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Analysis on America’s Billionaires break down Societal Misconceptions

What do you think of first when you hear the name Jeff Bezos? For some, it might be Amazon. Others may even say they think of him just being flat out rich! But, rarely would you think to say the words ‘fry cook’ come to mind when you think of him. Turns out, that was his first job! Grand Canyon University analyzed the top billionaires in America. They sifted through the Forbes 400 List of Richest People in America and looked at their first jobs, the brands that are producing the most billionaires and other factors to see if there were any trends. 

Continuing to look at first jobs, the most common between the billionaires were computer programmers and writer/reporters, followed by other jobs like stock boys, dishwashers and even parking lot attendants. Warren Buffet’s first job was being a paperboy!

 

They found the brand that’s producing the most billionaires is Walmart, followed by Facebook and Cargill, an agricultural and bio-industrial corporation. When looking at company types, real estate reigned supreme for producing the most billionaires at 31 people on the list working in that field. Hedge Funds, Private Equity, and Investments all followed with at least 20 people on the list in each of those fields.

 

Another common misconception we may think of when it comes to the wealthy is that they all went to Ivy League schools and have PhD degrees. This analysis dove into education and found that a majority of the billionaires listed just have a Bachelor’s degree (35%) and only 33% of them attended Ivy League schools. 14% were actually college dropouts!

 

Overall, the analysis showed that what we think about these billionaires isn’t always true. They started out just like us and worked their way up to become household names. Proving once again, this could be any of us!

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