empire. His daughter, Delphine, is the executive vice president at Louis Vuitton and apparent heiress to LVMH. 

Arnault, who lives in Paris and has a vacation home on the French Riviera, attended one of the most prestigious engineering schools in France and was named CEO of luxury goods holding company, Financiere Agache, in 1984, according to Bloomberg.

Here's a look at Arnault's career, life, and family.

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Bernard Arnault is the richest person in Europe, worth an estimated $91.7 billion. On March 5, he surpassed Warren Buffett to become the third-richest person in the world.

Source: Bloomberg

The 70-year-old French businessman is the chairman and CEO of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, known as LVMH, a position he's held since 1989. LVMH is the world's largest maker of luxury goods.

Source: Bloomberg

The business is a family affair; four of Arnault's five children hold positions at LVMH brands.

Source: Bloomberg

• The Pinault family announced on Monday they would be donating €100 million, or $113 million, to help rebuild Notre-Dame after the cathedral caught fire Monday evening.
• François Pinault is the founder and owner of Kering luxury group, which includes several iconic fashion houses including Gucci and Alexander McQueen.
• Pinault started out working for his family's timber company before eventually entering the retail market.
• Today he is the second-richest person in France, behind Bernard Arnault, and the 23rd-richest person in the world. 
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

François Pinault's family just pledged €100 million, or $113 million, to help rebuild Notre-Dame.

On Monday evening, the Notre-Dame Cathedral caught fire, and Pinault's son announced that the family would donate €100 million, or $113 million, to repair the 800-year-old building. France's superrich have collectively pledged over €400 million, or $452 million, to the iconic cathedral's repairs; that includes fellow fashion mogul Bernard Arnault, who announced on Tuesday morning that he'd be pledging $226 million to the cause.

François Pinault is tied to some of the biggest names in fashion: Gucci, Alexander McQueen, and Yves Saint Laurent. As the owner of Kering luxury group, his family manages over a dozen high-end brands.

Pinault grew up in the rural French countryside, beginning his career working for his family's timber business. After establishing his own company in Rennes, he slowly moved into the retail market, before shifting solely to the luxury retail market in 2016.

Now under his son's direction, the company continues to flourish, especially with rocketing sales for both Gucci and Balenciaga. Gucci was Pinault's first fashion house purchase, and remains one the mogul's most important business deals to date. The acquisition was hard-fought in a battle between rival French billionaire and luxury brand owner Bernard Arnault.

Read more: Gucci has become hugely popular with teens and millennials. We visited a store and saw why they love it despite the high price tags.

Alongside other major holdings, such as a winery in Bourdeaux and a cruise line in Marseille, Pinault is one of the world's biggest private art collectors. His collection includes over 3,000 works of art and is worth over $1.2 billion.

Keep reading for a deeper look at Pinault's life, from his company's origins to his most recent business investments.

SEE ALSO: Meet Bernard Arnault, the richest person in Europe, who's worth $80 billion and controls LVMH, the world's largest maker of luxury goods

NOW READ: 9 unlikely items that have become luxury status symbols among the elite

François Pinault is one of the most powerful men in the fashion industry.

According to Bloomberg, he is the 23rd-richest person in the world with a net worth of $37.3 billion ...

Source: Bloomberg

... and the second-richest person in France.

Source: Bloomberg

• France's superrich have pledged to donate millions of dollars to help rebuild the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris after a devastating fire.
• The donors include LVMH Chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault, Kering founder François-Henri Pinault, and the Bettencourt Meyers family, which controls L'Oréal.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook said his company will also donate but didn't give a specific amount.
• At least $728 million has been pledged so far.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

France's superrich have stepped in and pledged to donate millions to help rebuild Notre-Dame, one of the most recognized sights in Paris, after the centuries-old cathedral was devastated by a fire.

The fire toppled the cathedral's iconic spire and led to the collapse of the roof, but the two bell towers and much of the shell of the structure were saved.

