Happy 2016!  We are only a few hours away.  Here in Maryland, we are having a Green Christmas, with temperature hovering around the 60s, the Cherry Blossom bloomed already.

I am a most happy dude, cause I just published eBook #8 "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can,  48 Hedge Fund Self-made Billionaires: 22 Lessons for Everyone.", ePublished in Amazon Kindle.  I just made it in 2015 with a few hours spare.  What a feeling!  Now this energize me for 2016.  And I expect another very adventurous and productive year. 

The book tuirned out to be quite intensive, even though I have been reading and learning about the top traders in the world since 1998.  The fun part is there is so much to learn, and our world is changing very fast, faster than ever before.  So, excuse my bias here, you are probably ahead of the curve or you are behind the curve. 

Now, I am working on my next project:  eBook #9 "Fashion Self-made Billionaire".  I am not much of a fashion person, but my wife is.  And I follow her around from shopping mall to shopping mall, doing the favorite American activities: "Shop Till You Drop".

It is amazing to me that booksstores have been closing for the past 10 years.  Now Barnes and Nobles is the only on-the-street bookstore around.  I love books and it is sad to see them disappearing.  Here no shortage of shoe storees.  For every bookstore, there are 100 shoe stores. 

Now, it would be fun  to learn about NIKE, New Balance, Columbia, GAP,  Forever 21, Diesel Jean etc.  I only own Columbia clothing.  

I think last week, the founder of North Face died in a kayak accident somewhere in Chile.  He also created Esprit.  Can;'t remember his name now. 

Wishing everyone a Most Happy and Successful 2016.!

Strange Statyistics: 100,000 Cage People, 350,000 millionaires in Hong Kong

Writing Hong Kong Self-made Billionaires is a fascinating and humbling experience.  I grew up in Hong Kong and I thought I knew it all, until I started gathering all the data

Hong Kong has 100,000 Cage People,  these are not homeless, but they live in Chicken Cages, and obviously created quite a stir when viewed by Westerners -- how can people live like that?

But here in US, we have same or similar problems.  Many foreigners tourists came to see the Homeless in America in LA and NY, where in 1 district, you can find thousands of them, quite a scene for the world's richest country.

here is the strange math:
100,000 cage people = let's say sheep
350,000 millionaires = let's say lions

according to Marxist doctrine, the rich exploit the poor, hence the lions will eat the sheep here.

but with 3.5 lions to each sheep, the lions will soon die of starvation.

the Marxist pyramid only works if there is 1 lion to every 50 sheep

1 sweat shop factory owner to 50 proletariats

you can have 3 factory owners to 1 workers.

-- Let's say LA --
My stats shows LA has 300,000 millionaires and 10,000 homeless

Aha, if we tax the rich in LA, then all the homeless will have swiming pools plus food.

Now, please do not laugh, because under Peron in Argentina, this was exactly what happened.
The govt printed money so the poor can have swimming pool.   Similarly, in Nazis Germany, the government built swimming pool for the workers.  I can only call this a Paradox, cause there is no easy answer to solve all our social ills and income inequality.

I heard people say "Occupy Wall Street", or "Occupy Central District" in HK,
but have yet to hear "Occupy Hollywood" or "Occupy Silicon Valley"

On a Record-Breaking pace.

I am happy, happy, happy.  Yesterday I ePublished my 7th book "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can, 43 Hong Kong Self-made Billionaires: Hong Kong as #1".

My goal is to ePublish eBook #8 "Hedge Fund Self-made Billionaires" before 12/31/2015.  If I can do this, I think I am on world record breaking pace.  I would have published 8 eBooks in One Year.
I don't need a gratitude journal. 

First thing first, I need to edit another version of eBook #7 "Hong Kong SMB".  Once published, I found too many things I am unahappy with.  I will spend 12 hours to read over every sentence and rewrite or rephrase all the awkward phrases.  There is always room for improvement.  I plan to ePublish version 2 by 12/3/2015.

It is 1 am on 12/1/15 and I am back to work, or rather to write.

Day Dreaming or Seeking a Co-author!   Another point of view,  another angle of looking at the same phenomenon.   Our world is changing, and change is accelerating. 

