It depends on how you look at it.

While most people got slightly poorer during this pandemic, billionaires have never been

so wealthy before.

Back in April, when the pandemic just started, the global wealth of all billionaires was

around 8 trillion dollars.

Fast forward to today, it has climbed to $10.2.

trillion.

yes, billionaires made over 2.2 trillion dollars in the last six months.

In fact, the number of billionaires also increased.

In 2017 there were 2,158 billionaires.

Guess how many billionaires are there now?

2,189! 31 one more people became billionaires in the middle of an economic crisis that's

as big as the great depression. 

So, it turns out that every crisis does actually presents opportunities.

But if you are not ready for them, you will miss them as most people do.

But don't worry, crises always happen every 5 to 10 years.

There will be another major crisis, so instead of regretting that you haven't been quick

enough, prepare yourself for the next one.

And one way to do that is to find out how some people took advantage of this crisis

and became billionaires.

We are not going to talk about the billionaires who got wealthier like Bezos or Elon Musk,

yes they made a ton of money during this crisis.

Elon Musk went from 20 billion dollars in 2019 to almost 94 billion dollars this year.

In fact, statistics point out that billionaires across every industry saw their wealth increase

by double digits, especially those in the industrial, technology, and health care sectors.

With low-interest rates and a crisis of such a magnitude, only the strongest and smartest

will prevail and end up ripping the rewards.


 So let's start with the first person on our

list who wasn't a billionaire just last year, and yet in 2020, joined the billionaire's

club.


 Timothy Springer


 You probably haven't heard about him before,

neither did I until I did the research for this video.

He is a Harvard biology professor.

Back when the pandemic wasn't even a thing, Tim understood the danger that viruses could

potentially cause.

So a decade ago, he came across a company in Massachusetts called Moderna.

It was a biotech company that focused on drug discovery, drug development, and vaccine technologies.

It wasn't as exciting as electric cars or online shopping, but as a biology professor,

he understands the importance of vaccines.

So he decided to invest in this company.

Currently, he owns 3.5 percent of the company.

Since Moderna is valued at around 30 billion dollars at the time of this video, his stake

equals to around 1 billion dollars, not bad for a Harvard professor.


 Moderna is one of the leading companies that's

working on a vaccine.

In fact, they have developed a new type of vaccines that's much different from how we

use to create vaccines for decades.

The company successfully passed phase 1 and phase 2 of testing that vaccine and currently

in phase 3.

If it turns out to be successful, Moderna will be one of the first companies to release

an FDA-approved vaccine, which means that the company's stock will shoot through the

roof, and Timothy Springier might double or even triple his net worth in the coming few

months. 


 2.

Number 2 Trevor Milton 


If you take a look at Forbes list 2019, you won't find Trevor Milton in it because he

wasn't even close to being a billionaire, but 2020 gave him a unique opportunity.

Throughout his career, he started multiple businesses; however, luck was never on his

side since all of his ventures failed.

In fact, he was accused of fraud for his business practices, but that never stopped Milton from

trying again.

In 2015, he launched his new business Nikola, inspired by Elon Musk since he literally took

the first name of the inventor Nikola Tesla, and the company is also working on building

electric vehicles.

They haven't proved anything yet, but because investors flooded the stock market with cash

since there weren't any other better options, Nikola came to light and caught the attention

of investors as the next Tesla, those who missed the opportunity to invest in Tesla

quickly jumped in, so the valuation quickly surged to almost 10 billion dollars making

Milton a billionaire since he owns 25 percent of the company.

No one knows how long he will be a billionaire since the company is already being investigated

by the department of justice and SEC for committing fraud.


3.

Alice Schwartz

What is the best age to become a billionaire?

Probably 20s or 30s since you will be at the peak of your energy and can enjoy life at

its fullest capacity.

But some people never give up until the end, such as Alice Schwartz, who is now a billionaire

at the age of 93, yes you heard it right, 93!

It seems like her children have a lot to inherit.

Schwartz graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in biochemistry, where she met her

future husband.

The couple went on to start Bio-Rad Laboratories.

The company manufactures products for the life science research and clinical diagnostics

markets such as instruments, software, consumables, reagents, and content for the areas of cell

biology, gene expression, protein purification, protein quantitation, drug discovery. 

Bio-Rad's diagnostic products and systems use a range of technologies and provide clinical

information in the blood transfusion, diabetes monitoring, and infectious disease testing

markets.

These products are used to support the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of diseases and

other medical conditions.

The business didn't sound exciting back then; however, things turned the other way around.

The pandemic forced everyone to pay greater attention to our health and pushed many investors

to invest in healthcare companies, which eventually made Alice Schwartz worth 2.2 billion dollars.

4.

Eric Yuan

This man spent his entire life getting ready for such an opportunity.

The company that took the best advantage out of this pandemic is ZOOM.

Everyone from private companies to government officials suddenly started using zoom.

There are, of course, alternative options such as Skype, Facebook, and others, but Eric

Yuan built a system that's simply better and easier to use.

Suddenly in a world where social distancing is the norm, everyone started looking for

a way to communicate, conduct meetings, lectures, and zoom was just the best option.

The company's valuation jumped from 17.7 billion dollars in 2019 to 150 billion dollars at

the time of this video.

Eric worked in this industry for almost two decades, and when he pitched his idea to Cisco,

he was rejected, so he went on to start Zoom on his own.

And now his net worth is almost 20 billion dollars. 

5.

Rodney Sacks  


I was never a fan of energy drinks.

I would drink red bull once in a while, but when we had to quarantine, I started trying

different energy drinks as a way to keep myself motivated and productive since spending the

entire day at home makes you lazy.

And that's what pushed Rodney Sack to become a billionaire.

Back in 1992, he purchased a drinks company Hansen Natural with his partner.

The business did pretty well.

Ten years later, the company decided to launch an energy drink by the name Monster, which

turned out to be so successful that in 2012 the company changed its name to Monster Beverage.

The company caught the attention of Coca-Cola, where they purchased a 16.7% stake in Monster

Beverage for $2.15 billion in cash and opened its global distribution arm to Monster.

Rodney Sack was already a pretty wealthy man by then; however, the pandemic pushed Monster

beverages stock price to surge, giving Sack a seat at billionaires table. 


 Here you go, this is your list of people who

never appeared on Forbes billionaires list before, and yet this year, when the economy

was down, when millions lost their jobs, when panic struck the world, these people were

prepared for such an opportunity and took full advantage out of it and turned into multi-billionaires.

Some of them did it while they are young, others did in their 90s.

Everyone has a different path here on earth, so you don't have to look at others and compare

yourself to what others are doing but rather focus on yourself, on your strengths, on your

circumstances.

Back in 2008, some people took advantage of the housing market and made enormous amounts

of money.

Back in 2000s when the dot com bubble burst, people made fortunes.

Don't feel bad or sorry for missing this opportunity, because such an opportunity comes every 5

to 10 years.

You need to focus on being ready for the next one.

I hope you have enjoyed this video and found it helpful.

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Thanks for watching and until next time.