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# What It Takes to Be a Billionaire

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EKLFgUQQ.m3u8" -->
## Video: What It Takes to Be a Billionaire

[Watch (HLS stream): What It Takes to Be a Billionaire](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/EKLFgUQQ.m3u8) (1:31)

![What It Takes to Be a Billionaire](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/EKLFgUQQ/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2015-09-29. Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, and Andrew Carnegie share these wealth-building personality traits._


---

Jul 27, 2023 6:53 PM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

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### TIME100 Talks with Bill Gates

[Bill Gates on Healthcare](/video/YxMNctaW/)

### Bill Gates on Healthcare

[World's Richest Billionaire Bill Gates Is Worth $90 Billion](/video/GmsuCerc/)

### World's Richest Billionaire Bill Gates Is Worth $90 Billion

---


## Transcript

If you want to become a billionaire you often have to chose to operate in market where there's only one winner. There's going to be only one winner and that means not only do you have to be utterly competitive and confident in your own ability to be that winner, It also means you have to be untroubled by the prospect of wiping everyone else out. Bill Gates says, I'm gonna be a millionaire to several of his friends in high school. Going back in history to the robber barons, Andrew Carnegie says much the same thing. Another trait is, they are really Good at math, but not in the way that you would kind of expect.

It's not that they're good at advanced math. Bill Gates actually starts as a math major in college and drops out, because he realizes he's never going to cut it. But, what they're good at is sort of speaking a mathematical language, you could almost say. So Carlos Slim is a Mexican billionaire, He says, numbers speak to me. For some people, it's words. For me, it's numbers. Basically, these are people who look at a stream of numbers, particularly the kind of numbers you get off a balance sheet. And it's for them, it's almost like a language. It's like they're reading something. And it shows them that the health of the business that they are in, the competitor's business Something so if you've looked at a corporate balance sheet and you thought you saw a little bit of poetry there, then you may have what it takes to become a billionaire.

[ MUSIC ]

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