This is the main cause of inequality -- those who are ahead of the curve, and those who are followers.   The pioneers face obstacles, failures and disappointment, but also sense of wonder and adventure.  

This is a 2 year journey of thinking and discovery for me.  My original goal was to write 12 books on self-made billionaires in 2 years.  Divided by 24 months, that gives 2 month for each book.

Now I have ePublished 6, and crossed the half-way line, I set a new goal to finish 13 books in 2 years.  Now, it is not about speed or comfort, but about whether I will actually run out of creative ideas.  After all, the reason I am writing is to create a new vision, a new voice and a different way of viewing and experiencing the world.

The simplistic notion of "the rich get richer , the poor get poorer" is dangerously wrong.  I view it as some people realize their true potential, most don't because of inertia, unwilling to take the first step, the second step, the 10,001 steps to an unknown direction and an unguaranteed future -- the road least travel, or the road that has never been travelled. 

Nov 15, 2015 I will finish writing my 7th eBook "Hong Kong Self-made Billionaires."  Little do I know that Hong Kong is Number One in the world for billionaires.  After I finish the book, I will spend 5 days to re-read the book 3 times and make all necessary changes.  So I hope to epublish by Nov 20, 2015.   I know from past experience that as soon as I ePublish, I will find many areas needing improvement.  So I Nov 20 actually is version 1.  Nov 25 will be final version.  I am very tired and exhausted, but filled with a sense of wonder and awe every day by those entrepreneurs who have done the impossible -- to build a business with 10,000+ employees and 10 million plus customers.

Today I just published my eBook #6 "Zero to Billions: 37 Software Self-made Billionaires: Number One Industry in the World." in kindle Amazon.

Software is the world’s Number One Industry in the past 40 years.  I discover this BY ACCIDENT in the course of researching and writing this eBook.  The claim that Software is Number One Industry is not an exaggeration.   It is based on 4 facts.  The software self-made billionaires are (1) the richest (2) the fastest (3) the youngest and (4) the most numerous.

 First, the software self-made billionaires are the richest.  Bill Gates had been the world’s richest man for 17 of the last 20 years.  And this is after giving away more than $30B to charity.  And Bill Gates has plenty of company.  In 2015, of the 10 richest self-made billionaires in the world, 5 of them made it in software.  They are Larry Ellison of Oracle, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg and Zuckerberg of Facebook.   The wealth gap between software and the other sector is even more shocking than that.  The other 5 sector (Telecom, Fast Fashion, Investment, Conglomerate and Casino) only account for 1 billionaire each.  Software easily beats the next best sector by 5 to 1 margin.

Second, the software self-made billionaires also made their fortunes the fastest.  Bill Gates became the richest man in the world in his early 30s.  In the 19the century, John Rockefeller made it through petroleum or what he called black gold.  While it took Rockefeller more than 25 years to become the richest man on earth, Bill Gates achieved this in about 13 years, or half the time. It is still a world-record.  Software is the speediest industry.  It took Facebook and Google about 10 years to reach users. 

Third, the software self-made billionaires are also the youngest.  In the sample 37 of the world’s software self-made billionaire, the average age is 49.5.  That is more than 15 years younger than the average age of self-made billionaires (about 67).  The youngest self-made billionaire in the world is Evan Spiegel at 25.  Mark Zuckerberg is only 31.  Even Jeff  Bezos, at 51,  is still a very young age for self-made billionaires,  6 of the self-made billionaire are under 40s: they are Evan Spiegel, Garrett Camp, Sean Parker, Teddy Sagi, Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin.

Fourth, the software self-made billionaires are the most numerous.  I could have easily picked 100 plus software self-made billionaires from the Forbes list.  That is about 10% of the world total self-made billionaires (1,101).  No other sector comes even close.

This is my 6th eBook on self-made billionaires.  I had been a programmer for 18 years and even once started my own software company.   I even worked for three internet start-ups.  Writing this book gives me fresh perspective to examine this industry as an objective outsider. 

 I adopt a six W approach.  Who are they?  What are their educational backgrounds?  What kind of software did they create?  Did they collaborate?  (Collaborate means multiple founders instead of solo founders), which countries are they from?  Are there any women?  How old are they?  How did they build their empire?

