It’s no easy task to amass a fortune that’s larger than the famously successful investor, Warren Buffet, whose net worth is over $60 billion. But there are a handful of people who have found their way onto the list of the world’s richest people above Buffett, and one of them is a Spaniard whom I’m sure most people in the US have never heard of.
I’m talking about billionaire Amancio Ortega Gaona. This native of Spain’s province of León has a net worth of $76.5 billion, making him the second richest person in the world after Bill Gates (of course). How did he do it? What’s his claim to fame?
Most people in the 20-40 age group will have heard of the clothing store Zara, which makes current fashion trends available to customers at accessible prices. Well, Ortega founded the parent company, Inditex, which also owns popular international brands like Pull and Bear, Massino Dutti and several others.
All told, Ortega’s Inditex Group has become the largest apparel retail company in the world, bringing in around $23 billion in revenue each year between all of their brands.
So, apparently that’s how you get to be richer than Warren Buffett!
The 80 year old billionaire had humble beginnings, leaving school at the tender age of 14 and moving to the province of Galicia for his father’s job as a railway worker. As a teen, he learned how to make clothes by hand and eventually organized huge local cooperatives of seamstresses to produce bathrobes under the brand name Confecciones Goa.
Zara was first opened in 1975, although interestingly, Ortega had wanted to call the store Zorba, but the name was already taken.
Today, Ortega sticks to his humble roots and isn’t big on the fame that comes with being so wealthy.