Read more: Heartbreaking photos show the 800-year-old Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris burning to the ground

French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild the cathedral, and it seems that he'll have the help of millions of dollars from some of France's wealthiest citizens.

At least $728 million has so far been pledged to help rebuild the beloved cathedral.

Bernard Arnault, LVMH's chairman and CEO and France's richest person; François-Henri Pinault, Kering's founder; and the Bettencourt Meyers family, which controls L'Oréal, are among the major donors so far. Together, the billionaires behind the three French luxury groups pledged $565 million.

Here are all the people who've pledged donations so far:

• Bernard Arnault, LVMH's chairman and CEO: $226 million
• Bettencourt Meyers family, the owners of L'Oréal: $226 million
• François-Henri Pinault, the owner and founder of Kering luxury group: $113 million
• Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of the French energy company Total: $113 million
• Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, the CEO of the French investment group Fimalac: $11.3 million
• Martin Bouygues, the CEO of the French telecom company Bouygues, and his brother Olivier Bouygues: $11.3 million
• JCDecaux, the French advertising group: $11.3 million
• Société Générale, the French financial-services company: $11.3 million
• Crédit Agricole, the French bank: $5.6 million
• Tim Cook, Apple's CEO: unknown amount.

The cause of the fire that ravaged the 850-year-old cathedral is still unknown.

SEE ALSO: Before-and-after photos show how the devastating Notre-Dame Cathedral fire has changed the Paris skyline

DON'T MISS: All the priceless artifacts inside Notre-Dame that firefighters battled to save from the devastating fire

Join the conversation about this story »

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• Egypt is the top spot billionaires are traveling to in 2019, according to boutique luxury travel agency Original Travel.
• Egypt is rich in history, culture, and luxury, offering a little bit of something for everyone.
• There are a few sites, areas, and hotels, in particular, inspiring the wealthy to visit Egypt— take a look below.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

Egypt is the hottest destination billionaires are traveling to this year, according to boutique luxury travel agency Original Travel, which plans trips for high-net-worth individuals.

The country came in first in Original Travel's ranking of top destinations where billionaires are headed in 2019, which it determined by looking at the number of bookings and performance; the latter was assessed by a combination of feedback and client inquiries. Their 2019 bookings for Egypt are set to triple last year's bookings, Amelia Stewart, brand ambassador for Original Travel, told Business Insider.

You don't have to look far to see Egypt's appeal: It has a rich Pharaonic history and plenty of iconic landmarks, not to mention Greek, Roman, and Islamic influences to explore.

Like most travelers, billionaires visit Egypt to soak up its sights and history — but they do so while taking advantage of Egypt's plentiful luxury offerings, from fine dining restaurants in Cairo to beach resorts along the coast of the Red Sea.

Below, see what's propelling billionaires to visit Egypt— and what they're doing when they get there. Prices indicated for hotels are representative of rates booked two months in advance.

SEE ALSO: These are the 15 hottest destinations billionaires are traveling to in 2019

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Egypt has something for everyone, Stewart said: "Most people consider Egypt as a must-see destination in their lifetime. And there are those who return time and time again."

Source: Original Travel

The best time to visit is typically October through March. "A common misconception is that you shouldn't visit during Ramadan, but in fact the Islamic month of fasting is festive and it's fun to break the daily fast on the streets at sunset with all the locals," Stewart said.

Source: Original Travel

Part of Egypt's appeal is that it's full of new discoveries, according to Stewart. For instance, Alexander the Great's final resting place may have recently been discovered in Alexandria, the city he founded.

Source: National Geographic

• Zoom, a video-conferencing company, went public Thursday and began trading on the Nasdaq.
• Shares jumped 72% on its opening day, putting the company's valuation at nearly $16 billion.
• Zoom CEO Eric Yuan owns 20.5% of the company's stock, which makes Yuan one of the newest tech billionaires.
• Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories.

The CEO of video-conferencing company Zoom is the newest member of an elite class of tech billionaires that include names like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos.

