Len Blavatnik
Source of wealth: Music, chemicals
...
...
Biography
Born in Ukraine, raised north of Moscow, Len Blavatnik immigrated to the U.S. in 1978 with his family; he studied computer science at Columbia University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
He made an early fortune from Russian oil company TNK-BP, including billions in dividends paid by the joint venture and the sale of his stake in 2013 for $7 billion.
After purchasing Warner Music in 2011 for $3.3 billion, he took the company public in June 2020 at quadruple the value.
His investment firm Access Industries holds stakes in chemicals firm LyondellBasell, energy conglomerate Calpine and house flipping website Opendoor.
Blavatnik says he has given or pledged over $1 billion to philanthropy, mostly to universities, including Oxford, Stanford, Harvard and Yale.
He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and the U.K.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Len Blavatnik's fortune is equivalent to 237 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.
A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.
Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3
Len Blavatnik could buy 63,129,867 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!
And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 11 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Len Blavatnik will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Len Blavatnik's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Len Blavatnik could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 15.8 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Len Blavatnik could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 7.0 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Len Blavatnik could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 10.3 years.
Highest education spending
But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Len Blavatnik could pay for it in full for 14.0 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Len Blavatnik could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 59.1 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Len Blavatnik with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 1.3 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison