"If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars." -J. Paul Getty
The great American oil baron was among the first billionaires in history, but he didn't make the bulk of his fortune until 1949, when he was 58. That's when he paid Saudi Arabia $9.5 million and $1 million a year for the next 60 years to own a piece of barren land at the border of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Getty was banking on there being oil underneath, even though none had ever been discovered.
In 1953, he finally struck oil. From then on, until his death in 1976, his land produced 16 million barrels of oil a year - a good reason why Getty died the richest man in the world.
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