CEO Eric Yuan was made a billionaire Thursday on Zoom's first day of trading on the public market. The company priced its IPO at $36 a share, but Zoom's stock surged as the day went on. By the time the stock market closed, Zoom's shares had jumped 72%, giving the company a valuation of $15.9 billion.

Yuan, Zoom's founder and CEO, owns 20.5% of his company's stock. At the price Zoom closed at Thursday, Yuan is now worth more than $3 billion.

Read more: Video-conferencing company Zoom soared 81% in its first day of public trading — now its CEO and CFO are focusing on these 3 goals

Before he founded Zoom in 2011, Yuan was the vice president of engineering at Cisco. He first came to the US fom China in 1997 after unsuccessfully applying for a visa eight times, Yuan said in an interview with Thrive Global. On his ninth try, Yuan was accepted, and he came to the US without speaking any English, CNBC reports.

By 2017, Zoom had 450,000 businesses as customers, and was valued at $1 billion.

Zoom raised $517.5 million from investors before its Thursday IPO, and entered the public market as a rare profitable tech company.

Despite the achievement of Thursday's IPO, Yuan says its time for Zoom to focus and get back to work.

"I'm going to fly back to California," Yuan told Business Insider in a recent interview."We have to double down on our execution and do what we were doing before. We've got to keep doing that to make sure we keep our customers happy."

SEE ALSO: Pinterest was one of the most-downloaded apps in the U.S. in the months leading up to its IPO

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• Texas has the third-largest population of billionaires in the United States, according to U.S. News & World Report.
• Top-ranking billionaires in the state range from tech mogul Michael Dell to a variety of successful investment bankers, according to real-time data from Forbes.
• Many of the Texan billionaires on the list earned their fortune in the oil business.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Everything is bigger in Texas — including big business.

Consistently ranked as the state with the third-highest number of billionaires in the US, the Lone Star State's wealth is distributed across investment bankers and professional sports team owners. The majority, however, is held by oil tycoons, as Texas produces almost 40% of the nation's oil supply.

Read more: 11 mind-blowing facts about Texas' economy

According to U.S. News & World Report, Texas' billionaire population is third only to superrich hubs New York and California, whose wealthiest individuals include real-estate empires in Manhattan and top execs in Silicon Valley, respectively.

Real-time data from Forbes' billionaire list includes notable names such as Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones, Shark Tank's Mark Cuban, and Walmart heiress Alice Walton. Additionally, Tito's Vodka and Dell Technologies are headquartered outside Austin, Texas' capital city.

The list features several sets of siblings. In cases where siblings inherited family fortunes and now share the same net worth, as reported by Forbes, we listed them as a single entry. In others, they are listed separately along with their separate sources of wealth.

Keep reading for a complete look at the 25 richest people in Texas.

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25. Gerald J. Ford

Source of wealth: Ford Financial Fund

Industry: Finance & Investments

Net worth: $2.78 billion

According to Forbes, Dallas-based businessman Gerald Ford earned his fortune by purchasing distressed banks. Today, Ford owns 16% of shares at Hilltop Holdings and is the majority shareholder at Mechanics Bank.

24. Thai Lee

Source of wealth: SHI International

Industry: Technology

Net worth: $2.80 billion

Thai Lee is the reigning CEO of SHI International, an IT provider that earned $10 billion in sales last year. The company — which is the largest woman-owned business in the United States— started as a software reseller, purchased by Lee and her now ex-husband for $1 million in 1989. Major clients include Boeing and AT&T.

23. Joseph Liemandt

Source of wealth: Trilogy Software, ESW Capital

Industry: Technology

Net worth: $3.00 billion

Joe Liemandt earned his fortune by founding Trilogy Software company and investment firm ESW Capital, which focuses on acquiring software companies. Liemandt lives in Austin, Texas.

• Vladimir Potanin is one of the richest men in Russia, worth an estimated $22 billion.
• He made his fortune in the nickel industry after spearheading Russia's controversial "loans-for-shares" program.
• Potanin has been married twice and says his five children won't receive the majority of his fortune when he dies — instead, he'll donate it to charity.
• He vacations on luxury yachts and plays ice hockey with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Russian billionaire Vladimir Potanin is worth an estimated $22 billion, making him the richest documented man in Russia.

