Ninety Two

This cover is incredible.  These are two incredibly successful men with different images and very contrasting stories, but their keys to success are similarly genius.

On the left we have Warren Buffett, born in 1930 in Nebraska and now one of the wealthiest investors in the world. His interests in investing money began as a child and grew as he saw, read and learned more. He graduated high school at the age of 17 and had already made $5,000 for himself as a newspaper boy - which would be the equivalent to over $66,500 in 2010 (in case you were wondering). He rakes in about $100k a year and has an estimated net-worth of more than $47 billion.

Buffett studied at University of Pennsylvania, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Columbia Business School. During his studies he achieved a BS and MS both in economics. I can faintly hear the echo of my father's notoriously repetitive "GET YOUR EDUCATION FIRST" speech playing over in my head after ending that last sentence.. Anyways, Buffett worked as an investment salesman and a stock broker until he accepted a job from his former esteemed University professor Benjamin Graham, who was on the partnership board of GEICO Insurance.

From here on, he basically drove up his already commendable worth in dollars. He continued investing in numerous partnerships that earned him millions in shares, as well as setting up a number of investment portfolios with/for other buyers. He made his first investment in a private business with Hochschild, Kohn and Co, a privately owned Baltimore department store. Eventually he took over Berkshire Hathaway, a textile manufacturing firm of which is he now Chariman and CEO. In 1979, his net-worth reached $620 million and he popped up for the first time on Forbes List. In the 1990's he put on his billionaire cap mainly due to his success with Berkshire Hathaway.

On the right we have Shawn Carter, a 40-year-old hip hop mogul and entrepreneur who was born and raised in the Marcy projects of Brooklyn. He dropped out of high school and never pursued any formal education thereafter. He is now one of the wealthiest businessmen and entertainers in the world, having an estimated net-worth of over $450 million.

Growing up in the projects seemingly defaulted his upbringing in a violent neighbourhood where he would quickly find himself involved in gang relations and street hustling as a young adult. He stepped into the music industry formally as Jay-Z in 1996 with his first studio album, released under an independent label called Roc-A-Fella Records that he co-founded (and I will try not to go into immense detail because in post Eighty One I blogged his success in a nutshell). To date he has sold more than 40 million albums worldwide on that label and is now the CEO of its distributor, Def Jam Recordings.

Over the span of 10 years, Shawn established himself as one of America's most successful entrepreneurs. He founded his own clothing line which grossed over $700 million until he sold the rights for $204 million in 2007. In 2008 he partnered up with Live Nation to found Roc Nation, a separate management, music publishing and fully functioning entertainment company. He is a co-owner of the New Jersey Nets and an upscale sports bar and lounge called the 40/40 Club, first situated in Manhattan and later expanded to Atlantic City, Chicago, and potentially Toyko and Singapore. He is interestingly a co-brand director for Budweiser Select, with whom he helps in the development of strategic marketing programs and advertising. His investments also include those in a line of beauty products called Carol's Daughter, real estate development in New York hotels, and shares with Global Gains Investments.

At the very top of Forbes list is Carlos Slim Helu, a self-made Telecom billionaire in Mexico with a reported net-worth of $53.5 billion. Next up is the renowned Bill Gates, sitting at a $53 billion. For the complete list click here.

After some very concentrated calculation with a friend, we discovered a few things:

* The seemingly insignificant .5 on the end of Helu's $53.5 billion is actually still a whopping five hundred million dollars - essentially the biggest .5 you and I will probably ever know.

* Jay-Z no longer seems comparably wealthy when you consider how much the rest of the Forbes goons have stacked up. In fact, Jay's net-worth actually amounts to 1% of Warren Buffett's.

* There are roughly 100 people in thsi world of 6.7 billion who have at LEAST $1 billion (stress the at least)

* It is truly overwhelming to understand - or realize how impossible it is to properly understand - just how much money there actually is in this world

* The combined net-worth of the top 20 people on Forbes List amounts to over $550 billion dollars. I can't even physically fathom how much money that is.

* The homeland security at Carlos Slim Helu's "house" is sure to be an undeniable work of wonder. It's probably more likely to find the cure to HIV/AIDS and every type of cancer than to break into his garden shed.