A couple of surprises came out in the course of writing this book.  First, China is already a powerhouse in software, second only to the US, supplying 8 of the 37 software self-made billionaire.  Second, software is a collaborative industry, over 80% of the software companies are founded by multiple-founders.   A few companies such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Oracle, SAP and Bloomberg are founded by four or more founders. Third, software industry is famous for change and innovation.  Today, both change and innovation are accelerating. Accelerated change will continue to favor software.   No other industries can match Software in (1) low startup cost (2) short product cycle (3) scalability and (4) ability to make other industries more efficient.  Looking ahead for the next 40 years,  Software will continue to be the Number One for the next 40 years.

eBook #5 published today.  I am very happy

on Amazon kindle, the title is "Zero to Billions: Born to Win, 14 Black Self-made Billionaires."

now I am planning next eBook

I am writing book #5  Zero to Billions:  Anyone Can, 13 Black Self-made Billionaires
today I am researching on 2 Nigerian self-made billionaires

Orji Uzor Kalu and Abdulsamad Rabiu

Looking at preliminary data: Nigeria is the Land of Opportunity in Africa, South Africa has only one black self-made billionaire, Nigeria has 8, US has 2, Sudan/UK 1, Ethiopia/Saudi Arabia 1

Nigeria, I am impressed. I talked with my friend Bismarck Likambi , he said he was born in Cameroon and went to high school in Nigeria and he gave me some of the reasons for the dynamic growth

This week's research is like a trip to Africa.

Yesterday was  my happy day

Book #4  "Zero to Billions:  Anyone Can, 31 Under 40 Self-made Billionaires,  How the Young Change the World" was published

Today one copy was purchased

I am now working on Book #5, the title will probably be something like
"Zero to Billions: Anyone Can, 12 Black Self-made Billionaires.  Africa is not for Lions alone but also Billionaire Men and Women".  While I look at the title, amazed how the title could be so long, almost 2 lines.   I wonder who is going to read it, or buy it.

But all that does not matter, the only thing matters now is for me to finish the 12 books

And it is just like running a marathon, except this is a 2 year marathon, and the marathon is 12 books long.

To pace myself, I divide 24 months by 12 books, and that makes it 1 book every 2 months.  In my first year, i.e. 2015  I will have to write 6 books.  Today is 7/29/2015, almost end of August, but still with 5 months remaining.  I like to flatter myself that I am ahead of schedule, and that the half-way mark (6 books) is definitely in sight.

If I can keep up with my present rate, I can finish 6 books before end of November or November 30, 2015, which means next year I won't have to be writing as frantic.

Now, back to action.  It is almost 9pm and I will spend next 3 hours researching on self-made black billionaires

I am working and almost finish my 4th book on self-made billionaires.  The title is "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can: 31 Under 40 Self-made Billionaires".  Now, I am no longer surprised by the data. The date of publishing will probably be July 27th, 2015.    I also want to announce I am making free download of my books available.  My goal is to reach the largest audience possible.

Today I talked to a friend who asked me why I am writing the books and what is the circulation.  That is a great question.

All I can think of is the creative process: being the first to research and write on a topic that is so obviously important, yet so little researched and also so deeply full of bias from the public.

The biggest bias is "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer".   If youngster under 40 (I mean the cut of date is 39 years old and 365 days and not one day more), then one can complain about "the young get richer, the old get poorer".

Business acumen and the art of making money, is not a zero-sum game.  It is not like if you become a billionaire, then you condemn me to be a doorman to you, hence you get richer and I got poorer. It is more like you become a billionaires by growing billions of apples a year, and I can become a billionaires by growing billions of oranges a year.  That is why in some countries there are zero to a few self-made billionaires, but in some countries like US and China, there are hundreds of self-made billionaires, of all ages and sexes.

Enough said, now is time to go back to work, and I mean, work very very hard.

On June 1st, 2015, my third eBook is published

The Title is "Zero to Billions: Anyone Can,  50 High School Self-made Billionaires, 4 Paradoxes"

Yes, I have found more than 300 self-made billionaires with a high school or less education. The reason I am interested in those with high school or less education is because they support my thesis that one can go from Zero Dollars to Billion Dollars. Most of the billionaires in the world are self-made, but those with little formal education makes the most interesting study.