The second-richest person in Russia, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index, is Vladimir Lisin with a $21.5 billion net worth. What remains unclear, however, is just how much money President Vladimir Putin has: The Washington Post previously reported that financier Bill Browder had put Putin's potential net worth as high as $200 billion back in 2015.

The 58-year-old businessman made his fortune in the nickel industry after spearheading Russia's controversial "loans-for-shares" program. Potanin is the president of Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of refined nickel.

Potanin has owned at least three luxury yachts and spent $10 million on his daughter's wedding on the French Riviera. He's also become known as a philanthropist, having joined The Giving Pledge, the charity organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett, and promised to donate most of his fortune to charity rather than pass it on to his children.

The Russian billionaire has close ties to President Vladimir Putin — in fact, the pair are ice hockey buddies — and Potanin was named on the infamous "Putin list" of prominent Russian political figures and oligarchs.

Here's a look at the life and wealth of Vladimir Potanin, the richest man in Russia and the 37th-richest person in the world.

SEE ALSO: Meet Bernard Arnault, the French billionaire who just pledged $226 million to help rebuild the Notre-Dame, controls luxury-goods empire LVMH, and is the third-richest person in the world

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Vladimir Potanin is the richest documented person in Russia, worth, according to Bloomberg, an estimated $22 billion.

The 58-year-old businessman is the president of Norilsk Nickel, the world's largest producer of refined nickel.

Potanin owns 34.6% of Norilsk Nickel, which brought in $11.7 billion of revenue in 2018.

Norilsk Nickel is responsible for almost 22% of the world's high-grade nickel production and about 40% of its palladium.

Potanin has made more than $4 billion in dividends from the company as of January 2018, according to Bloomberg.

In addition to his wealth in the metals industry, Potanin also controls Russian pharmaceutical company NPO Petrovax Pharm and has a sizable real-estate portfolio.

He reportedly owns office spaces, hotel property in Moscow, land in central Russia, and a country club in the Moscow region. 

• Craig Newmark is the founder of classified ads website Craigslist. Newmark started the site as an email newsletter called "San Francisco Events."
• Newmark only led the company for five years — he stepped down as CEO in 2000 and has dedicated his time to philanthropy ever since.
• Most recently, tech publication The Markup — which Newmark helped raise $22 million for — made headlines for its staff exodus on Tuesday.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Craig Newmark hasn't worked at Craigslist for nearly twenty years.

Instead, the billionaire founder — who started his site in 1995 — dedicates his time to philanthropy. Despite criticism for his site's negative impact on print newspapers, Newmark is a dedicated supporter of journalism, donating millions to publications such as ProPublica and the Poynter Institute. 

He also donated $20 million to a forthcoming tech publication, The Markup, which made headlines on Tuesday for its staff exodus following the departure of its editor-in-chief, Julia Angwin. The nonprofit publication was set to investigate tech companies and was supposed to officially launch in July.

Read more: A yet-to-launch tech news site backed by Craigslist's founder is facing a staff exodus after its renowned editor-in-chief was forced out

After a long career with IBM, Newmark started Craigslist — originally an email newsletter called "San Francisco Events"— in Silicon Valley. In a 2018 interview with Business Insider's Jim Edwards, Newmark talked about his decision to not take the VC route and also referred to himself as an "old-fashioned" nerd.

Keep reading for a look at Craig Newmark's life and career, from his start at IBM to his recent philanthropy focus.

SEE ALSO: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark says there's a forgotten weapon in the online information war — and he's putting his money where his mouth is

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Founder of online ads site Craigslist, Craig Newmark has, according to Forbes, a net worth of $1.6 billion. He stepped back from the company in 2000, and now focuses on philanthropy.

Source: Forbes, Craig Newmark Philanthropies

Newmark was born in Morristown, New Jersey in 1952 ...

