Billionaire Bill Gates has said he reads about a book a week.

We sifted through years of his book recommendations to find 12 that made especially strong impressions on him. Read on to find out why he enjoyed each one.

Here are the links to find each book:

"Tap Dancing to Work" by Carol Loomis

"Making the Modern World" by Vaclav Smil

"The Sixth Extinction" by Elizabeth Kolbert

"Stress Test" by Timothy Geithner

"The Better Angels of Our Nature" by Steven Pinker

"The Man Who Fed the World" by Leon Hesser

"Business Adventures" by John Brooks

"The Bully Pulpit" by Doris Kearns Goodwin

"The Rosie Project" by Graeme Simsion

"On Immunity" by Eula Biss

"How Asia Works" by Joe Studwell

"How to Lie With Statistics" by Darrell Huff

Drake Baer contributed research to this article. 

SEE ALSO: 9 books to read if you want to be a billionaire

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Amazon is on a hot streak. The ecommerce giant has steadily transformed from a company bent on spending to a company rolling in cash as of late, culminating recently in its third straight quarter of record-breaking profit.

Naturally, these gains have boded well for Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos.

As this chart from Statista shows, Bezos is now the second richest tech billionaire in the world, with an estimated net worth of $66.2 billion. The figure comes from Forbes’ “100 Richest in Tech” report, which was published earlier this week, and pegs Bezos’ $18.4 billion year-over-year rise as enough to overtake last year’s number two, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg leapfrogged Ellison as well. None of them, however, can reach Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who continues to top the list by some distance.

In any case, when it comes to tech, the rich are only getting richer.

SEE ALSO: Startups are relying more and more on big companies to fund them

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NOW WATCH: Forget solar panels — Elon Musk wants to build Solar roofs

Wealth research and insight firm Wealth-X recently released its annual Billionaire Census — a report identifying and analyzing the different trends and behaviors of the world's 2,473 billionaires, including the most common hobbies and the regions of the world that play host to the most tycoons.

Europe is home to the most billionaires with 806, followed by Asia (645) and North America (628).

But at $2.56 trillion, North America's uber-wealthy are the richest — thanks in part to Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who is still the wealthiest person on the planet, with a net worth of $77.1 billion. 

Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific each are home to titans of industry with eye-popping fortunes in their own right, and Wealth-X identified the richest from each region. 

Read on to learn about the wealthiest person in every part of the globe. 

Emmie Martin and Tanza Loudenback contributed reporting.

SEE ALSO: The 20 most common hobbies of the richest people in the world

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Pacific: Gina Rinehart

Net Worth: $9.5 billion

Country: Australia

Industry: Mining

The richest person in Australia is mining tycoon Gina Rinehart. Her family was one of the largest landowners in the country, and her father vastly increased their wealth in the 1950s by establishing an iron-ore prospecting business on their vast holdings that would become Hancock Prospecting. Rinehart, 62, was born into wealth, but greatly expanded her lot, including inking a partnership between Hancock and natural resources behemoth Rio Tinto on a massive iron ore project called Hope Downs.

Slumping iron ore prices have diminished her fortune in recent years. Rinehart has also been involved in long, drawn-out legal battle with two of her children over control of significant chunks of the family fortune. 

Africa: Aliko Dangote

Net Worth: $10.4 billion

Country: Nigeria

Industry: Diversified investments

At 20, Nigerian businessman Aliko Dangote borrowed money from his uncle to start a business that dealt in commodities trading, cement, and building materials. He quickly expanded to import cars during the country's economic boom. Four years later, in 1981, he formed Dangote Group, an international conglomerate that now holds diversified interests including food and beverages, plastics manufacturing, real estate, logistics, telecommunications, steel, oil, and gas.

The majority of the 59-year-old Dangote's wealth stems from his stake in Dangote Cement, which is publicly traded on the Nigerian Stock Exchange and is worth some $9.5 billion. 

Middle East: Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz al Saud

Net Worth: $19.7

Country: Saudi Arabia

Industry: Diversified investments

Prince Alwaleed — grandson of Abdul Aziz al Saud, the first ruler of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia — built his fortune with savvy investments in a range of companies across the US and the Middle East. He founded Kingdom Holding Co. in 1980 and has since invested in everything from real estate to entertainment to education, with stakes in companies like Twitter, The Four Seasons, Time Warner, and Motorola.

Alwaleed, 61, has an enigmatic relationship with his money. In 2013, he sued Forbes for allegedly underestimating his wealth. But last summer he announced plans to donate his entire fortune to charity anyway.

What do all billionaires have in common?

Well, besides the size of their bank accounts, many of them exhibit special traits and personality quirks that have helped them achieve unlimited success — and impressive fortunes.

Click through to find out if you have any of these 21 traits that billionaires like Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates possess.

If so, maybe you, too, will one day become a billionaire.

SEE ALSO: 11 daily habits of self-made billionaires anyone can adopt

DON'T MISS: 21 of the best places in the world to meet a billionaire

1. Oprah Winfrey: Grateful

The former queen of daytime television doesn’t let her $3.1 billion net worth get to her head. Despite her abundant success, Oprah Winfrey's constant gratitude is truly humbling. In fact, Winfrey has had a gratitude journal for at least 10 years.

"I know for sure that appreciating whatever shows up for you in life changes your personal vibrations," she wrote in the November 2012 issue of "O, The Oprah Magazine.""You radiate and generate more goodness for yourself when you're aware of all you have and not focusing on your have-nots."

2. Warren Buffett: Patient

Warren Buffett, the second-richest man in America behind Bill Gates, built his roughly $65 billion net worth by simply taking his time. Not a fan of trendy stocks or knee-jerk reactions to market fluctuations, Buffett has a “set it and forget it” investing philosophy.

