5. Leonardo del Vecchio (Net Worth: $18 billion)
The 81-year-old man on the picture above is looking quite dashy, isn’t he? Especially with those sunglasses. Well, Leonardo del Vecchio has every right to do so since he owns and founded a company which manufactures and retails almost all of sunglasses and eyeglasses brands in the world.
Luxottica, the company he founded, owns several world-renowned brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley. Besides that, it also manufactures glasses for Ralph Lauren, Chanel, Bulgari, and Armani.
Leonardo started Luxottica as a molding shop he opened at the age of 23 after working for some period of time in a molding factory. That is where he learned about molding eyeglass frames and its business opportunity. But before that, he had to learn to mold his own life from all the hard times he had to go through.
His father died when he was still in her mother’s womb. And because of that, his mother could not support him financially. So, Leonardo and four of his siblings were sent to an orphanage. He grew up there until he was able to get on his own two feet. Today, he is the second richest man in Italy with $18 billion of estimated net worth.
