I think $20B in 4y is somewhat of an outlier, even among super successful billionaire founders. Eg a few quick googles (assuming CEO has something like 10% of the company after several rounds of dilution)
Facebook founded 2004, 2008 valuation $15B, CEO $2B?
Airbnb founded 2008, 2012 valuation $2B, CEO $200M?
Uber founded 2009, 2013 valuation $3.5B, CEO $350M?
Stripe founded 2009, 2013 valuation $2B, CEO $200M?
Aurora founded 2017, 2021 valuation $13B, CEO has something like $4B
Tesla founded before Elon, but Elon CEO 2008, 2012 valuation $3.5B, CEO $400M?
I considered adding Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple to this list, but since valuations have increased a lot over time and they were started much earlier, they look less impressive, and it doesn’t feel quite fair.
Caveats:
perhaps there are many more quick crypto billionaires in particular, given how much crypto has increased over the last 4y
valuations have increased over time, and maybe people have examples of other tech founders of companies started closer to 2017 where the founders did better
several of the CEO’s on this list have gotten >$10B, it just took more like 10 years than 4
Definitely—but that could make the point even stronger. If it’s such an outlier, maybe that means it’s become easier to do something like this, which is an update in favour of trying.
In line with the above analysis, I vaguely recall seeing one news source refer to Sam’s fortune as “one of the fastest accumulations of wealth in history”, or words to that effect.
EDIT: Here’s the article, from Yahoo Finance: “[SBF’s] sudden prosperity appears to constitute one of the fastest accumulations of self-made wealth in history.”
I think $20B in 4y is somewhat of an outlier, even among super successful billionaire founders. Eg a few quick googles (assuming CEO has something like 10% of the company after several rounds of dilution)
Facebook founded 2004, 2008 valuation $15B, CEO $2B?
Airbnb founded 2008, 2012 valuation $2B, CEO $200M?
Uber founded 2009, 2013 valuation $3.5B, CEO $350M?
Stripe founded 2009, 2013 valuation $2B, CEO $200M?
Aurora founded 2017, 2021 valuation $13B, CEO has something like $4B
Tesla founded before Elon, but Elon CEO 2008, 2012 valuation $3.5B, CEO $400M?
I considered adding Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Apple to this list, but since valuations have increased a lot over time and they were started much earlier, they look less impressive, and it doesn’t feel quite fair.
Caveats:
perhaps there are many more quick crypto billionaires in particular, given how much crypto has increased over the last 4y
valuations have increased over time, and maybe people have examples of other tech founders of companies started closer to 2017 where the founders did better
several of the CEO’s on this list have gotten >$10B, it just took more like 10 years than 4
Definitely—but that could make the point even stronger. If it’s such an outlier, maybe that means it’s become easier to do something like this, which is an update in favour of trying.
In line with the above analysis, I vaguely recall seeing one news source refer to Sam’s fortune as “one of the fastest accumulations of wealth in history”, or words to that effect.
EDIT: Here’s the article, from Yahoo Finance: “[SBF’s] sudden prosperity appears to constitute one of the fastest accumulations of self-made wealth in history.”