On the "Dan Patrick Show," Buffett said one of the biggest money mistakes when it comes to money is trying to get rich quick.

“It’s pretty easy to get well-to-do slowly," he said. "But it’s not easy to get rich quick.”

3. Bill Gates: Humble

If you want to become a billionaire and be like the richest man in the world, practice being charitable — and humble.

Bill Gates and his wife Melinda have devoted their money and time to improving the lives of the world’s poorest people. But despite his generous donations, Gates recognizes that others are making contributions that he says are more meaningful than his.

“I’m not giving up food, or vacation, or a trip to the movies” to give charitably, Gates said in a video interview for Reddit. “I essentially sacrifice nothing that I want, and there are people who are out in the field and they're giving more ... they're the biggest philanthropists.”

On September 7, Michael Dell once again defied the naysayers and closed the largest technology acquisition in history, the $65 billion purchase of EMC.

With an estimated net worth of $20 billion, Dell is one of the wealthiest people in the world.

From his early career as one of the youngest CEOs of a Fortune 500 company until today, Dell is used to getting his way.

He was only 23 when his company had its IPO in 1988, and soon he was a billionaire.

Dell lives the extravagant life of a successful businessman as well, complete with all of the private planes, summer homes, and sweet rides you'd expect from a billionaire.

SEE ALSO: These are the 10 best countries for computer programming — and the US didn't make the list

Michael Dell was born on Feb. 23, 1965, in Houston, Texas. He was fascinated with gadgets from a young age — when he was 15, he bought one of the first Apple computers and disassembled it to see if he could put it back together.

Source: Academy of Achievement

When he was in high school, he got a job selling newspaper subscriptions. After figuring out how to target an untapped customer base, he made $18,000 in just one year.

Source: Academy of Achievement

Though he was really only interested in computers, Dell entered the University of Texas at Austin as a pre-med student in 1983. He spent his spare time upgrading PCs and selling them from his dorm room, making $180,000 in his first month of business. Though he never came back for his sophomore year of classes, he returned to his dorm for a photo opp in 1999.

Source: Entrepreneur

Ralph Lauren is a name synonymous with American fashion. And yet, the story of how he built one of the largest fashion companies in the world from nothing isn't quite so well-known.

Lauren's net worth is now estimated to be nearly $6 billion, according to Forbes.

Here's how he amassed that wealth, and what he uses it for.

SEE ALSO: How a former lawyer quit his office job to revolutionize how men buy luxury bespoke suits

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Ralph Lifshitz was born in New York City in 1939, the youngest of four by Russian Jewish immigrants. As a teenager, he changed his last name to Lauren and walked around his Bronx neighborhood wearing outlandish styles like army fatigues and tweed jackets.

Source: O, The Oprah Magazine

After dropping out of Baruch College two years in, he enlisted in the US Army and served from 1962 to 1964. He then had a short stint as a tie salesman at Brooks Brothers and another, now-defunct tie company.

Source: O, The Oprah Magazine

By 26, he was designing and selling his own neckwear. He put together "rags" and fashioned them into ties. He designed a distinctive fatter, European-style neck tie, making them "out of a drawer" in the Empire State Building.

Source: O, The Oprah Magazine

Editor's note: This post was first published in 2014 on Wait But Why.

What would happen if you sold everything you own, liquidated any investments you have, paid off all of your debts, and withdrew whatever cash you have in bank accounts?

You’d be standing on the street naked, with nowhere to go, holding a bunch of cash, and people would be looking at you.

And whatever cash you were holding would be your net worth.

Okay now, imagine that everyone else in the world does that too (just pretend that makes sense), and all the people of the world, naked and holding their wealth in cash, come together and throw their wealth into a big pile together.

How much money would be in that pile?

$241,000,000,000,000.

The combined wealth of all the people of the world is $241 trillion.¹

So at this point, the whole human race would be standing there together, all naked, all broke, looking at a massive pile of cash.

Okay, so we’re all in a bit of an odd situation here. Let’s start by organizing the pile, converting it all into $100 bills and making a huge stack of them.

One hundred $100 bills ($10,000) makes a 1.09cm-thick stack, so a million dollars stacked is a little over a meter, a billion dollars is a little over a kilometer, and $241 trillion makes a 262,000km-high stack, which reaches 68% of the way to the moon.

Now let’s spread all those bills out on the ground in a single layer. The area of a bill is 103cm², so 2.41 trillion of them would just about cover Vermont.

And converting them all to $1 bills, 241 trillion $1 bills would cover Algeria.

Okay enough bills. Let’s try gold. If you took all the gold ever mined in the world and melted it down into a cube, it would have a side of 20.7 meters (and be worth $8.6 trillion).²

Kind of surprisingly small, right? Well how big would the gold cube be if we had enough gold to represent all $241 trillion of the world’s wealth?

It would be a cube with sides of about 63 meters.

So that cube is what we’re all working with here. And if the world’s wealth were distributed completely evenly and every adult human had an even share, everyone would have $51,600, or this much gold:

But wealth isn’t evenly distributed. Let’s look at what the world’s wealthiest 1% of people have versus the other 99% of people?

How about the top 10%?

To further demonstrate just how uneven wealth distribution actually is, let’s bring out some of the world’s richest billionaires.³

Who the hell is Amancio Ortega? I don’t know who you are, please leave.

So Credit Suisse came out with a report recently that revealed that the bottom half of humanity—3.5 billion people—has less than 1% of the world’s total wealth. And starting from the top, it only takes the combined wealth of the richest 85 people to equal the wealth of the bottom 3.5 billion people.

To put that in perspective, 85 is 1/84 millionth of the world population. So if one jellybean represents 85 people, the human race could be represented with 84 million jellybeans, which would just about fill 2 five-meter-high cubes:

So the richest jellybean in the rich-half box has the same wealth as the entire poor-half box combined:

To further explore the kind of wealth these 85 people have, let’s take Mark Zuckerberg, the youngest of this group of 85 people that makes up the richest jellybean.

