Mukesh Ambani: Asia’s richest person
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From the BBC World Service? This is World of Secrets, Season by Finding Mr. Fox. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Welcome to Good, Bad Billionaire, the BBC World Service. Each episode, we pick up a billionaire and find out how they made their money.

And then we judge them: are they good, bad, or just another author in the podcaster?

And this week's billionaire, the richest person in India, Mukesh Ambani, worth a staggering one hundred and fifteen billion dollars.

He is the person who funded a truly lavish wedding, which he made in pictures recently. Yeah, Rihanna was the wedding act.

Kim Kardashian, Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Marks & Spencer.

They were also in a cool six hundred million dollars that is quite a wedding bash.

And twenty million dollars of that we spent on flowers. Kids!

How can you spend twenty million dollars on flowers?

It's a lot of flowers.

A five-thousand-past main wedding. But it went on for months.

There was a post-wedding celebration, a wedding celebration, and a pre-wedding celebration. And this wasn't even his wedding; it was his son's wedding, I know.

But weirdly, the fact of the day, I think for me, is that six hundred million dollars, our billionaire Mukesh Ambani spent a smaller percentage of his own wealth than most Indians spend on their family weddings.

So think about it as...

Indian, we go. It was a cheap wedding at six hundred million dollars. He also built the world's most expensive private residence, a twenty-seven-story skyscraper home called Antilia, which is named after a mythical island in the Atlantic.

And it includes, get this, three helicopter pads, a ballroom, an ice cream parlor, a snow room that pumps out artificial snowflakes, and six stories of underground parking for all those supercars.

Yes, the house itself cost between one and two billion dollars. So his home would make our list.

If you look at pictures of it on the internet, it looks like stacks and stacks of air conditioning units piled on top of each other. It looks a bit like a supervillain's home, really does. So where did Mukesh Ambani get this kind of cash and fortune come from? Something Reliance Industries, a company founded by his father.

Now, we mostly cover self-made fortunes on this podcast, but Mukesh's father, Dhirubhai, was a billionaire. It's a very interesting story because...

He wasn't a billionaire. So Mukesh wasn't born into the billionaire lifestyle at first.

No, says father began Reliance trading polyester, but we cash grew the company into a conglomerate now includes everything from oil and gas, petrol, chemicals, telecommunications, media, and financial services.

And anything where there is a story of succession. You get entries, you get fuel.

Is a story of sibling rivalry. So the bitter feud between Mukesh and his brother Anil has been described as a business tragedy.

We'll tell the story of that battle for control of Reliance. So is Mukesh Ambani good, bad, or just another billionaire? We'll find out.

Right? Let's go back to the beginning. Mukesh was born in 1957. The other is to four children. There were two boys and two girls in a Gujarati Hindu family.

His parents moved from India to find work in Yemen, which is where he was born. And we know that his dad will become a billionaire, but he wasn't anywhere near that.

When he was born, his father had been the third son of a village teacher. He'd never finished high school. He'd worked as a petrol pump attendant, later becoming an oil company clerk, but he dreamt of starting his own business.

So when Mukesh was just one, he moved a family back to Mumbai and founded a company, which imported spices. And young Mukesh...

We talk about in this podcast about people who are well-placed at important moments, because polyester had just been invented for the textile. Silent street, it was the future of the business. Not many people understood that, but Mukesh's dad did. Now, this was 1958, by the way. We are listening to, you know, the invention of polyester and wondering when on earth that was. And getting into trading at that time was a really brave thing to do in India, because most companies were run by a small clique of elite families. And, you know, the family had no money.

So Mukesh's father had a novel way to raise money. He'd noticed that the value of the silver, the actual metal in the local coins in Yemen, was worth more than their face value, so he melted them down. So the difference said, "I don't believe in not taking opportunities." Blame.

But Mukesh's family wasn't rich at this point. In fact, until he was twelve, they lived in a two-bedroom apartment in what's called a chawl, a communal tenement building in a Mumbai slum.

His brother Anil, described as saying, "We were seven members in the family, including my grandmother, there was a common bathroom and toilet for a hundred families together in the chawl."

It's a long way away from that billion dollars, really.

I can't imagine picturing that. And the wedding we've just been describing seems like a lifetime apart.

But there was a lot of hard work involved to get the family there. So Mukesh remembers his dad was busy working all the time and never visited a school and helped with homework. But you said, "I guess when you're left on your own, you find your true potential."

