Hired-Hand Billionaires 2025: These 48 Executives Got Rich Working For Others

Forbes

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Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, Hired Hand Billionaires 2025, these 48 executives got rich working for others.

00:10Most billionaires got rich by building businesses or inheriting big bucks from someone who did.

00:16Yet a small but growing group of current and former American executives have managed to

00:21amass three comma fortunes as very well-paid employees. Altogether, Forbes found a record

00:2748 of these Hired Hand Billionaires in 2025, up from 29 a year ago. And that count is sure to keep

00:35climbing thanks to soaring share prices and sky-high executive pay packages. The average

00:41annual compensation of the 10 highest-paid CEOs in America shot up more than seven-fold from $46

00:48million per year in 2010 to a peak of $330 million per year in 2021, according to data firm Equilar.

00:56Most Americans build their wealth through a salary or hourly wage, but top execs are often paid in

01:03stock options and other share awards that vest over several years and are often tied to performance.

01:10And that's increasingly the case, with the average equity component of CEO pay packages growing from

01:1554% in 2012 to 66% in 2023. This, according to executive compensation consulting firm Semler Brasi.

01:24That's helped the best-paid CEOs in the U.S. keep getting richer, even as the average pay of the top

01:3110 chief executives has actually fallen post-COVID, to a still enviable $125 million per year in 2023,

01:39the most recent year for which full data is available. Because the stock market has continued to climb,

01:45with the S&P 500 up nearly 370% since 2010 and nearly 25% since 2021, the value of the shares many of

01:55these executives were awarded in the past has skyrocketed, helping the rich get richer and

02:00making more companies big enough to birth non-founder billionaires than ever before.

02:04Back in 2010, only seven of America's 403 billionaires were hired hands, accounting for

02:11just 2% of the country's richest people. That's included six former executives who are also on

02:17this year's list. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Eric Schmidt of Google, the two richest hired

02:23hands by far today, as well as Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman of eBay, John Brown of medical equipment

02:30maker Stryker, and Hamilton Tony James of Blackstone. The seventh, former Cisco CEO John

02:37Morgridge, has since fallen from the billionaire ranks.

02:41Fifteen years after 2010, hired hand billionaires are still relatively rare, but their numbers

02:47have increased at a rate that outpaces the incredible growth of America's Three Comma Club

02:51overall, suggesting that the 10-figure fortunes minted by these current and former non-founder

02:57executives aren't just the result of a rising tide lifting all boats. Today, 5% of America's

03:03nearly 900 billionaires are hired hands, up from 4% when Forbes last counted them in February

03:092024, when there were nearly 760 U.S. billionaires.

03:14There are 18 newcomers in this year's group, including Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, FICO CEO

03:21William Lansing, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell, former Tesla

03:28Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel, longtime NVIDIA Director Harvey Jones, and Howard Lutnick,

03:34who left his role as Chairman and CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald to become President

03:40Trump's Secretary of Commerce in February.

03:43AMD CEO Lisa Su is the only hired hand on last year's list who failed to make the cut this year,

03:50as shares of the chipmaker she runs have cratered by nearly 30% over the past 12 months.

03:56Meanwhile, early Uber employee Ryan Graves and Bob Muglia, the former CEO of cloud-based

04:02database software firm Snowflake, have regained their billionaire status and returned to this

04:07year's ranking after failing to make the 2024 list of hired hands.

04:11A few of the notable newcomers to this year's list include Vasily Shikin, the Chief Technology

04:18Officer of Marketing Software and Mobile Game Maker, AppLovin, whose net worth is $1.9 billion

04:24as of May 13th, John Winkle-Reed, the CEO of TPG and the former President and Co-Chief Operating

04:31Officer of Goldman Sachs, whose net worth is $1.9 billion, and Larry Culp, the Chairman and

04:38CEO of GE Aerospace and Chairman of GE Healthcare, and former CEO of Danaher, whose net worth is

04:45$1.5 billion.

04:48For full coverage and to see the whole list, check out Matt Duro's piece on Forbes.com.

04:54to get started.

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