Mark is worth just about $30 billion. 1,074 cubic cm is about $1 million of gold. This amount of gold can be made into a big gold coin with a diameter of 26cm (about a foot) and a thickness of 2cm (about an inch). Mark Zuckerberg’s $30 billion can be converted into 30,000 of these million-dollar gold coins:

To help us appreciate how much money that is, think about this: the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, cost $1.5 billion to build. That’s what Mark Zuckerberg makes each year off the interest on his wealth (if he made 5% in interest)—enough to build a new Burj Khalifa each year without denting into his wealth.

Another way to look at it is by understanding how vastly richer a billionaire is than a millionaire. To help demonstrate this point, let’s bring Alex Rodriguez into the discussion, who is worth $300 million—right around the same level as the richest movie stars. And A-Rod’s wealth amounts to only 1% of Mark Zuckerberg’s.

How about someone lower down in the wealthiest 1% group—a lesser millionaire? A rich lawyer might have a net worth of $3 million, which is 1% of what A-Rod has.

The rich lawyer is rich by almost anyone’s standards, but he has nothing compared to A-Rod (1/100th) or Mark Zuckerberg (1/10,000th). Still, because he’s part of the wealthiest 1% of both the world and the US⁵, we routinely group these three people together in the “1%” category. Categorizing Zuckerberg with the lawyer is as crazy as grouping the lawyer together with someone who has 1/10,000th of what he has—a high school kid who has $300 to his name.

Moving on from the one percenters, let’s bring in an ordinary American. In fact, let’s bring in the ordinary American—the one with the exact median net worth, $44,911.¹

While the mean US net income, at $301,140,¹ is one of the world’s highest, the median US net income is far lower and only the 27th highest in the world. It’s a mistake to say that the mean, $301,140, represents the average American’s net worth—that’s just what the wealth of each American would be if all American wealth were divided evenly. For example, in a country of ten people, where nine of them hovered around $30,000 net worth and the tenth was worth $10 million, the mean ($1.027 million) would suggest that the average person was a millionaire. The median wealth would be around $30,000 and a much more accurate representation of how the average person was actually doing.

Likewise, our ordinary American above having the median US net worth means that half of Americans are richer than he is and half are poorer. He’s the average American, and with a net worth of just under $45,000, he’s doing worse than the average member of 26 other countries, including not-so-wealthy countries like Greece and Slovenia.¹ The US’s mean wealth / median wealth ratio of 6.7 is one of the highest in the world and suggests that wealth inequality is particularly high in the US.

And how about an average human? How much wealth does the median adult in the world have?

About $4,000.¹

Even if you adjust for the cost of living in poorer countries, this is pretty low. And this is the median human wealth, meaning that half of all adults have less than $4,000 to their name.

Sure. What seems to be the problem?

Okay annoying, but I guess also fair. Let’s fix this by converting the gold into a big potato of equal value.

How big a potato could you buy with all the world’s wealth? If a typical potato sells in the US for $.33 and a potato is about 15 cubic inches, or 246 cubic cm, so $241 trillion would buy you 179 cubic km of potato, or a potato about 60km long.

How big a pizza could we buy for $241 trillion?

A Domino’s 14″ pizza goes for $19 (at least in New York), which comes out to 52.3cm² per dollar. Using that rate, we can convert all human wealth to a pizza with area 1.26 million km², which is just about the area of Niger.

As for water, at Poland Spring’s rate of $1 for a 16.9oz bottle, I can convert the world’s wealth into a 31.8 trillion-gallon bottle with a height of 11.6km, just above where airplanes fly.

Sources

1. Global Wealth Report, Credit Suisse, October 2013.
2. Thomas Reuters GFMS Release – Gold Survey 2013.
3. Forbes Billionaires: Full List of the World’s 500 Richest People.
4. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0717.pdf
5. http://www.joshuakennon.com/how-much-money-does-it-take-to-be-in-the-top-1-of-wealth-and-net-worth-in-the-united-states/
6. Oxfam Briefing Paper – Working for the Few
7. United Nations – The World Distribution of Household Wealth
8. Unicef – Global Inequality: Beyond the Bottom Billion
9. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPP

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Rich people love to travel as much as the rest of us. In fact, it's a favorite hobby among billionaires.

But when the 1% travel, the word takes on an entirely new meaning.

"Travel is the currency of status; it's far more about the experiences you have as opposed to whether you're driving the latest Rolls Royce or whether your wife has the latest Hermès handbag," said Anthony Lassman, cofounder of London-based luxury travel- and lifestyle-management company Nota Bene Global, in a recent interview with Business Insider.

Lassman and his wife Elaine launched Nota Bene — meaning "note well" or "take note" in Italian — in 2005 to offer tailor-made, travel-planning services to the ultra high net worth crowd. The Lassmans drew knowledge from their careers as publishers of premier travel and destination review guides as well as several years selling high-end real estate.

Nota Bene serves clients with net worths upwards of $200 million, with several in the billion-dollar range. Lassman describes them as "cash rich and time poor"— those seeking once-in-a-lifetime experiences who don't have the time to research and plan to the degree that suits them.

Increasingly, clients are coming from "Silicon Valley kind of money," Lassman said. They're people who made money in their 20s, 30s, and early 40s who push boundaries in order to have unique experiences.

"People who have striven really hard, and achieved really hard, are risk takers," Lassman said. These businesspeople tend to take more risks in their travel, and it's often thanks to the flexibility and security of their wealth. They place their safety — and their money — in the hands of Lassman and his team.

For about $26,000 annually, clients enlist Nota Bene to plan, book, and manage every detail of their travels.