And throughout Mukesh's teens, his dad's business was getting ever more successful. It became one of the largest polyester trading companies in India. It had expanded into making polyester fabric and clothes in 1925. Reliance launched them out. Clothing brand, starting with polyester to shirts, then men's clothing. And the label would later become iconic in India because it was known for its adverts, featuring famous Bollywood actors.

Yeah. And in 1977, when banks refused to support their expansion with loans, Mukesh's dad listed Reliance Industries in an IPO. IPO comes up a lot in our podcast, an initial public offering where you sell shares of the company to raise cash.

And going public at that time in 1977 was a relatively new thing in India. So Mukesh's dad is actually credited with introducing the stock market to India's retail investors. Thousands invested, causing a bit of a market boom among what was an emerging middle class in India. Realize his annual shareholder meetings had to be held in a football stadium and actually paved away for a kind of new share-owning class, which is an incredible financial resource for other Indian companies to draw on.

So you super-charging the way people...

Basically making a pool of ordinary people's savings for economic ventures. And that's something, for example, Margaret Thatcher trying to do in the 1980s when she privatized a bunch of industries. The idea is it's not us and them, like the owners and the workers. If everyone owns shares, then everyone feels like their kind of owners. It. He creates a new share-owning well-phoning class of people.

Everyone can be part of the economy.

Exactly. It's the most populous country in the, it's the world's largest democracy as we know. So if you have a share and in class of people, that is, my lot of people think that ultimately India end up being the richest country in the world.

Well, it's certainly a journey that parallels much of Mukesh's family's wealth because as their fortunes grow, the family moved out of the chawl and into one of Mumbai's best neighborhoods. ODS, yeah.

He was sent to a private school where he would end up with the future billionaires.

But, and this is really interesting. Mukesh's dad worried that his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, would become...

Too pampered. Red, what? Cation.

So he kind of embarked on this weird, well, not weird, but unusual, program of education. He hired a tutor to give them a real-life inverted commerce at school for three hours every day. After actual school, this person would take them on working-class field trips, which included taking public transport, watching sports, and a two-week trip to a rural village every year.

Now, Mukesh says of that period, he said he was one of the best things that happened to me. We went out and learn how to play hockey. We went by bus, we went by train, and we said, "This is what life looks like."

And Mukesh's dad made his sons work for treats and luxury. So when the brothers wanted to buy expensive mangoes, he agreed only if they traveled on the lower deck of the Mumbai to Goa steamer. Yeah.

They said there was no reservation. Everyone was puking. These are his words. We just wanted us to go through that event because he believed there is no way we could ever buy that sort of experience.

It's really interesting when you think about what rich people consider real-life experiences, like playing hockey, going by the bus. Yes, a Luca's education also includes some time at his dad's company. He said, "My father shared with me his passion for business and entrepreneurship very early. Even when I was in high school, I used to spend a long hours at the office on weekends."

Now, because his dad's business was in textiles, everyone expected Mukesh would study textile engineering at university. But he shocked his family when he chose to study chemical engineering instead.

Yeah, he said nobody had anticipated that chemicals was the direction in which Reliance was headed. I did chemical engineering, because it was supposed to be the future.

And throughout his studies, Mukesh worked for Reliance. So he says he was basically working almost full-time for Reliance. In his words, "I finished college at two thirty pm and went straight to the office."

And he was given a lot of responsibility early on. He said, "I remember we were raided. My father was in the US. I was literally in charge handling the problem. I was a bit about sixteen or seventeen."

So clearly his father trusted him quite a lot from a really young age.

And in 1980, Mukesh moved to the USA to do something that is quite common among Americans. It didn't MBA, a master of business administration at Stanford University.

And that is, by the way, the heart of Silicon Valley. So many of our billionaires have attended it. A quite significant number...

...have dropped out exactly because I said our class and faculty without standing, we had Nobel. Larry Bill Sharp, he was a professor. Financial economics, he made a great impact on the, and he started by asking, "How do you make a difference to the world?"

But while Mukesh was enjoying Stanford, his dad was pushing ahead with a new plan for Reliance, a vertical integration approach. He wanted to open a plant to manufacture polyester yarn rather than importing it from someone else.

If you're all making wind, you bring in the steel and you make it into a widget. Vertical investigation, saying you are in the steel company too. So rather than basic buying in the polyester to fibers, he's building a factory to...

