In America, it’s no secret that it’s hard to succeed if you’re not white. There are plenty of talented people of color who demonstrate this exact point. But while the odds are more stacked against them than against a white man, every time a black man comes around, he is more successful.
There aren’t many of them, but seven living black people have become billionaires in the United States. Let’s find out who and how.
Jay Z
One of the most obvious things on this list is that Jay-Z has amassed a lot of his wealth through his music. Apart from this, he is a successful producer and entrepreneur. He currently spends more time juggling his multiple business ventures than making music, but who can blame the guy? With 14 albums and 22 Grammy Awards under his belt already, Jay-Z has nothing more to prove to anyone when it comes to being a good musician.
Oprah Winfrey
You get a billion dollars! You get a billion dollars! Everyone gets a billion dollars! I mean, we know why Oprah is rich. The most successful talk show host in the history of talk shows, he started his own media network after retirement. She has always been smart in managing her money, which is why her net worth is still around $2 billion.
Kanye West
I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t Kanye bankrupt? Well, sort of. He’s certainly made some bad investments in the past, but he’s smart enough to take full advantage of his name and personality to market himself into oblivion. The biggest example is his hit Yeezy sneakers, and those royalties alone are in the $140 million range. Kanye West says he is worth $3 billion Forbes Agrees to disagree and puts him at a modest 1.3 billion. More than enough, I’d say.
Tyler Perry
Who is now? Tyler Perry is one of the few black people in Hollywood who actually got rich from his comedy writing. A big factor in this is that he actually owns all the rights to the shows he writes, which is a rare thing in Hollywood. Although he is not the most famous person on this list (his best-known work Meda As the owner), he has been intelligent enough to manage his work intelligently and it has paid him great dividends.
David Stewart
Not many people have heard of this man, but he is basically the co-founder of Universal Technology. They provide IT services to Verizon and the government, among others. Most of his net worth is in his company. The company is valued at $12 billion, of which David owns $3.5 billion. That doesn’t mean his business was always successful – in fact, David notes that in the early days of his business adventure, he sometimes couldn’t pay himself.
Michael Jordan
Not only was Michael Jordan one of the most successful athletes of his era, he also helped create the Air Jordan sneakers. But how did he make most of his wealth? In fact, one thing that helped put him on the brink of a billionaire career was an investment in the basketball team, the Charlotte Hornets. If done right, investing in sports teams is a great way to get a lot of results from your investment and see your capital grow quickly. Thanks to his recent documentary, Michael has had a renaissance as a meme.
Robert F. Smith
Robert F. is America’s richest black man with a net worth of over $5 billion. Smith is He is the CEO Vista Equity Partners, which is one of America’s largest private equity firms. Prior to that, he worked at Goldman Sachs where he learned the ropes of business. He handled multi-billion dollar deals and struck out on his own after half a decade. And not only is he very rich, he is also a great philanthropist. If you know him by name, it’s probably because he once addressed the graduating class at a major black college and paid off the entire class’s student loan debt — about $34 million.