"In the same way that an asset manager manages private wealth, we manage time and experience. We manage curated experiences," Lassman said.

Nota Bene operates in two ways: Clients either approach Nota Bene with destination requests and the company crafts detailed itineraries for them, or Note Bene presents once-in-a-lifetime experiences to clients based on their travel research of what's trending.

Nota Bene's range of possibility is virtually endless and includes experiences like flying privately from Cape Town, South Africa, to Antarctica; taking a private jet through Rajasthan, India, at dawn to glimpse the Taj Mahal before the overbearing crowds gather; and lunching with the Louis Roederer family at their private estate in France's Champagne country.

But no matter the destination or experience they seek, Lassman noted that his wealthy clients always expect two things: exclusive access and one-step-ahead service.

1. Exclusive access

The Lassmans have spent 30 years in travel and real estate cultivating connections with hotel managers, restaurants, tour guides, experts, and businesses around the globe. Their connections grant their clients access to exclusive destinations and events in both the world's largest cities and far-off corners.

"We have one estate that comes with a private plane and a helicopter and it's on Mount Kenya— 3,000 feet above the Great Rift Valley. You wake up in the morning and [the staff] will say 'What do you feel like doing?' You can go to truly authentic markets, go fly fishing up on Mount Kenya ... anything," Lassman said.

Clients also turn to Nota Bene for access to world-renowned events, including couture fashion shows, the Grand Prix in Monaco, the Cannes Film Festival, the Oscars, and the Palio Di Siena horse race in Italy, where balcony seats cost €15,000 for the hourlong event.

As such, there are certain destinations that the wealthiest tend to frequent year after year. Lassman calls these places "the watering holes of the rich" and considers summer spots like Capri, St. Tropez, Mykonos, and the Mediterranean, and winter locations like Jackson Hole, Aspen, and San Moritz, among them.

"Access is key," Lassman said. "There are very few things we can't provide access to."

2. Top-tier service

About one-third of Nota Bene's approximately 150 clients belong to the company's bespoke-level service with several opting to trade up from their lower-tier service, which costs $6,500 and grants access to online travel guides and generic travel planning but does not include the minute-by-minute management enjoyed at the bespoke level. The $22,000 annual fee for the bespoke service may seem steep to outsiders, but Lassman assures the price is justified.

"We're tracking them every single day, we're there for them. We're in constant contact with them and the hotel behind the scenes," Lassman said.

Perks of the top-tier service include private check-in rooms and frequent upgrades to suites at hotels, hand-selected welcome amenities, the option to ship luggage to and from destinations, arrangement of personal security services, and hand-picked staff teams, including chefs, housekeepers, and, if needed, childcare services or nannies.

Nota Bene's travel managers spend time familiarizing themselves with the habits and requests of each client to ensure they'll meet their wants and needs.

"We're always thinking one step ahead, preparing. It really is like putting on a great theater performance — when the curtains go back it all has to be perfect."

SEE ALSO: The 5 favorite hotels of wealthy people around the world

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The world is a scary place, and there are lots of things that could go terribly wrong at any minute. 

According to The Hollywood Reporter, sales of high-end luxury bunkers by Texas-based Rising S Bunkers have risen by 700% this year compared to 2015. As a whole, sales have risen by 150%. Rising S Bunkers believes the turbulence of the upcoming election has people worried about the future. 

"Any time there is a turbulent political landscape, we see a spike in our sales. Given this election is as turbulent as it is, we are gearing up for an even bigger spike," marketing director Brad Roberson said to The Hollywood Reporter.

Rising S Bunkers sells many of its underground safe havens to actors, politicians, and professional athletes. Bunkers start at about $39,000 and go up to $8.35 million. One particularly popular request is the secret door — whether that's accessed by playing certain notes on a piano or by dialing a number in a phone booth.

"In the past year, I have performed installations inside two nuclear-protected complexes with more than 10 secret doors each, one in the L.A. area owned by a plastic surgeon," Steve Humble, president of Arizona's Creative Home Engineering, said.

But it turns out that Rising S Bunkers and Creative Home Engineering are not the only companies helping affluent customers prepare for the apocalypse. Vivos, which was founded by Robert Vicino, plans to build a network of high-end, underground bunkers for those who can afford to pay for their assured safety. A representative for Vivos told Business Insider that demand for bunkers has gone up "exponentially" in recent months. 

And just how much is Vivos asking? For a spot in a standard bunker, Vicino says, you'll be set back about $35,000. But if you want a spot in Vivos' ultra-luxury bunker, Europa One, it will cost you much more – and you'll have to score an invite from Vivos first.

"Individual chambers are being bought for $5 million," Vicino said to Business Insider last October. "You get a shell with utilities, and then you can build out the living quarters however you want." 

Each family who buys in will get two stories of space to outfit to their liking. That could include swanky furnishings like plush leather couches and high-end bars, or it could mean additional amenities like swimming pools, movie theaters, and private gyms. 

But you don't have to be a billionaire to be safe from the apocalypse. Vivos just announced a new project called xPoint, which is a cluster of more than 500 concrete bunkers that can house as many as 5,000 people somewhere in the middle of the US. The company is selling 99-year leases for $25,000.

Vivos also offers two other private bunker services — Quantum, made for families or small groups, and Trine, for groups between 150 and 500 people. 

Vicino said that they can build these shelters to the group's exact specifications, and they're able to withstand any disaster for a year or longer. He said they're ramping up construction of the shelters all over the place, but especially in Argentina and Canada. In the event of a global catastrophe, discretion will be key to protecting survivors, so Vivos doesn't disclose exactly where they're building.

They don't even hire outside contractors out of fear the secret will get out. 

He added: "We're everywhere, but where we're not is where you expect us to be." 