...make the polyester manufacturing process is different. Whether that's a good idea, sometimes people say, "Just do what you're all good at. Don't do the other thing too much." Better if people specialized in different things. The idea of the conglomerate un more bits of the manufacturing supply.

So in 1980, Reliance got a hard-won license to a manufactured polyester yarn ahead of other wealthy business families. So they had an edge...

...in the competition. There were rumors that this success of getting this license linked to a lavish party hosted by Mukesh's dad to celebrate India's Gandhi's 1980 election victory as prime minister.

So Mukesh was called back home by the family. Half. We saw that two-year program at Stanford. Mukesh actually asked to start to wait until you finish studies, but then realized his dad will essentially push ahead without him. So he decided to...

...leave time for to come back immediately, which makes him out in a they bring the co-founder of Google. That's this season alone.

So essentially, what we've learned so far is if you go to university and you are thinking of becoming a billionaire, of the things that might make you a millionaire, the attitude you have to dropping...

...out exactly if you finish your studies, you've got much less chance being successful, which kind of the opposite of whatever once told by their parents, right?

So this was the first project that Mukesh was given to run himself.

And a real-life example of this vertical integration, his father gives him eighty crore rupees, said about a hundred million dollars, his father gave at him said, "Go away and build me a polyester yarn manufacturing plant."

Interesting in Mukesh also said he gave me the full freedom, the ability to bet the house, and that is an interesting billionaire.

Try to be willing to lose everything in Better the house Green. So he gave him a boss. His name is Rishabh K. By Mukesh Ambani, who had been running the polyester business, importing the polyester fiber, selling it onto the style of milk. So he's got kind of a minder, if you like.

So Mukesh was dedicated. He slept in a trailer onsite in the village where the plant was being built. And actually one business association set of the time.

I found him an extremely receptive listener who was learning all the time he virtually capped out. There is very unusual for any leader that I've dealt. Yeah.

A close friend of the Ambani's said, "Mukesh is a guy who likes to get his hands dirty. His a shopkeeper in many ways. He wants to sit at the till."

He wants to see what's going on. And the polyester plant was actually built on schedule and went into production in a record eighteen months. So clearly camping out in nature, he seen the job through.

Now profits are rising, but the 1980s were actually tricky time for markets because Reliance faced a series of allegations around market manipulation from both the government and the media. Although investigations never found anything to pursue.

Then in 1985, Mukesh's boss at the time received by Miss Anne died and in 1986, Mukesh's dad had a stroke which took him months to recover from.

So he's gone from three of us running the business, Mukesh says, "For some time I suddenly became alone. He's in charge and we cash."

And significantly, his brother Anil assumed day-to-day control of the company. And by this point is, and yes, yeah.

It's got assets worth early a billion dollars, although had three million shareholders, remember. So the wealth is spread around a little bit now it's...

...difficult to find out how much money Mukesh have been earning over the years while working for his dad at Reliance. But by 1988, Mukesh had joined Reliance as a board of directors. And Reliance was known to pay high...

...dividends and bonuses. So it seems pretty safe to best thing that by at the time of his early thirties, Mukesh has made a million. He's a millionaire by his early thirties.

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So let's take a moment to discuss Mukesh, the man beyond the business and beyond those initial millions.

Yeah, he's a practicing Hindu. He doesn't drink, smoke, or gamble.

He is a vegetarian with a legendary appetite, but for Indian street food rather than fancy restaurants. So maybe that real-life education are paid off.

And on his personal life, in 1985, 8, 28, he had an arranged marriage to Neeta Ambani.

His dad had seen Neeta dance one day. He was actually a trained dancer in classical Indian dance, and he actually tracked down her number for his son.

Yeah. He was also a school teacher and had one condition for the marriage that he could continue to teach.

Neeta said, "Sunflower Nursery paid me eight hundred rupees a month, which was around sixty-five dollars at the time, and all that salary was mine. It paid for our dinners. People used to laugh at me at that time, but he gave me a lot of satisfaction."

But like his father, Neeta also wanted to show Mukesh the real side of Mumbai. They insisted they would take the bus rather than his posh Mercedes.

And publicly, Mukesh cut a low profile because by the early nineties, his brother and now had become the public face of Reliance, giving interviews and speaking to journals. Although...

...as we'll find out this one last, this won't last. No, and just give a bit context here at the time because we've talked before about moments where you're very well-placed in the country's evolution.

