Introduction –

In this list i have tried to find slum dog millionaires from Forbes list … after extensive research on net i have come up with this 5 great opulent who had their share of endeavor but they dared to think beyond and with their sheer conviction they have managed to go places … this guys not only inspires us but also shows us the way that IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING …. DREAM ON GUYS !!! …

01. George Soros

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Forbes lists Soros as the 29th-richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at US$11.0 billion. Soros has given $6 billion to various causes since 1979.

Soros is chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society InstituteCouncil on Foreign Relations. He is also one of three initial funders of Center for American Progress, and is represented on the board. His funding and organization of Georgia’s Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been greatly exaggerated. In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in an effort to defeat President George W. Bush’s bid for re-election in 2004. and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wrote in 2003 in the foreword of Soros’ book The Alchemy of Finance:

George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and emerging nations to become ‘open societies,’ open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.

He hails from a Jewish family in Hungary and fled home at the age of sixteen. He studied in London School of Economics. To meet his needs he worked in many low paying jobs like a railway porter, waiter, a swimming pool attendant etc.

He is a billionaire and even at 77 he banks billions. This hedge fund pioneer is heard buying a top Italian soccer club.

02. Kirk Kerkorian

Kerkor “Kirk” Kerkorian (born June 6, 1917) is an Armenian-American billionaire, and president/CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian is known as one of the important figures in shaping the city of Las Vegas, Nevada and, with architect Martin Stern, Jr. the “father of the mega resort.”

Kerkorian splits his time between his residences in Beverly Hills, CaliforniaLas Vegas, Nevada. and

The richest person in Los Angeles, he may also be the most private. He almost never gives interviews and seldom appears in public. Even though his charitable foundation has dispensed more than $200 million and a school,he has never allowed anything to be named in his honor.

His net worth in 2008, according to Forbes Magazine, was $16.0 billion, making him the world’s 41st richest person at that time. In 2009, Kerkorian was among those hardest hit by stock market recession as his net worth tumbled to $5.0 billion. He is currently listed as the 98th richest person.

He is 90 year old and comes from a family that had moved to Los Angeles after their farm was foreclosed by banks. His father sold watermelons and he was school dropout to supplement family income. He, like Soros, also did odd jobs spanning across a boxing career to a fighter pilot trainer during World War II.

The latter experience led him to start a charter flight company and the profits he made after selling this company made him a millionaire. He was also successful with Las Vegas casinos and hotels. Today he is a billionaire with a net worth of $16 billion.

03.

Roman Abramovich

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Born on 24 October 1966 in Saratov, Russian SFSR, USSR) is a Russianbillionaire and the main owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC. According to Forbes magazine, as of 11 March 2009, he had a net worth of US$8.5 billion, ranking him as the 51st richest person in the world.Prior to the financial crisis, he was considered to be the second richest person living within the United Kingdom.Early in 2009, The Times estimated that due to the global economic crisis he has lost £3 billion from his £11.7 billion wealth.

In 2003, Abramovich was named Person of the Year by Expert, a Russian business magazine. He shared this title with Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He is known outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea Football Club, an English Premier League football team, and for his wider involvement in European football.

He is a billionaire with a net worth of $23.5 billion. This Russian was orphaned at the age of four. He met success with controversial oil trades after Soviet Union collapsed. He did not stick to oil trade alone. He diversified into steel, mining and soccer. He owns Chelsea.

04. Li Ka-shing

He is the richest person of East Asian descent in the world and the twelfth richest man in the world with an estimated wealth of US$16.2 billion on 13 February 2009. Presently, he is the Chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Limited (HWL) and Cheung Kong Holdings; through them, he is the world’s largest operator of container terminals and the world’s largest health and beauty retailer.

Considered one of the most powerful figures in Asia, Li was named “Asia’s Most Powerful Man” by Asiaweek in 2001. Forbes Magazine and the Forbes family honored Li Ka-shing with the first ever “Malcolm S. Forbes Lifetime Achievement Award” on September 5, 2006, in Singapore.^[5] In spite of his wealth, Li has cultivated a reputation for leading a no-frills lifestyle, and is known to wear simple black dress shoes and an inexpensive Seiko wristwatch, which is at odds with the house he owns in one of Hong Kong’s most expensive precincts, Deep Water Bay. Li is also regarded as one of Asia’s most generous philanthropists, donating over US$1 billion to date to charity and other various philanthropic causes.

Li is often referred to as “Superman” in Hong Kong because of his business prowess. His peers in Hong Kong include Lee Shau Kee of the Henderson Land Development, New World Development’s Cheng Yu-tung, casino and property magnate Stanley Ho, the Kwok family of Sun Hung Kai Properties, and Henry Fok Ying-tung, among others.

Li Ka-shing was born in Chaozhou in the Guangdong Province, Republic of China in 1928. In 1940 the Li family fled to Hong Kong to avoid the turmoils in China.Li’s family stayed at the home of his wealthy uncle. The arrogance of Li’s uncle with his immense wealth ignited Li’s determination to make a place for himself in the world. Li married Chong Yuet Ming, his first cousin and the daughter of the wealthy uncle.

Li’s father died in Hong Kong. Shouldering the responsibility of looking after the livelihood of the family, Li was forced to leave school before the age of 15 and found a job in a plastics trading company where he labored 16 hours a day. By 1950 he was able to start his own company, Cheung Kong Industries. From manufacturing plastics, Li led and developed his company into a leading real estate investment company in Hong Kong that was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 1972. Cheung Kong expanded by acquiring Hutchison Whampoa and Hongkong Electric Holdings Limited in 1979 and 1985 respectively.

He started working in a factory when he was a teenager because of his father’s premature death. He is a billionaire with a net worth $26.5 billion. He quit working in the factory and started making and selling plastic flowers and this venture grew into Cheung Kong Industries. After several ventures with conglomerates like Hutchinson Whampoa Li has emerged as the world’s largest health and beauty retailer and also the largest operator of container terminals. He is knighted by Queen Elizabeth.

05. Oprah Winfrey

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Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American media personality, actress, television producer, literary critic and magazine publisher, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time,and was once the world’s only black billionaire.She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, including being raped at the age of nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy.Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19.Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place,she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claims broke 20th century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream.By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession cultureand promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others.In 2006 she became an early supporter of Barack Obama and one analysis estimates she delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race^, an achievement for which the governor of Illinoisoffering her a seat in the U.S. senate. considered

This media moghul is an amazing example of extraordinary grit and determination. Because her parents split, she had to travel between various households and at one point of time she was also forced to live in a pig farm. She too started her career at a very young age. She began as a radio DJ when she was in high school and at 19 she anchored a local Nashville news show. She moved into hosting morning talk show and gradually became a hit.

Today her work airs in 135 countries and draws 46 million viewers a week in the U.S. alone. Her many other media ventures, including a magazine, made her a billionaire with a net worth at $2.5 billion.
These stories of success tells us that journey from rags to riches is not impossible and is full of challenges which require courage, faith and determination.