SEE ALSO: Here's what you get with a $26,000-per-year luxury travel membership

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NOW WATCH: This is how billionaires can buy their survival during an apocalypse

Asia has reportedly produced a new billionaire every week.

Well, it turns out to be much faster than that.

A new report by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers found that one billionaire pops up in Asia every three days, outpacing all other regions in the world.

China accounted for 71% of Asia's new billionaires in 2015, up from 35% in 2009, according to the report, which has analyzed data covering more than 1,300 billionaires over the past two decades.

Of 113 Asian entrepreneurs who reached billionaire status last year, 80 of them are from China, the report says. That's more than half of the world's total count, and means China gains a new billionaire every five days. 

Last September, the government earmarked innovation reform as a priority. "Promoting entrepreneurship and innovation will offer college graduates opportunities for fair competition no matter where in the country they come from," Premier Li Keqiang said in a meeting with tech companies.

This fosters a favorable environment for young Chinese entrepreneurs to get rich fast, according to the report.

Here is UBS-PwC:

"Almost half of these came from the technology (19%), consumer & retail (15%) and real estate (15%) sectors. E-commerce businesses are in the ascendancy. At the same time, many of the country’s wealthy are diversifying out of their existing businesses into real estate. Moreover, China’s urbanization and increasing consumer spending have fostered an environment where businesses are growing fast."

Outside China, but still in Asia, Hong Kong and India had the highest number of new billionaires at 11 each, according to the report.

Meanwhile, Europe was home to 56 new billionaires. Most European billionaires inherited their wealth, which was almost unchanged from the previous year at $1.3 trillion.

The count of new US billionaires was relatively stagnant. While 41 people achieving billionaire status last year, 36 dropped out of the group, according to the report.

Of note, one key difference between US self-made billionaires and the rest of the world is that they tend to cash out or pass much of their wealth to philanthropies, said Steven Crosby, senior managing director of global private banking and wealth management at PwC.

In Europe, there's a much stronger family dynasty culture, thanks to a shared vision and clear governance, the report says. 

SEE ALSO: Things are looking up for China

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NOW WATCH: An economist explains why Clinton’s plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 might be 'too much, too quickly'

Even the world's ultra-rich are feeling the pinch of a slowing economy. (Sort of.)

Thanks to falling commodity prices, the stronger dollar, and the dilution of wealth in growing families, total billionaire wealth dropped by $300 billion to $5.1 trillion last year, according to a new report by UBS and PwC. On average, their collective wealth fell to $3.7 billion from $4 billion.

"For the first time since the aftermath of the global financial crisis, billionaires' wealth grew at a slower rate than global GDP growth," John Mathews, head of ultra high net worth at UBS Wealth Management Americas, said at a media briefing Thursday.

Here is UBS-PwC:

"After two decades of outperforming global stock markets, billionaires’ fortunes failed to match them. They fell 5%, against a flat MSCI World Index (down 0.3%). Over the past 20 years, billionaire wealth has increased by a factor of seven, double the MSCI World Index’s 3.5. Furthermore, in 2015, neither billionaires nor the stock market matched the economy’s expansion. Global GDP grew 2.4%, down from 2.6% in 2014, according to the World Bank."

Mining and energy billionaires were hit the hardest, with their average wealth dropping by almost a fifth last year, according to the report. Those in the industrials sector shed 12% of their fortunes, while those in consumer and retail lost 8% in the same period.

Technology and finance, which the researchers dubbed as "the motors of great wealth creation," have hit a wall.
Billionaires in the former saw no change in their average wealth, while the latter saw a 3% decline, according to the report.

A surprising number of families also dropped out of billionaires status in 2015. The report found that since 1995, 90% of billionaires' fortunes didn't make pass through to the second generation.

There are two main drivers behind the fallout: dilution and market risks. When people live longer, inherited wealth may be spread across several generations, hence a much quicker dilution.

Rich families' ability to navigate growing uncertainty and market volatility is key, said Michael Spellacy, global wealth leader at PwC US.

"The monetary policy we've seen executed cross the globe has a powerful impact on helping our recovery progress, but also has unintended consequences, and has certainly fed into uncertainties about the future," Spellacy said. "The rising tide of populism is another big challenge."

Notably, Chinese billionaires continue to thrive on harder times. One billionaire pops up in Asia every three days, according to the report, with China accounting for the bulk of the new wealth creation.

SEE ALSO: China gets a new billionaire every 5 days

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Not every billionaire was born with a silver spoon in their mouth.

In fact, many came from nothing at all.

The "rags-to-riches" trope may be a cliché, but it's one that's definitely grounded in reality.

Through extraordinary grit and perseverance, individuals across the globe have beat the odds and achieved their own rags-to-riches stories.

Here are 19 people who started off life poor and went on to become billionaires:

SEE ALSO: 26 weird jobs famous people had before making it big

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Starbucks' Howard Schultz grew up in a housing complex for the poor

Net worth: $2.9 billion

In an interview with the Mirror, Schultz says: "Growing up I always felt like I was living on the other side of the tracks. I knew the people on the other side had more resources, more money, happier families. And for some reason, I don't know why or how, I wanted to climb over that fence and achieve something beyond what people were saying was possible. I may have a suit and tie on now but I know where I'm from and I know what it's like."

Schultz ended up winning a football scholarship to the University of Northern Michigan and went to work for Xerox after graduation. Shortly after, he took over a coffee shop called Starbucks, which at the time had only 60 shops. Schultz became the company's CEO in 1987 and grew the coffee chain to more than 16,000 outlets worldwide.

Born into poverty, Oprah Winfrey became the first African American TV correspondent in Nashville

Net worth:$2.9 billion

Winfrey was born into a poor family in Mississippi, but this didn't stop her from winning a scholarship to Tennessee State University and becoming the first African American TV correspondent in the state at the age of 19.