We talked about Jack Ma when China was growing in power and the internet commerce is growing, the Indian economy is changing at the time, the early nineties saw the end of what people called something called the license raj, which is a decade-long system in which the government maintained control of industries through licenses. The licenses were really hard to get. Getting hold of one was really difficult. So people often thought it was a hotbed of potential corruption.

And for Mukesh, it's actually a key moment for Reliance, because the company had been accused of unfairly benefiting from the system. And now that it was no longer in place, he needed to show that the company could thrive without it and to grow.

他再次关注供应链上游的垂直后向整合，就像他的父亲在1880年所做的那样。所以，向上追溯聚合物和聚酯链条，实际上是石化产品和石油。

是的，没有信息技术，你无法制造聚合物。因此，信赖首先开设了一家石油化工厂，生产各种聚合物和聚烯烃。到1995年，信赖工业已成为印度最大的私营企业。1996年，安巴尼家族被《福布斯》杂志列为亿万富翁，身价11亿美元。

所以，公司仍然正式领先。他与兄弟之间存在IT问题。因此，他们将阻止公司进一步亏损，并为自己争取更多资金，达到数十亿美元。

他们目前还没有这样做。但他们即将在印度大力进军石油行业。

整个行业都在上世纪70年代国有化了，但生产和发展一直在下降。到上世纪90年代中期，政府已经准备好将该行业私有化。

而穆凯什对此有很大的计划，对吧？他计划建造一座与印度任何其他炼油厂一样大的炼油厂，因为他首先看到了印度以及全球对精炼石油产品的日益增长的需求。

而聘请的顾问表示，该项目实际上并不具有可行性。它不会赚钱，成本太高。但是穆凯什每周三次亲自监督施工。三年来，他从孟买乘坐小型螺旋桨飞机往返孟买和位于古纳的工地，往返时间约为3个半小时。

所以，他的家人经常陪同他。他实际上在古纳建立了一所学校。古纳据报道是他们儿子在妈妈和爸爸之后说的第三个词，这意味着，但我猜想这只是...

第三个词，是旧炼油厂的名字。它于1999年开业。它耗资34亿美元，但比马来西亚BP建造的类似炼油厂便宜30%。

现在，随着炼油厂的成功，穆凯什有了进一步多元化的想法，这次超越了聚酯。是的。

1999年，在与父亲例行的半小时睡前聊天中，穆凯什提出了进入电信业务，特别是宽带和移动业务的想法。而我们知道，回过头来看，这是一个爆炸性的决定。

这是一个非常敏锐的决定，似乎只是恰好抓住了时机，对吧？只是在恰当的时机插入自己，是的。

拥有足够的资金来利用这些机会非常重要，对吧？

因为我们所有人都会坐在这里说，哦，我认为人工智能将在未来一年成为一件大事。

关于它，我们该怎么办？

是的，嗯，恐怕你没有投资的资金。

或者被冷落了，完全被冷落了。所以，穆凯什的父亲说，长途移动电话的价格太高，无法使其盈利。但是，如果你能让每个印度人都以比明信片还低的价格与其他印度人通话，并且仍然赚钱，那么你就在做生意了。

因此，在2000年，他们宣布计划在印度部署网络，覆盖115个城市，在两年内投资30亿美元。

为了筹集这些资金，他们向海外投资者出售了信赖石油公司约13%的股份。据估计，这大约筹集了7.5亿美元。

这实际上是将信赖转变为多元化集团的开端。因为在2001年，他们还进入了生物技术和保险行业。

是的，我认为真正推动穆凯什成为超级富豪的两大举措是石油和电信。这就是重点，山姆。

我认为这很有趣，因为你可能会想，正如你指出的那样，一些批评者会说，为什么你不能只专注于一件事，做得非常出色，从中赚钱？但似乎要极大地提升你的财富，你需要涉足许多看似毫不相关的行业。立即听众。

在一些亚洲国家，这实际上并非不寻常。在韩国等地，你会有这些大型集团，它们拥有交叉持股，并涉足许多不同的行业。在印度，有一个集团，莱特和捷豹路虎。

它需要咨询服务。它仍然有效。对于一个亚洲非常富有的家庭来说，这并非不寻常的结构。

但正如我们所讨论的，家族企业也使你更容易遭受家庭悲剧。因为在2002年发生了一件事，这将震撼整个家庭。穆凯什的父亲是鲁比的父亲，他因中风于69岁去世。

葬礼队伍长达两公里以上，前往墓地。成千上万的人群聚集在那里。

他留下了遗产。在他去世时，信赖的年营业额约为150亿美元。

这些都是一些疯狂的开始。它制造了印度GDP的3%，占该国出口的5%。如果你将其转换为美国...