You are the Average of your 5 Best Friends -- Why you should start here

Birds of Same Feather Flock Together, and so is true of humans.
Men or Women of the Same Character Gather Together.  It used to be called a club.  On the internet, it is called a tribe.

A strange truth:  you are probably the average of your five best friends.

If most of your best friends are millionaires, you probably are one already.

If most of your best friends are fat, you probably are fat -- cause you eat out together.

In some way, this is why this blog was created.

Carlos Slims (above) refuses to interview with me.

To find a self-made billionaire as mentor is almost an impossible task. 

So, this website is created so you can find all the information you need,  plus lots of  ideas and information on how the self-made billionaires made their fortune.

You won't be able to talk to a billionaire; but you don't need to, cause the same questions have been posed to the same billionaires a thousand times by different people.


What if I don't want to be a billionaire?  I don't even want to be a millionaire.

Then please pass on this information to your daughters and sons, your brothers and sisters and your friends.  They will find you COOL and INTERESTING.

In my humble opinion, a conversation on self-made billionaires beat a conversation on self-made vampires.  A few years ago, I was a voracious vampire book reader.  I converted my interest from vampires to billionaires.   And I never look back. 

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the content here,  and please leave a comment for any advice to improve.

Zero to Billions -- My Second Book

It was published on 2/25/2015.

What?  From Zero Dollars to Billions Dollars?  This sounds too good to be true.  It cannot be done.

No, it can be done.  In 2014,  I built up a database of all the self-made billionaires in the world, , and I have found hundreds of people have gone from zero dollars to billions of dollars .   The purpose of this book is to show how.

Actually, the theory is based on Einstein Theory of Insanity

To become a self-made billionaire, you must do different things, do extreme things,

In terms of human achievement, the self-made billionaires should be ranked equal to Nobel Prize Winners.  This is because they have  the money power to benefit millions of people by (1) creating universities and hospitals (2) creating foundations (3) building museums (4) saving millions of baby lives by giving out free vaccines etc.  I view the self-made billionaires as role models, not evil exploiters. 

My approach to this book is 50% know-hows and 50% story telling.   I find this balance makes the book fast-paced, effective and more entertaining.  And with the fascinating life and achievement of 13 great geniuses, you will be able to trace and following their footstep to go from zero to billions easily.  

I think I have selected the best billionaires and the best stories. The 13 billionaires I chose are the best and most successful billionaires.  What is most surprising is they also started life the worst circumstances.  Thomas Edison had only 3 months of schooling and he was half-deaf.  Those are two huge handicap.  Ben Franklin was a run-away kid at age 17 and he had one year of schooling.  Chung Ju-Yung, too, was a run-away kid and later became the richest man in South Korea, founding empires after empires from construction to shipbuilding to automobiles. Dhirubhai Ambani dropped out of school at age 17, and went on to build the biggest Indian company and India’s first Fortune 500 company.   Rosalia Mera dropped out of school at age 11 to work as a seamstress, co-founded Zara Fashion, and became the richest self-made women in  the world.

How did they do this?   I summarize using a simple formula; derived from Einstein Theory of Insanity, with a twist of wicked fun: called

   EEE = BBBB

This is the Quantum Theory of Money
where EEE = Einstein Theory of Extreme Entrepreneurs

and
B = Beginning
B = Beliefs
B = Behaviors
B = Billions or Bankrupt

For 90% of the self-made billionaires in this book, they went through multiple bankruptcies over many years.   So, they just persevere,  never give up, start again and eventually succeeded.

36 Self-Made Women Billionaires -- My First Book

The growth of self-made women billionaire will be the biggest event in the 21st Century.  Right now they comprises less than 4% of the world's self-made billionaires.  

This is my first eBook.  It is available at amazon Kindle for 99 cents. You can read it on your iPhone.
The second one is "Zero to Billions", is already published at Kindle too.

Sometime in June, 2015 I will make it available to the public for free.

All I can hope for is someone will buy the book.

Since I am not woman, I feel strange writing about it.

I have a database of over 1,000 self-made billionaires.  I chose to start with women, because I need to start somewhere and I need to start small.  Somehow the number 36 is a lot more doable than 1,000.