In 1983, Winfrey moved to Chicago to work for an AM talk show which would later be called "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

Montpellier rugby club president and Entrepreneur of the Year Mohed Altrad survived on one meal a day when he moved to France

Net worth:$1.03 billion

Born into a nomadic tribe in the Syrian dessert to a poor mother who was raped by his father and died when he was young, Altrad was raised by his grandmother. She banned him from attending school in Raqqa, the city that is now capital of ISIS.

Altrad attended school anyway, and when he moved to France to attend university, he knew no French and lived off of one meal a day. Still, he earned a PhD in computer science, worked for some leading French companies, and eventually bought a failing scaffolding company, which he transformed into one of the world's leading manufacturers of scaffolding and cement mixers, Altrad Group.

He has previously been named French Entrepreneur of the Year and World Entrepreneur of the Year.

We've given you a glimpse into the fabulous lives of the super rich— and noted some of the outrageous things they can buy with their billions — but perhaps more representative of their extravagant lives are their lavish homes.

Thanks to CNBC's show "Secret Lives of the Super Rich,"and Luxury Listing's new Instagram account, we get a peek into how the super rich live. 

We sorted through CNBC's Instagram account, @cnbcsuperrich and @luxlistingsnyc, and gathered pictures of some of the poshest homes out there.

Dare to dream!

This is an update of a post originally published by Kathleen Elkins.

SEE ALSO: The 15 countries with the most billionaires

Their penthouses look like something from the future.

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There's no need to travel to the real Arc de Triomphe when your patio looks like this.

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If the infinity pool or Jacuzzi get boring, the Atlantic is just a few strides away.

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Frugality is a subjective term. To the average Joe it could mean eating meals at home or scouring the internet for cheap flights.

But to a billionaire it means showing up to work in a T-shirt and jeans, driving a Toyota or Volkswagen, and, in some instances, foregoing the purchase of a private jet or lavish vacation home.

Surprisingly, some of the richest people on earth are incredibly frugal, each one with their own penny-pinching habits.

From eating lunch in the office cafeteria with their employees to residing in homes worth a fraction of what they could afford, these eight self-made billionaires — many of whom are also generous philanthropists— know the secret to keeping their net worth high.

DON'T MISS: After studying rich people for 5 years, I realized there are 10 critical habits the wealthy learn from their parents

SEE ALSO: The 50 richest people on earth

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, still lives in the same home he bought for $31,500 in 1958.

Net worth:$68.1 billion

The "Oracle of Omaha" is one of the wisest and most frugal billionaires around. Despite his status as one of the richest people on earth, he still lives in the same modest home he bought for $31,500 in 1958, doesn't carry a cellphone or have a computer at his desk, and once had a vanity license plate that read "THRIFTY," according to his 2009 biography. And when his friend of 25 years Bill Gates visits Omaha, Buffett picks Gates up from the airport himself.

Buffett also has a decidedly low-brow palate, known not just for investing in junk-food purveyors like Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Coca-Cola, but also for filling up on them as well. The Buffett diet includes five Cokes a day, as well as Cheetos and potato chips.

At his annual shareholder's meeting in 2014, Buffett explained that his quality of life isn't affected by the amount of money he has:

"My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point."

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, drives a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Net worth:$51.5 billion

Despite his status as one of the richest tech moguls on earth, Mark Zuckerberg leads a low-key lifestyle with his wife Priscilla Chan and their newborn daughter. The founder of Facebook has been unabashed about his simple T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans uniform.

"I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community," Zuckerberg said.

The trappings of wealth have never impressed the 32-year-old, who in December 2015 announced he would donate 99% of his Facebook shares during his lifetime.

Zuckerberg chowed down on McDonald's shortly after marrying Chan in 2012 in the backyard of their $7 million Palo Alto home — a modest sum for such an expensive housing market and pocket change for a man worth more than $51 billion. In 2014, he traded in his $30,000 Acura for a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Grupo Carso, has lived in the same six-bedroom house for more than 40 years.

Net worth:$31.6 billion

Rather than spending his fluctuating fortune, Carlos Slim funnels his billions back into the economy and his vast array of companies. He once mused to Reuters that wealth was like an orchard because "what you have to do is make it grow, reinvest to make it bigger, or diversify into other areas."

The 76-year-old is by far the richest man in Mexico, but he forgoes luxuries like private jets and yachts and reportedly still drives an old Mercedes-Benz. Slim runs his companies frugally, too, writing in staff handbooks that employees should always"maintain austerity in prosperous times (in times when the cow is fat with milk)."

The businessman has lived in the same six-bedroom house in Mexico for more than 40 years and routinely enjoys sharing home-cooked meals with his children and grandchildren. He's got a couple of known indulgences, including fine art — in honor of his late wife — and Cuban cigars, as well as an $80 million mansion in Manhattan, which he was trying to sell last spring.

It's one of the most exclusive clubs in the world, and it's growing.

In 2015, the global billionaire population grew by 6.4% to reach a record 2,473. Although billionaires make up only a small part of the total population — there is only one billionaire for every 2.95 million people on the planet — their influence on the global economy is significant because of their sheer spending power.

Here are a few insights the Wealth-X Billionaire Census 2016 provides regarding the global billionaire population.

They keep wealth liquid.

Economic uncertainty has billionaire investments waning across several categories, including public and private holdings, but liquid assets have actually grown. The report found that most billionaires keep 22.2% of their wealth liquid, an all-time high since 2012.

Liquidity is projected to peak in 2017 at 23.3%, before trending downward. If equity valuations return to attractive levels, we may see the global billionaire class putting liquidity back into all types of deals. Even before that eventuality, tightened discretionary spending will barely affect the real noteworthy areas where billionaires spend, such as luxury goods and services, and philanthropic contributions. 

They travel for business and pleasure.

