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Grizzly Bulls’ Billionaires Index

⬅ # 163 Leonard Lauder|# 165 John Tu ➡

# 164 Terry Gou 

$12.0B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$539.9M (-4.50%)

# 164 Terry Gou 

$12.0B

Real Time Net Worth
as of 7/2/2024
-$539.9M (-4.50%)
OccupationFounder, Foxconn
Source of WealthElectronics
Age73
ResidenceTaipei, Taiwan
Marital StatusWidowed, Remarried
Children5
EducationTaipei University of Marine Technology
Age-Adjusted Net Worth$4.98B
Terry Gou
Terry Gou
Taiwan
Net worth: $12.0B

Self-Made Score 

Wealth History

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Biography

Overview

Terry Gou, born on October 18, 1950, in Banqiao Township, Taipei County (now Banqiao District, New Taipei), is a Taiwanese billionaire businessman and politician.
Gou's parents fled mainland China's Shanxi Province to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Civil War, where his father served as a policeman for the Kuomintang.
He fulfilled his national service obligations in the Republic of China Air Force as an anti-aircraft artillery officer stationed in Kinmen.
Gou founded Hon Hai Precision Industry (Foxconn) in 1974 with $7,500 in startup capital and ten elderly employees, which grew to become the world's largest electronics contract manufacturer.
His early ventures included manufacturing plastic parts for television sets and receiving a pivotal order from Atari to make console joysticks.
In 1988, he opened Foxconn's first factory in Shenzhen, scaling up production and integrating worker facilities into a comprehensive campus.

Business Ventures

Gou expanded Foxconn's operations by securing contracts with major tech companies like Compaq, HP, IBM, and Apple, transforming it into a consumer electronics giant.
He advocated for Apple to relocate its manufacturing to Taiwan, and he owns HMD Global, which sells Nokia-branded phones.
Gou became the largest shareholder in the biotech company Eirgenix in April 2021, and his influence helped persuade the Chinese government to ease COVID-19 restrictions in December 2022.

Political Career

In 2019, Gou joined the Kuomintang (KMT) and ran for president, citing a dream in which he was instructed by the sea goddess Mazu.
He withdrew from the 2020 presidential race after losing in the Kuomintang primary but re-entered politics in 2023, announcing a bid for the 2024 presidential election.
Despite officially qualifying as an independent candidate for the 2024 election, Gou withdrew from the race in November 2023.

Controversies and Personal Life

Gou faced controversies, including comparing Foxconn's workforce to animals in a board meeting in 2012, which he defended as a metaphorical statement.
He made anti-Korean remarks in 2012, using a racial slur, and has expressed opposition to the Taiwan independence movement while supporting the one-China framework.
Gou's personal life includes charitable endeavors, an extramarital affair in the 1990s, and marriages to Serena Lin (1950–2005) and Delia Tseng (born 1974), with whom he has three children.

How long would it take you to become as rich as Terry Gou?

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 Terry Gou's net worth of $12.0B.

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.

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Terry Gou 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 Terry Gou, Electronics 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