From high fashion to technology, Asian Americans have helped create some of the most profitable businesses in the world. In fact, a number of those entrepreneurs are represented in the top 500 spots on the Forbes list of the world’s real-time billionaires.
Here are 11 of the immigrants and Americans of Asian descent who have most impacted the world of business. Listed net worths are derived from Forbes.
Key Takeaways
- The wealthiest Asian American at the moment is Jensen Huang, the founder of NVIDIA, who is worth about $16.7 billion.
- Several entrepreneurs of Asian descent have dramatically shaped Silicon Valley, from David Sun and John Tu of Kingston Technology to Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.
- Among the most successful Asian-American female entrepreneurs is Vera Wang, the designer who gained fame for her bridal collection and showstopping red-carpet dresses.
Eric Yuan
Well before a pandemic turned millions of living rooms into office spaces, Eric Yuan envisioned a growing need for teleconferencing software that could connect disparate employees. When Zoom went public in 2019, Yuan owned 22% of the company’s stock, which was worth more than $9 billion. Fast-forward four years and the San Jose–based company’s market capitalization stands at nearly $18 billion.
Born and raised in China, Yuan moved to the U.S. in 1997 and eventually became the vice president of engineering over Cisco’s Webex collaboration software. He went on to found Zoom in 2011.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $3.2 billion
Jensen Huang
Building on his experience in PC graphics, Huang founded NVIDIA, a company that has helped reshape the gaming industry. The business pioneered the technology behind today’s advanced computer graphics. It developed graphics processing units (GPUs), which are now used in everything from computers to self-driving automobiles.
Born in Taiwan, Huang moved to the United States and earned engineering degrees from Oregon State University and Stanford University. After working at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices, he founded NVIDIA in 1993.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $25.9 billion
Shahid Khan
Football fans probably know Khan as the gregarious owner of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars, but his vast wealth was created in a less flashy industry: auto parts. Born in Pakistan and educated at the University of Illinois, Khan began working for Flex-N-Gate, where he helped popularize the one-piece car bumper. He bought the company in 1980 and turned it into one of the largest automotive suppliers in North America.
With his fortune, Khan has pursued a number of varied passions. In addition to acquiring the Jaguars in 2012, he co-founded All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling entertainment company, with his son. He also helped bankroll the 24-hour Black News Channel in 2020.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $12.1 billion
Jay Chaudhry
Sometimes the term “serial entrepreneur” refers to someone with a trail of failed businesses behind them. That’s not the case with Jay Chaudhry, who has built a string of wildly successful companies. He founded the technology firms AirDefense, CipherTrust, CoreHarbor, and SecureIT—all of which were acquired by large corporations. He’s also the co-founder and CEO of San Jose–based Zscaler, a cloud-based security platform valued at over $12 billion as of May 3, 2023.
Given his upbringing in a small Himalayan village, Chaudhry’s fortune represents a true rags-to-riches story. Still, despite his considerable achievements, Chaudhry has largely eschewed the trappings of success—including a posh corner office—in order to feel the pulse of his organization. “I sit in the open desk the same way our employees sit,” Chaudhry once said in an interview with investor Alejandro Cremades. “It sends a strong message.”
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $5 billion
David Sun and John Tu
Things looked bleak for Sun and Tu, who co-founded the computer-memory–chip maker Camintonn Corporation, when they lost their entire personal savings on Black Monday in 1987. Little did the two men, both raised in Taiwan, know that the crisis would spur a success story not even they could have imagined.
When they sold their startup to resolve their financial dilemma, the two put their remaining proceeds into a new venture called Kingston Technology. Today their business is one of the largest makers of computer memory and storage products in the world, and the two entrepreneurs have each amassed wealth in excess of $6.7 billion.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $6.7 billion each
Sun Hongbin
Hongbin is the founder and chairman of the Chinese real estate giant Sunac China Holdings, which finances everything from high-end residential properties to resorts and theme parks. The native of Shanxi Province, now a U.S. citizen, is worth an estimated $1.2 billion, according to Forbes.
