Seattle is such a beautiful and great place. It’s also a hub for the sectors of technology and coffee. It’s Washington’s biggest city and the metro region is home to nearly four million residents. For years, it has been one of the fastest-growing cities in the U.S.-and why not? So many areas of the Seattle-Tacoma area have spectacular views of the water and the area has very mild weather in general, despite the relative lack of sunshine for so much of the year. The Seahawks, the Sounders and the Mariners are home. It’s home to Microsoft, Amazon and Starbucks. Located just over 100 miles south of the Canadian border, Seattle is the northernmost major city in the United States. It is also home to 10 billionaires, most notably the two richest individuals on the planet, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates. Is there something out there in the water?
Craig McCaw – 1.9 billion dollars
Craig McCaw wanted to concentrate on restoring his family’s failing broadcasting business after graduating from Stanford. He rebuilt their television network, and by the 1980s, the firm of his family was the United States’ 20th largest cable carrier. In the 1980s, he also started investing in the cellular industry and went on to sell parts of MCI to Comcast and his own cellular business to AT&T. He brought Nextel back from the verge of bankruptcy as well and went on to sell it to Sprint. It was a multi-billion dollar deal for each sale.
Jim Sinegal – 2 billion dollars
In 1983, with Seattle retailer Jeff Brotman, Jim Sinegal co-founded Costco. Sinegal made Costco one of the most prominent discount warehouse stores in the United States. Costco provides a wide variety of services, from the sale of fresh fruit to the provision of eye care, hospitals, and pharmacies. Costco services are now spreading to gas stations, delivering low-priced gas in the U.S.
Bill France – 2 billion dollars
When it was a regional stock-car racing attraction, Bill France took over NASCAR from his father and turned it into a multibillion-dollar enterprise with a global presence. France, Jr., had been in poor health at a NASCAR race in Japan after suffering a heart attack in 1997. In 2003, he handed his position as chairman and chief executive of NASCAR over to his son Brian.
Howard Schultz – 3 billion dollars
Howard Schultz was introduced to a group of Seattle-based coffee makers while working for a Swedish coffee company that had started a company called Starbucks Coffee Company. He became their Marketing Director. He proposed that they take their coffee company in the same direction as Italy’s coffee shops, but they did not want to create a “café-like” culture. He started his own Il Giornale coffee shop and eventually purchased Starbucks from the original owners. He extended the business to the billion-dollar industry that it is today.
James Jannard – 3.1 billion dollars
In 1975, James Jannard formed Oakley. Originally, the business was dedicated to selling rubber grips for BMX bikes and motorcycles. He started the business from his car’s trunk. He started making sunglasses nine years later. Jannard sold Oakley in 2007 to Luxxotica, an Italian corporation, for $2.1 billion. He did not sell 100 percent of the business. He reportedly holds a considerable stake and continues to collect dividends from the earnings of Oakley. Jim Jannard founded RED, a digital camera company, in 2005. With its cameras used to film such feature productions as “The Social Network,” “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and “The Hobbit,” among many others, RED has become a very popular business.
Gabe Newell- 4.1 billion dollars
Gabe Newell left Microsoft in 1996 to found the Valve game development business. Through the development of the video game Half-Life and the GoldSrc game engine, he used his own money to finance Valve. Other popular video games like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Portal and others have been developed by Valve.
-Mackenzie Scott – 65 billion dollars
MacKenzie Scott is the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos. In the fall of 2020, she changed her last name to her middle name. On July 13, 2020, for the first time, with Amazon breaking a share of $3,300, MacKenzie became the richest woman in the world. Probably, for the entire day, she did not hang on to the word. On January 9, 2019, after 25 years of marriage, Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos revealed that they were divorcing. In 1993, one year before Jeff formed the company that would one day make him the richest person on the earth, they married. Jeff had a net worth of $136 billion at the time of their divorce announcement. MacKenzie revealed via Twitter on April 4, 2019 that she and Jeff had settled their divorce and that she had earned just under 20 million Amazon shares. Those shares were worth $35.6 billion at the time of the sale. She is a supporter of the Giving Pledge.
Steve Ballmer – 81 billion dollars
Steve Ballmer is best known for his friendship with Microsoft and for owning The Clippers of Los Angeles. The overwhelming majority of the net worth of Steve Ballmer is derived from his 333.3 million Microsoft stock shares. He has sold $3.4 billion worth of stock over the years and earned around $4.5 billion in dividends. Ballmer still drives a Ford in honour of his father, who was a Ford boss, despite being a multi-multi-billionaire.
Bill Gates -125 billion dollars
With the late Paul Allen, Bill Gates co-founded the tech company Microsoft. He is one of the personal computer revolution ‘s leading entrepreneurs. He owns less than 1.3% of Microsoft today. Bill Gates has been the wealthiest individual in the world for most of the last 20 years. In July of 2017, Jeff Bezos took over this title. He is one of The Giving Pledge ‘s founders.
Jeff Bezos -280 billion dollars
Jeff Bezos is Amazon ‘s founder, chief executive officer, president, and board member. He is the world’s wealthiest male. Jeff owns 58 million Amazon shares, about 12 percent of the total outstanding shares. He owned 80 million shares of Amazon at his height.