Billionaires Who Lost Everything

According to Forbes Magazine there are 2,755 billionaires in the world today. The top five industries where they made their money are Finance, Technology, Manufacturing, Retail and Healthcare. It is rare to become a billionaire, but even more unusual to reach that level and then lose everything, but it is not unheard of.

Today we’ll look at ten one-time billionaires who later went bankrupt, and one whose net worth fell from eight billion dollars to two million dollars.

Some of the people on this list lost their money through unfortunate investments, some through engaging in criminal activity. One gained her billions through divorce and then squandered it all, and one just gave it all away.

Patrick's Books:

Patrick Boyle On Finance Podcast:

Join this channel to support making this content:

Timestamps
0:00 Sponsor
0:14 Introduction
1:00 Anil Ambani
2:45 Jesse Livermore
4:17 The Daily Upside – Sponsorship
5:27 Bill Hwang
7:17 Elizabeth Holmes
8:56 Eike Batista
11:05 Bernie Madoff
12:45 Allen Stanford
14:45 Sean Quinn
17:14 Jocelyn Wildenstein
18:30 Adolf Merckle
21:38 Chuck Feeney

[odeode]

I tip my hat to Mr. Feeny. Contrary to many billionaires who only talk big and use the pledge to save on taxes, he actually gave it all away. I wish him and his wife a happy retirement, may every day be as you wish it to be.

[John_Notmylastname]

Mr. Feeny is a wonderful human being. The man secretly gave away all his money his entire career and saved enough for him to retire on. What an absolute legend. I sincerely hope that man is as good as he seems. Lol I’ve just become so jaded by this world I’m always hesitant.

[thstreetradio]

The costume change for Holmes earned a like and subscribe. Well done sir.

[Christian-pjvd]

"She claims to have never had plastic surgery...who knows?" LOLL

[tobias]

One more interesting fact about Merckle's suicide is that his son managed to restructure the loans and now the family has its billionaire status back. So in the end, there was really no reason for him to kill himself.

[SergiuM]

"had liabilities greater than his assets" - what a nice way to put it, Patrick truly is a man of culture

[jerodwolf]

As a chemical engineering student taking my senior level classes, I can assure you that I have not come up with any groundbreaking idea, and really don't know much about anything, much less inventing an amazing medical technology

[KalelSonOfDurel]

Accidentally spit my coffee laughing when you put on the turtle neck.

[commentsection]

Hi Patrick. Very entertaining, as always. Let me just update the "judge driving Porsche seized from Eike Batista" story: the judge lost his position, was fined ~600 k, and was sentenced to 52 years in jail for corruption. Judges are very rarely punished in Brazil for egregious violations, so I couldn't help setting the record straight in this fortunate instance. Cheers

[malikwilliamswells]

I swear this guy is awesome man. Like he comes with legit content but if you’re paying attention he is so freaking funny it’s really something great. When he switched into the turtle neck on Elizabeth Holmes I nearly lost it. Thank you Patrick for these amazing videos.

[marcosney]

"Patrick Holmes " is a killer!!! Best financial humor in years. "Not blinking" is a bonus

[boringmanager]

I remember asking friends from med school what they think about theranos back in 2011 and they all said those claims are against fundamental laws of nature. Like you can't conduct certain blood tests with only a drop of blood. Simply bc some cells are too rare so you need more blood to find them

[syrussyrus]

"while many philanthropists hire an army of publicists to trumpet their donations" - maaan...that was epic!

[trepan]

Even after giving away nearly everything he had, Mr. Feeny is still a millionaire in retirement. God speed and good health to you and the Missus Feeny for many years.

[kineahora]

Feeney is a great story. I recommend to you also Jan Vilcek, whose laboratory at NYU did work leading to the development of monster drug Remicade. There was a NY Times headline article that Vilcek had given away what I thought was nearly $1 B of his own personal gains from the development of this drug as he and his wife were childless survivors of the Holocaust, setting up funding for medical science, young investigators, and such…

[Loctorak]

The "Boat enlargement surgery" line gave me a good laugh. 😂

[realGBx]

Giving away everything isn’t really losing everything, is it?

[libelle]

What about Sam Bankman-Fried? Sorry, I couldn't resist after watching your video "FTX- Worse than Enron" 😂

[guardianrealestate]

Chuck Feeny is one my inspirations. I didnt know he'd given all his money away. The size of the man. An absolute goliath.

[FergalByrne]

Chuck Feeney was my office landlord in the late 90s. Only met him a couple of times when he was very kind to everyone. He hosted and supported many public and secret meetings and moves during the Peace Process, and also quietly made sure many organisations and interest groups survived to do good in Ireland and abroad.