Source: Business Insider, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Gizmodo

... and later attended school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Newmark originally planned on working as a quantum physicist but studied computer systems instead.

Source: Business Insider

• Tel Aviv ranks as one of the world's most expensive cities for 2019.
• It's the second-largest city in Israel behind Jerusalem, with a population of 430,000 people.
• The city is a hotspot for tech startups and luxury real estate, making it a prime location for Middle Eastern billionaires.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tel Aviv is one of the hottest cities in the Middle East.

On top of its rich history, Tel Aviv is home to some of the coolest tech startups, whose execs help contribute to the city's wealthy population. Additionally, the city boasts offices for American tech giants such as Google and Facebook.

Read more: McDonald's, Nvidia and Salesforce all want a bite of the Tel Aviv tech crop. Here's what you need to know about Israel's bustling M&A scene.

Second only to Jerusalem in terms of population, Tel Aviv has recently seen an increase in tourism. The seaside location once again ranked as one of the world's most expensive cities; this year, Tel Aviv tied for tenth place on the list with Los Angeles.

Billionaires in Tel Aviv include real estate mogul Eyal Ofer and heiress Shari Arison — the richest woman in Israel. Many billionaire homes and shopping centers are found in the historic Rothschild area, which features Bauhaus architecture and a booming real-estate market.

As The Wall Street Journal's Ruth Bloomfield wrote in 2015, "Wealthy Israelis have long gravitated to Tel Aviv's cosmopolitan atmosphere, but this old money has more recently been joined by young entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes in tech startups, a major growth sector in Israel."

Keep reading for a look at luxury lifestyle in Tel Aviv.

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Tel Aviv is a bustling, seaside city in Israel.

Founded in 1909 as Ahuzat Bayit, the city's name was changed in 1909 to Tel Aviv, which means "hill of spring." The city was recently named one of the most expensive cities in the world.

The city is located 43 miles from the capital city of Jerusalem, along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The city is within driving distance of two major airports— international hub Ben Gurion International Airport and domestic-focused Sde Dov Airport.

Tel Aviv is home to approximately 430,000 people.

The city is one of the largest in the country by population, second only to Jerusalem.

• Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world.
• The Amazon CEO is worth an estimated $121 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
• Here are nine mind-blowing facts that show just how wealthy Bezos really is, from how much money he makes per second to how much richer he is than the British royal family.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Jeff Bezos is the richest person on the planet. Worth an estimated $121 billion, the Amazon CEO is $16 billion richer than the next-richest person, Bill Gates.

Bezos will even retain his ranking as the world's richest person following his divorce from MacKenzie Bezos. She'll keep a 4% stake in Amazon worth roughly $35.7 billion, making her the third-richest woman in the world.

Though Jeff Bezos' annual salary is only $81,840, most of his wealth comes from his Amazon shares. The world's richest man makes $2,489 per second, or more than twice what the median US worker makes in one week, according to Business Insider's calculations last year.

Here are nine mind-blowing facts that show just how wealthy Bezos really is.

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1. Bezos is worth $121 billion despite being paid an annual salary of just $81,840, less than what most US representatives take home.

Of course, a large portion of Bezos' wealth is tied to Amazon stock, not his salary.

Business Insider last year calculated how much Bezos actually makes in a year, based on the change in his net worth year-over-year, and found it to be closer to $8.9 million.

It's even more impressive if you break that down to how much Bezos makes every day, every hour, and even every second.

2. Bezos makes $2,489 per second — more than twice what the median US worker makes in one week.

That's $149,353 per minute.

As Business Insider's Hillary Hoffower previously reported, that means that in just one minute, the Amazon chief makes more than three times what the median US worker makes in a year: about $47,000, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

3. After divorcing MacKenzie Bezos and giving up 25% of the Amazon stock owned by the couple, Jeff Bezos will keep his ranking as the richest person in the world.

MacKenzie Bezos will be the third-richest woman in the world, after the L'Oreal heiress Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and the Walmart heiress Alice Walton.

MacKenzie, who was one of Amazon's first employees, is now worth an estimated $38.9 billion.