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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 950 John Gandel|# 952 Wang Weixiu ➡

# 951 Kim Beom-su 

$3.40B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$76.0M (-2.24%)

# 951 Kim Beom-su 

$3.40B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$76.0M (-2.24%)
OccupationFounder and Chair, Kakao
Source of WealthOnline Services
Age58
ResidenceSeoul, South Korea
Marital StatusMarried
Children2
EducationBS in Engineering, Seoul National University; MS, Seoul National University
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$3.89B
Kim Beom-su
Kim Beom-su
South Korea
Net worth: $3.40B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Overview

Kim Beom-su, also known as Brian Kim, is a South Korean billionaire businessman and the founder of Kakao, South Korea's largest messaging app.
He became wealthy through Kakao, which is installed in 90% of South Korea's smartphones and serves tens of millions of users for gaming, shopping, and chatting.
In 2014, Kakao acquired Daum, the country's No. 2 search engine, in a $3.3 billion all-stock transaction, leading to a backdoor listing.
Kim signed the Giving Pledge in 2021, committing to donate the majority of his wealth to charitable causes.

Early Life and Education

Born on March 8, 1966, in Damyang County, Kim grew up in poverty in Seoul, raised by his grandmother in a one-bedroom apartment.
His parents, a pen factory worker father, and a hotel maid mother, focused on work, leaving Kim to fund his education by working as a private tutor and sometimes skipping meals.
Kim holds bachelor's and master's degrees in engineering from Seoul National University.

Career

Kim's career began as a developer at Samsung’s IT services unit.
In 1998, he founded Hangame, South Korea's first online gaming portal, later merging it with Naver.
He established IWILAB, an incubator for Korean entrepreneurs, in Silicon Valley in 2006.
In 2010, Kim launched KakaoTalk, South Korea's leading messaging app, which propelled him into billionaire status.
He signed the Giving Pledge in 2010, committing to donate a significant portion of his wealth to philanthropy.

Personal Life

He resides in Seoul with his wife, Miseon Hyeong, and their two children.
In 2021, Kim reaffirmed his commitment to philanthropy by signing the Giving Pledge.

Gambling Accusations

Kim faced accusations of illegal gambling in Las Vegas from 2007 to 2010, which violated Korean law for Korean citizens.
Reports suggested he spent significant time at the Bellagio Hotel during this period, betting an average of $2,440 per session and reportedly losing $16,993.
NHN, his former company, changed its stance and cooperated with prosecutors' warrants for monitoring chat records.

How long would it take you to become as rich as Kim Beom-su?

If you started with $10,000 and invested an additional $500 each month at a 44.06% CAGR, it would take you 5 years to reach Kim Beom-su's net worth of $3.40B.

Is this realistic? It depends how closely the VIX-TA-Macro Advanced model performs to its history in the future. Since Grizzly Bulls launched on January 1, 2022, it's returned 48.24% compared to 16.19% for the S&P 500 benchmark.

Enter data in all but one field below, then calculate the missing value

Kim Beom-su is very wealthy, but what's stopping you from reaching that same level of success? As summarized in our five fundamental rules to wealth building, becoming wealthy in a modern capitalist economy is not complicated. There's actually only three variables:

  1. Your starting capital
  2. Your earnings after expenses
  3. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of your savings

Most people start with zero or very little, so if you weren't born into wealth, don't fret! The majority of the fortunate folks listed in our Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index came from middle class or lower backgrounds. The most distinguishing characteristic of the group is their ability to consistently earn a high CAGR on their savings.

Every billionaire has a unique strategy to achieve high CAGR. For Kim Beom-su, Online Services is the primary source. Whether you choose to invest your savings in your own businesses or the businesses of others is not as important. The salient piece of the puzzle is ensuring that your hard-earned savings are generating sufficient CAGR to reach your long term goals.

Most people simply invest their money in index funds and call it a day. There's nothing wrong with this approach, but it guarantees relative mediocrity. To achieve greatness, you need to invest your money to earn higher than average returns. In the long run, better investors will always finish ahead of better earners.

Source: Grizzly Bulls reporting

Methodology: Grizzly Bulls' Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world's billionaires and richest people. Grizzly Bulls strives to provide the most accurate net worth calculations available. We pull data from public equity markets, SEC filings, public real estate records, and other reputable sources.

The index is dynamic and updates daily at the close of U.S. stock market trading based on changes in the markets, economy, and updates to Grizzly Bulls' proprietary algorithm of personal wealth calculation. Stakes in public companies are tracked daily based on the relevant closing prices of the underlying securities. Additionally, stakes in private companies, cash, real estate, and other less easily valued assets are updated periodically through careful analysis of insider transactions, comparable public company sales / EBITDA multiples, etc.

Edited by: Lee Bailey