Net Worth: $400 Billion (was worth $277 billion up $123 billion since last financial estimate)

About Jakob Fugger

Jakob Fugger was a merchant, mining entrepreneur and banker with an estimated net worth of $400 billion. Fugger started as the personal banker of two Holy Roman Emperors. Fugger was the richest man of his time, and one of the richest men who ever lived, having possessed 2 per cent of the world’s GDP. When Fugger started out in banking he would take opportunities that none of his competitors would risk taking and he would bet on them. Fugger became a successful banker as well as a successful investor having taken those chances. Fugger was born and raised in Augsburg, Germany, he left his home before he was 18 years old to do an apprenticeship in Venice, Italy. It taught him skills, such as accounting, a new language, Italian, and blessed him with strong connections at an early age, as Venice in the late 15th century was the world centre of trade and finance in those times. He kept track of his personal finances. How many people forget to save or invest in their twenties, ending up with regrets later? Not with Fugger that happened, Fugger had Accounting discipline that helped his finances both in work and in life. Fugger built his success on his lifelong alliance with the House of Habsburg and its members. He funded on warfare and loaned to many other causes that would make himself profitable in what he risked on investing his equity on. First he lent money to Sigmund of Habsburg, then to Maximilian, Holy Roman Emperor, and finally to Charles V, the most powerful head of state of the Renaissance and made money. He provided them with loans when they needed them, and in turn became their most prominent banker who eventually became one of the wealthiest most powerful people on the planet. In the end, he managed to make himself indispensable to them, becoming quite literally the Kingmaker of the Holy Roman Empire. But he wasn’t foolish or blind about the partnership: throughout, he made sure to demand fair returns and collateral, in order to maintain his control. Fugger surely goes down as one of the most powerful and richest figures of all time.