BuzzLife

My monthly Forbes magazines had been lying there with the wrapping plastic paper still on for months. As I browsed through for any interesting headlines recently for a speed reading, a special issue frontpaged "Billionaires: The World’s Richest People" caught my eyes.

Making a billion just isn’t what used to be. In its inaugural ranking of the world ’s richest people 20 years ago, Forbes uncovered some 140 billionaires. This year the list is a record of 793, up 102 from last year. They’re worth a combined USD $2.6 trillion!

Bill Gates retains his title as the world’s richest person for the twelfth straight years, proving that while it’s getting easier to make a billion, the same can’t be said for making USD $50 billion! And just a couple of days ago, he just announced that he will be stepping down from Microsoft in 2 years and concentrate on his foundation which focus on global health and poverty issue, giving back his wealth to the people. Read this.

One of the stories of these billionnaires which inspires me was the success stories of the partnership of 3 Kazakh billionaires, Alexander Machkevich, Patokh Chodiev and Alijan Ibrahimov. These guys were actually born in Kyrgyzstan, the country south of Kazakhstan. They started up to trade "anything and everything" that produced cash. "You paid a price, sold at a crazy price and made a lot of money", recalls Chodiev.

What amazed me was the team spirit and the strong bond the trio shared.They had gone through lots of challenges, obstacles, controversies. Among them were failed dealings, being sued by a giant UK company for breaching transfer-pricing regulations, being investigated for money laundering, etc.Turmoils like that would normally drive most partnerships to ruin. But these three have forged an unbreakable bond. And they divided their management duties among themselves and practise the law of empowerment by hiring Johannes Sittard who guided the company the biggest project to date. And the rest is history.

"Any great achievement is preceded by many difficulties and many lessons: great achievements are not possible without them"  - Brian Tracy -