23. John Malone
Company: Tele-Communications, Inc.
Net Worth: $7.9 billion*
Tech is one industry in which the savvy can make a lot of money, and communications is the other. John Malone made his near-$8 billion fortune from the latter, as he served as the CEO of Tele-Communications Inc., a media and cable giant, for more than two decades from 1973 until 1996. When he became the CEO, he was just twenty-nine years old.
John Malone @billboard / Twitter.com
In 1999, Malone sold TCI to AT&T for $50 billion. But, the tycoon has far from retired, as he is now the chair of Liberty Global, Liberty Media, and Qurate Retail Group, expanding his empire into the lucrative land-ownership sector.