According to the report, 775 cities around the world are home to at least one billionaire — an increase of 21 new cities in one year. Travel is also the second-most favored billionaire leisure activity, behind philanthropy. The top billionaire city is New York, with 97, followed by Hong Kong (79), and Moscow (74). 

The report includes the 2016 Billionaire Social Calendar, a list of 43 exclusive sporting, social, art, and business events that attract ultra wealthy attendees from around the world. These exclusive events, ranging from the Venice International Film Festival to the Monaco Yacht Show to the Singapore Grand Prix, provide an opportunity for billionaires to network with their peers.

They make luxury purchases.

Global billionaires are passionately about acquiring luxury items such as art, wine and spirits, automobiles, and all kinds of collectible items. Beyond the investment value of these purchases — particularly in art — billionaires enjoy the cultural influence and the ability to prize, protect, and conserve items and collections of great significance or sentimental value.

In November 2015, Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian paid a record-breaking $170 million for a painting of a nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani at an auction in New York. Liu, a former taxi driver, caused controversy last year when he sipped tea from an antique porcelain cup that he purchased for $36 million.

They invest in political campaigns.

Billionaires can play a major role in funding political campaigns, largely through super PACs in the US that are not obligated to reveal their contributors’ identities. According to the report, 22% of the global billionaire population consider themselves passionate about politics. Some are passive observers, but billionaire participation commonly involves dynamic support for preferred political candidates, such as Sheldon Adelson’s legal, considerable donation to the Republican Party, or billionaire Donald Trump’s presidential bid.

They focus on soccer.

Soccer is the most popular sport among billionaires, above golf and skiing. Recent expansion in television rights boosted accessibility, reaching previously untapped soccer fan bases in North America and Asia. The rising value of television rights to screen live games has also meant that many clubs are becoming wealthier, and are therefore sounder investment opportunities.

Many billionaire investors have identified the potential of investing in the sport and have acquired stakes in their favorite teams. For example, Wang Jianlin, China’s richest man, purchased a 20% stake in Atletico Madrid in January 2015, while Roman Abramovich has owned Chelsea Football Club since 2003.

Read more from the 2016 Billionaire Census. 

This post is sponsored by WealthX.

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Warren Buffett, Elon Musk and Larry Ellison have all accumulated huge followings on Twitter, but they had to start somewhere.

All these men have large net worths and personalities, but here's how they introduced themselves to a world capped at 140 characters.

SEE ALSO: The 20 cities around the world with the most billionaires

1. Jack Dorsey

Probably one of the most famous tweets is also the first tweet ever. The CEO and co-founder of Twitter tweeted out in March of 2006:

Tweet Embed:
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just setting up my twttr

2. Warren Buffett

Buffett is known for punchy catchphrases such as, “Buy businesses that can be run by idiots,” and, "The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything."

So it’s no surprise that Buffett’s first tweet comes as a short punchline. 

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/329993701524918272
Warren is in the house.

Just a few retweets. No big deal.

3. Elon Musk

There are plenty of fake Elon Musk accounts on Twitter, some of the funniest being @BoredElonMusk and @therichwiseman, but Musk made sure to let followers know his first tweet was legitimate:

Tweet Embed:
https://twitter.com/mims/statuses/15434727182
Please ignore prior tweets, as that was someone pretending to be me :) This is actually me.

He even used a smiley face. How nice.

The distribution of global wealth has stayed just as skewed as last year, according to a huge study by Credit Suisse.

The bank compiled data showing that just 0.7% of the world's adult population owns almost half of the world's wealth, while the bottom 73% have less than $10,000 each.

Here is Credit Suisse:

"The 3.5 billion adults with wealth below $10,000 account for 2.4% of global wealth. In contrast, the 33 million millionaires comprise less than 1% of the adult population, but own 46% of household wealth.

"The past year saw a slight increase in the number of US dollar millionaires and high net worth individuals, with Japan the main beneficiary due to appreciation of the yen."

And here is what that wealth pyramid looks like:

Those at the top of the pyramid, which starts at the $1 million mark, have the same size share of global wealth as last year.

Here is Credit Suisse again:

"The top tiers of the wealth pyramid – covering individuals with net worth above $100,000 – comprised 5% of all adults at the turn of the century. The proportion rose rapidly until the financial crisis, but has remained quite stable since that time. It currently comprises 8.2% of the global total, exactly the same as in mid-2015."

The US, home to 41% of the world's millionaires, dominates the wealth league tables, while the UK had a terrible year in dollar terms.

Britain lost by far the greatest number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals – those with more than $50 million – down 700 to 4,700. The UK also lost the most amount of millionaires, down by 422,000 to 2,225,000 people.

Because the data is denominated in dollars, the pound's 18% collapse after the vote to leave the European Union will have driven a lot of the change.

Credit Suisse split out the wealth distribution at the very top of the pyramid. This is what it looks like:

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Frugality is a subjective term. To the average Joe it could mean eating meals at home or scouring the internet for cheap flights.

But to a billionaire it means showing up to work in a T-shirt and jeans, driving a Toyota or Volkswagen, and, in some instances, foregoing the purchase of a private jet or lavish vacation home.

Surprisingly, some of the richest people on earth are incredibly frugal, each one with their own penny-pinching habits.

From eating lunch in the office cafeteria with their employees to residing in homes worth a fraction of what they could afford, these eight self-made billionaires — many of whom are also generous philanthropists— know the secret to keeping their net worth high.

DON'T MISS: After studying rich people for 5 years, I realized there are 10 critical habits the wealthy learn from their parents

SEE ALSO: The 50 richest people on earth

Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, still lives in the same home he bought for $31,500 in 1958.

