When Kylie Jenner officially became a USD billionaire, controversy over the definition of “self-made” broke out again. Many people believe that Kylie is not “self-made” rich because her family is rich and famous.

In July 2018, when  Forbes  included Kylie Jenner in the list of America’s top self-made rich women, a controversy broke out around this magazine’s concept of “self-made” for the youngest sister. Kardashian-Jenner.

Many people believe that Jenner cannot be “self-made” rich when she comes from a famous and wealthy family. Some others pointed out that Kylie Jenner relied on her sister Kim Kardashian West’s social media influence.

The debate about the concept of “self-made” recently flared up again when  Forbes honored Kylie Jenner as the youngest self-made billionaire in world history at the age of 21. The record holder before her was Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg. who first entered the Forbes billionaires list   when he was 23 years old.

 According to Forbes estimates , the company Kylie Jenner owns 100% of is worth at least 900 million USD. The 21-year-old girl’s fortune just turned 1 billion USD thanks to the 100 million USD in cash Kylie got from the company’s profits.

What does “self-making” actually mean in the age of Kylie Jenner?

Americans have a long tradition of admiring people who get rich through hard work more than those who receive huge inheritances.

America’s 19th century “Steel King”, Andrew Carnegie, was famous for giving away his entire fortune. He feared that a huge inheritance would demotivate his successors. Famous tycoons in American history such as John D. Rockfeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt are ideal models of building huge business empires with humble beginnings.

Kylie Jenner is not an outstanding industrialist.  Forbes  said she has just under 15 employees. Production, packaging, sales, and order processing of Kylie Jenner’s company are all outsourced.

But is Kylie Jenner a powerful person on social networks? You can bet on this if you know that her Instagram account has over 128 million followers.

Portrait of the youngest self-made billionaire in world history, Kylie Jenner. Photo:  Forbes . 

Professor Michael Norton of Harvard Business School said that it is increasingly difficult to determine what part of a person’s wealth comes from hard work than before because of the power and influence of social networks and media.

Actually, getting rich through “invisible” efforts is not entirely new. Professor Norton gave an example before the age of social networks, if parents were rich but did not leave assets to their children, they could still help their children through a good educational environment, relationships and opportunities. mine.

 Although many people think that Kylie Jenner has many built-in advantages, she has single-handedly created a billion-dollar fortune. Photo: Forbes.

“Measurement is even more difficult when there is social media,” Professor Norton said. “But “self-reliance” is still part of leveraging other people’s relationships and seeing what you can build from there.”

And Kylie Jenner will be happier with her assets because she earned them herself, Professor Norton said. According to his research, having a lot of money makes people happy and will be even happier if it is money they themselves created.

Kylie Jenner is more “self-made” than President Trump

Forbes  defines “self-made” as “people who build companies or create assets on their own, rather than inheriting some or all of them.”

To measure the benefits inherited from a wealthy family and more accurately reflect a person’s degree of relevance to others,  Forbes  introduced a “self-made” scale in 2014. The lowest score of the scale The measurement is 1, for those who inherit all the assets they own and the highest score is 10, for those who are completely “self-made” rich.

For example, American television queen Oprah Winfrey was  given a score of 10 by Forbes  for being raised by a single mother. Similarly, billionaire investor George Soros also received a score of 10. Billionaire Soros survived World War II when the Nazis occupied his hometown of Hungary and then emigrated to England. Here, he studied at the London School of Economics and worked enough to make a living as a waiter and railway porter.

On the contrary are those who inherit property and do not work much to increase their wealth. Alice Walton, the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, or Laurene Powell Jobs, wife of the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs, both scored 1.

So how many points does Kylie Jenner get?  Forbes  rated her 7 points. Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg, 3 of the 10 richest people in the world and owners of hundreds of billions of dollars in businesses, only received an 8, only 1 point more than Kylie.

Billionaire Kylie Jenner’s “self-made” level is  rated 7/10 points by Forbes  . Photo:  Getty . 

But Kylie Jenner is still considered more “self-made” than Meg Whitman, who studied at Princeton University and Harvard Business School before becoming CEO of many large companies, or Harvard alumna Sheryl Sandberg, now a Facebook operations director.

And according to  Forbes , US President Donald Trump is also ranked behind Kylie Jenner in terms of “self-made”. Mr. Trump was only  given a 4 by Forbes  .

The majority of the world’s richest people are “self-made” billionaires, according to the organization that specializes in researching the world’s wealthy class, Wealth-X.

70% of the global super-rich, those who own $30 million or more like Kylie Jenner, make their fortune themselves. Only 30% inherit some or all of their huge fortune.