In considering topics of this week, I was offered many suggestions by friends and acquaintances. Given that I am on a trend of first __________ billionaire, many offered the suggestion of women billionaires. So I began to do research on female billionaires; I determined the wealthiest female billionaire, the first female billionaire, self made female billionaires, etc. While doing this research something puzzling was occurring. Oddly enough, many of the female billionaires share the same last name: Walton. After realizing this trend I completely shifted the direction of this week’s blog. I had somehow forgotten perhaps the most well known name on the planet. One up there with McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. Walmart is the 5th largest company in the world with a revenue of $447,000,000,000 every year! They also hold the title of world’s largest employer. All of this fancy-shmanzy equates to a pretty penny for those in charge.

Sam Walton was born in 1918 to Thomas and Nancy Walton. He experienced the thick of the Great Depression and was eventually drafted into World War II. Just prior to the war, he graduated from college and held his first job; he worked at JC Penney as a management trainee where he earned $75 a month. After leaving the army, he managed a variety store in Arkansas, then went on to open his own. His first store was called Walton’s which opened up in Bentonville, Arkansas in 1950. The first Walmart was later opened up in 1962 and everything literally exploded from there reaching 190 stores in 15 years and 800 stores just 8 years after that. (Side note: at some point during this time, Sam Walton invited my grandfather, who stared Laneco grocery stores, for a cup of coffee where they spoke about the idea of combining grocery stores with general merchandise… my grandfather’s claim to fame) Anyways… today Walmart is nearing 9,000 stores and after Sam Walton’s passing, the family remains in charge of the company.

And that is exactly who the emphasis of this blog is: the Walton Family. The Walton’s are world’s richest family with a net worth of about $150 billion thanks to Sam Walton. I guess after all this does continue the blog trend of world’s __________ billionaire. All of the first descendants of the Walton’s are billionaires, and their children will probably be as well, and their children might be as well, and their children still might be, and really it may go on forever. In fact, the five most prominent members of the family consistently rank in the top ten for Forbes 400 wealthiest people. So half of the top ten, that’s insane! So I’ll wrap up this blog the same way I started it, wit the world wealthiest females. At number #1 is Liliane Bettencourt (founder of L’Oreal) with a net worth of $30 billion. Numbers two and three both belong to Waltons though, with Chrissy coming in with a net worth of $28.2 billion and Alice coming in at $26.3 billion. With the success of Walmart, smart investing, and inflation, Sam Walton may very well bestow the title “billionaire” on over 100 people.