Net worth:$68.1 billion

The "Oracle of Omaha" is one of the wisest and most frugal billionaires around. Despite his status as one of the richest people on earth, he still lives in the same modest home he bought for $31,500 in 1958, doesn't carry a cellphone or have a computer at his desk, and once had a vanity license plate that read "THRIFTY," according to his 2009 biography. And when his friend of 25 years Bill Gates visits Omaha, Buffett picks Gates up from the airport himself.

Buffett also has a decidedly low-brow palate, known not just for investing in junk-food purveyors like Burger King, Dairy Queen, and Coca-Cola, but also for filling up on them as well. The Buffett diet includes five Cokes a day, as well as Cheetos and potato chips.

At his annual shareholder's meeting in 2014, Buffett explained that his quality of life isn't affected by the amount of money he has:

"My life couldn't be happier. In fact, it'd be worse if I had six or eight houses. So, I have everything I need to have, and I don't need any more because it doesn't make a difference after a point."

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, drives a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Net worth:$51.5 billion

Despite his status as one of the richest tech moguls on earth, Mark Zuckerberg leads a low-key lifestyle with his wife Priscilla Chan and their newborn daughter. The founder of Facebook has been unabashed about his simple T-shirt, hoodie, and jeans uniform.

"I really want to clear my life to make it so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything except how to best serve this community," Zuckerberg said.

The trappings of wealth have never impressed the 32-year-old, who in December 2015 announced he would donate 99% of his Facebook shares during his lifetime.

Zuckerberg chowed down on McDonald's shortly after marrying Chan in 2012 in the backyard of their $7 million Palo Alto home — a modest sum for such an expensive housing market and pocket change for a man worth more than $51 billion. In 2014, he traded in his $30,000 Acura for a manual-transmission Volkswagen hatchback.

Carlos Slim Helú, founder of Grupo Carso, has lived in the same six-bedroom house for more than 40 years.

Net worth:$31.6 billion

Rather than spending his fluctuating fortune, Carlos Slim funnels his billions back into the economy and his vast array of companies. He once mused to Reuters that wealth was like an orchard because "what you have to do is make it grow, reinvest to make it bigger, or diversify into other areas."

The 76-year-old is by far the richest man in Mexico, but he forgoes luxuries like private jets and yachts and reportedly still drives an old Mercedes-Benz. Slim runs his companies frugally, too, writing in staff handbooks that employees should always"maintain austerity in prosperous times (in times when the cow is fat with milk)."

The businessman has lived in the same six-bedroom house in Mexico for more than 40 years and routinely enjoys sharing home-cooked meals with his children and grandchildren. He's got a couple of known indulgences, including fine art — in honor of his late wife — and Cuban cigars, as well as an $80 million mansion in Manhattan, which he was trying to sell last spring.

North America can expect to mint a new billionaire every six days for the next five years.

That's according to Credit Suisse's 2016 global wealth report, which charts the number of millionaires and billionaires around the world, and forecasts trends in global wealth. 

North America leads the world in billionaire creation, with more than 300 of the 945 new billionaires expected over the next five years coming from the continent. That works out at 60 billionaires a year, or more than one a week.

The number of millionaires in North America is also expected to jump by 33% over the next five years, rising to 19.7 million. There is forecast to be more than 100,000 ultra high-net worth individuals, or those with $50 million or more in wealth, in North America by 2021, making up more than half of the global total. 

While the population of wealthy Chinese citizens is growing fast, the country is still far behind North America. The Asian giant has 1.6 million millionaires, only marginally ahead of Canada's 1.1 million, and a long way behind the US, which has 13.6 million.

"The USA has the most members of the top 1% global wealth group, and currently accounts for 41% of the world's millionaires," the report said. "The number of UHNW individuals with wealth above USD 50 million is six times that of the next country, China."

SEE ALSO: A $19 billion hedge fund is pushing into a fresh corner of the credit market

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Whether you want to launch an empire or become the best in your field, who better to consult than those who have achieved the peak of professional and financial success?

That's why we've rounded up 25 books by self-made billionaires. From the business insights of Bill Gates to the leadership lessons of Richard Branson, the wisdom collected in these pages extends far beyond the classroom.

Learn how these masters of industry achieved the impossible, in their own words.

SEE ALSO: 16 business books that will change your life forever, according to my coworkers

'The Virgin Way' by Richard Branson

Although Branson confesses he's never read a book on leadership, his nearly 50-year entrepreneurial career has taught him a thing or two about building a business.

In "The Virgin Way," the billionaire founder of Virgin Group offers lessons on management and entrepreneurialism, including the importance of listening to others and hiring the right people. Branson is honest about his successes as well as his failures, such as underestimating Coke's influence when he tried to launch Virgin Cola in the 1990s.

Overall, the book is a compelling glimpse into the life of someone who's never shied away from a challenge.

Find it here »

'Onward' by Howard Schultz

After resigning as Starbucks CEO in 2000, Schultz returned to the post in 2008, just as the company was struggling through a financial crisis. "Onward" details how the billionaire brought the global coffee chain back to life.

Readers will learn how Schultz made tough decisions — like temporarily shutting down more than 7,000 US stores — in order to help Starbucks grow without neglecting its core values.

They'll learn, too, about Schultz as a person, as he weaves together his unique business strategy with anecdotes about growing up in Brooklyn, New York. It's an honest and passionate recounting that will inspire entrepreneurs and everyone else to be brave in the face of adversity.

Find it here »

'How to Win at the Sport of Business' by Mark Cuban

In "How to Win at the Sport of Business," Dallas Mavericks owner and "Shark Tank" investor Cuban fleshes out his best insights on entrepreneurialism from his personal blog.

He writes candidly about how he progressed from sleeping on his friends' couches in his 20s to owning his own company and becoming a multibillionaire. It's a story of commitment and perseverance — Cuban writes that even though he didn't know much about computers, he beat his competition because he spent so much time learning about the software his company sold. 

Find it here »