Hongbin’s recent successes mark a notable reversal of fortune after early career and personal troubles. He was arrested for embezzlement in the early 1990s while working for Lenovo and spent close to two years in prison, and his first foray into Chinese real estate floundered in 2006. However, he found redemption with Sunac, which has grown to become one of mainland China’s largest real estate businesses.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $1.2 billion.
Patrick Soon-Shiong
Developing a breakthrough cancer drug would be a career maker for just about any scientist—for Soon-Shiong, inventing Abraxane in the 1990s was just the start. The physician subsequently founded ImmunityBio, a company focused on bolstering the patient’s own immune response, and serves as the chairman and CEO of the bioinformatics business NantHealth.
Born in South Africa to parents who immigrated there from China, he has more than 500 patents around the globe and has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, according to the ImmunityBio website. Soon-Shiong, who used his financial assets to purchase The Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune, has lived in Southern California for more than four decades.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $6.4 billion.
Vinod Khosla
Khosla, along with fellow Stanford graduate students Andy Bechtolsheim and Scott McNealy, created Sun Microsystems in the early 1980s. Their idea was to build graphics-based workstations that could support office automation, computer-aided design, and robotics.
After leaving the company’s leadership team, Khosla became a venture capitalist with a penchant for taking on corporate giants that seemed untouchable at the time. He backed the computer processor company Nexgen, which was acquired by AMD in the 1990s and became a successful rival to Intel. Later, he helped launch Juniper Networks to challenge Cisco’s dominance of the router market.
Originally from India, the entrepreneur formed Khosla Ventures in 2004, which focuses on a mix of for-profit businesses and organizations that strive to have a positive social impact.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $5.1 billion.
Jerry Yang
When Jerry Yang quit his engineering doctoral program at Stanford in the mid-’90s to start Yahoo, the internet was just coming into the general public’s consciousness. It ended up being a very good move indeed, with the company valued at around $20 billion by the time Yang left its board of directors in 2012 (Verizon acquired its internet business in 2017 for $4.48 billion). He has since gone on to launch AME Cloud Ventures, an investment firm that supports data-driven start-ups.
Raised in Taiwan until moving to the U.S. at age 10, Yang has used part of his more than $2 billion fortune to support cultural projects. That included a $25 million gift to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, the biggest in its history.
Estimated net worth (May 2023): $2.4 billion
Vera Wang
Wang built her name as a premier designer of bridal wear and the style guru who has clothed everyone from Michelle Obama to Charlize Theron and Halle Berry at red-carpet events. She has also proved to be every bit as talented a businesswoman as she is a trendsetter.
Though she built her fashion brand on designing for the rich and famous, Wang, the daughter of immigrants from China, later brought her ideas to the masses, thanks to partnerships with Kohl’s department stores, Zales, David’s Bridal, and Men’s Wearhouse.
Estimated net worth (August 4, 2021): $500 million
Who Is the Wealthiest Asian-American Entrepreneur?
That would be Jensen Huang, who according to Forbes amassed a fortune of $25.9 billion in the field of computer graphics, putting him at number 57 on the Forbes list of the top 500 billionaires in the world today.
Who Is the Youngest Asian-American Entrepreneur?
That would be Alexandr Wang, who according to Forbes at only 25 had a net worth of $1 billion as of November 2022. An MIT dropout, Wang started the San Francisco–based artificial intelligence company Scale AI when he was 19. It is currently worth $7.3 billion.
Who Is the Wealthiest Female Asian-American Entrepreneur?
That would be Thai Lee, who according to Forbes is worth $4.1 billion at age 63 and comes in at number six on the publication’s Richest Self-Made Women List for 2022. Born in Thailand, she moved with her family first to South Korea and then to the United States and has an MBA from Harvard University. She is currently the CEO of IT provider SHI International, which is valued at $14 billion.
The Bottom Line
Asian Americans have helped shape Silicon Valley into a global hub of technological innovation. They’ve also made an important mark in many other fields, from professional sports to couture.
