Poor guy becomes the richest man in Korea

Kim Beom Su

Net worth: 10.6 billion USD

Increase/decrease compared to 2020: 5.4 billion USD

Source of wealth: Online services, Kakao

Kim Beom Su is the founder and Chairman of Kakao, South Korea's largest messaging app, which is installed in 90% of smartphones in the country. Tens of millions of Kakao users also use the app to play games, shop, and chat.

Photo: Forbes.

The self-made entrepreneur has an estimated net worth of $16.2 billion, according to Forbes' real-time billionaire rankings. With a net worth of more than $3 billion, Kim surpassed billionaire Seo Jung-jin, co-founder of Celltrion, to become the richest man in South Korea. Mr. Seo dropped to 2nd place.

Mr. Kim was 55 years old, has come a long way in his career. He grew up in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Seoul. Mr. Kim is the third child in a family of 5 brothers, whose father is a pen factory worker and his mother is a hotel housekeeping staff. In order to pay for college, he had to tutor and often fasted to save money.

In March, he signed the Giving Pledge - a campaign launched by billionaires Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett in 2010 to encourage the wealthy to give at least half of their wealth. Its property.

Before founding Kakao in 2010, Mr. Kim founded Hangame - a game development company. Later Hangame merged with a search company to become today's Naver, also an internet giant in Korea.