Quiz:  Do you know who she is?  Tips: one of 36 self-made women billionaires in this book and the richest self-made woman in Africa.

She is still single.

If you don't know who she is, watch more TV.

Quiz:  Who is she?  Tip: She is the richest self-made woman billionaire in the world in 2014
and she has the same last name as me.

Loved by billions, she is the second British Invasion of the World after the Beatles.

Rosalia Mera of Spain and co-founder of ZARA,  She dropped out of school at 11,  was richest self-made woman in the world in 2013.

Quiz:  Who is she?   Tip.  She is one of two self-made woman billionaires from Wisconsin.  She is co-founder of ABC Supply.


-----------
There are currently 36 Self-made Woman Billionaires in the world. This is a study of how these superwomen made their fortunes? I adopt the 6-W approach. (1) Why do we need to study Self-made billionaires? (2) Where do they come from? Which countries? Are there any immigrants? Are any of them from small towns? (3) Who are they? (4) How did they make their money? Which sector? (5) What did they study? What educational background do they have? Did they attend elite universities? (4) What kind of spousal support did they receive? What kind of family support did they receive? Do all of them get their start-up capital from venture capitalist or from Wall Street? (6) How many of them are married? What is their average age? What is their average number of children? What is their average number of divorce etc?

The biggest surprise I found is “You can have it all”. Besides wealth, this group is also relatively young, with an average age of 58, about 10 years younger than their male counterparts. Not bad, isn’t it? Over 95% of them are married and over 90% have children, with average number of children 2.7. And about one third of them re high school dropouts, high school graduate or college dropouts. A few of them are household names, such as Oprah Winfrey and JK Rowling,  Most are little known even in their own countries.

This is the first of a series of book on self-made billionaires. We build museum to house famous artists. We adore great athletes in Olympics and Word Cup. We adore super-entertainers, and we create Nobel Prize for super-scientist and super-politicians. So, my question is: why not celebrate self-made billionaires too? Why not build a pantheon for self-made billionaires?

There are two reasons why I chose woman group to start. The first reason is start-small, a most valuable lesson I learned in start-up failures I have had. The woman group with only 36 members, allows me to start-small. The second reason is my Christian values, which lead me to favor the disadvantaged group (woman, high school, minority) over more established group.

In alphabetical order, the 36 superwomen are:

1. Alakija, Folorunsho (Oil) from Nigeria
2. Aponte, Rafaella (Shipping) from Switzerland
3. Baturina, Elena (Construction) from Russia
4. Benetton, Giuliana (Fashion) from Italy
5. Blakely, Sarah (Fashion) from US
6. Burch, Tory (Fashion) from US
7. Chan, Laiwa (Real Estate) from China
8. Chang, Jin Sook (Fashion) from US
9. Chen, Ningning (Steel) from China
10. Cherng, Peggy (Fast Food) from US
11. Cheung, Yan (Waste Paper) from China
12. Chu Lam-Yiu (Fragrance) from China
13. Coates, Denise (Gambling) from UK
14. Cook, Gayle (Medical Equipment) from US
15. Dai, Weili (Semi-conductor) from US
16. Faulkner, Judy (Health IT) from US
17. Fisher, Doris (Fashion) from US
18. Hawken, Xiu Li (Real Estate) from China
19. He, Qiaonv (Landscape Architecture) from China
20. Hendricks, Diane (Roofing) from US
21. Holmes, Elizabeth (Blood Testing) from US
22. Ilitch, Marian (Fast Food) from US
23. Lei, Jufang (Traditional Medicine) from China
24. Liu, Xiaomeng (Electronic Retail) from China
25. Love, Judy (Truck Stop Convenience Store) from US
26. Mazumdar-Shaw, Kiran (Biotech) from India
27. Perkins. Mary (Eye Care) from UK
28. Resnick, Lynda (Agriculture) from US
29. Rowling, JK (Writer) from UK
30. Sandberg, Cheryl (Social Media) from US
31. Wang, Laichun (Outsourcing) from China
32. Whitman, Meg (eCommerce) from US
33. Winfrey, Oprah (TV) from US
34. Wu, Yajun (Real Estate) from China
35. Zhang, Xin (Real Estate) from China
36. Rosalia Mera (Fashion) from Spain (died August 2013)