All time rich man

John D. Rockefeller (1839 - 1937)

$323.4 billion

You have to wonder how John D. Rockefeller would fare as a major player in Big Oil today. After all, he founded Standard Oil in 1870, and it wasn’t long before he dominated the industry. Naturally, some didn’t take kindly to that and the company was eventually found to have monopolized. Yet, for all Rockefeller’s detractors, the U.S.’s first billionaire was a serious philanthropist to education, medicine and science. From a legacy standpoint, however, he’s best remembered for his unfathomable wealth. Even today, the name connotes “money.”