美国经济为20万亿美元。所以1%是2000亿美元。一个公司对像印度这样大国家的贡献如此巨大，真是...

令人惊叹，对一家公司和一个家庭来说。这很有趣。安巴尼去世时没有留下遗嘱，这意味着穆凯什的个人财产归他的妻子所有，但公司的情况就没那么简单了。

哦，我看到了麻烦的征兆，你呢？嗯，在父亲去世不到一个月后，穆凯什成为信赖工业的执行董事总经理。他的兄弟阿尼尔成为副董事长。

兄弟俩共同继承了2003年的财富。福布斯和商业杂志将他们列为亿万富翁。是的。

他们合计拥有280亿美元的资产，这使他们成为全球第123富有的家庭。所以，即使与他的兄弟分享财富，穆凯什在2003年仍然是一位亿万富翁。

但正如我们暗示的那样，财富越多，问题也越多。

是的，在继承权问题上，穆凯什表示，他的父亲的遗产没有歧义，并坚持认为他是信赖所有事务的最终权威。

我的意思是，这真是一个冲突的导火索，因为穆凯什和他的兄弟阿尼尔，当时分别为40多岁，即将为控制信赖而展开激烈的斗争。继承权问题。

我现在能听到钢琴的轻微声响。让我们比较一下这两位兄弟。他们的品质是什么？

我们对他们了解多少？穆凯什被描述为保守、严谨、勤奋和工作狂。

记住，他不喝酒、不抽烟、不赌博，也不像阿尼尔那样与好莱坞明星和政治家们一起出去玩，他们完全是两种截然不同的性格。

因此，作为董事长，穆凯什开始着手对公司进行改革。首先，他接替了公司发言人的职位，这是一个他多年来一直担任的职位。

我敢打赌他非常喜欢这个职位，肯定不会再换了。据报道，穆凯什试图将阿尼尔从公司的董事会中驱逐出去。

现在，谣言四起，但他们的斗争直到2004年才真正公开化，当时穆凯什在一次电视采访中承认，存在所有权问题。这些是私人领域的问题。但就信赖而言，它是一家非常强大的专业公司。

所以，他尽力安抚所有人。但是到2005年，幕后情况变得如此糟糕，以至于他们的母亲不得不介入。她阻止了将集团拆分给两兄弟的交易，并通过分拆公司来解决问题。

这是一个很大的举动，所以穆凯什接管了工业业务，包括石油、化工、天然气炼制、纺织品等，而阿尼尔则获得了新业务，包括电信、电力、娱乐和银行。

如果你必须将这些牌发给我，我会说阿尼尔拿到了更好的牌。电信、娱乐和银行，这些都是，我想说，不错的业务，而石油化工、石油和天然气则具有很高的现金流和缺乏风险，但并非未来业务。

不，并非完全尖端。然后，在穆凯什的时代，情况并没有真正好转。

但无论如何，他们都有自己的小帝国。在2006年，阿尼尔和穆凯什分别在《福布斯》杂志上列出，这是我们经常用来衡量人们财富的榜单。穆凯什是全球第56富豪，身价85亿美元。阿尼尔是第104富豪，身价57亿美元。

但这场斗争才刚刚开始。阿尼尔开始对他的公司发起挑战，质疑天然气合同，并对分拆后的新公司提起诉讼，是的。

然后，他指责一位政府部长与他的兄弟勾结。阿尼尔在33家全国性报纸上刊登广告，公开指责穆凯什。

许多人对这些指控表示怀疑，并对阿尼尔提出的针对穆凯什的20亿美元诽谤诉讼表示怀疑，原因是穆凯什在接受《纽约时报》采访时发表的评论。

是的，因为《纽约时报》描述了阿尼尔在德里建立的联盟、情报机构和游说网络，他们声称收集有关权力人物的弱点、官僚的日程安排以及竞争对手活动的资料。

所以，穆凯什回应该报称，所有这些活动都在分拆之前由他的兄弟监督。是的。

他们说，我们已经摆脱了所有这些。尽管他们住在同一栋楼里，但据报道，在家庭聚会上，他们彼此不说话。

一位家庭朋友实际上告诉英国《电讯报》，有时他们被迫握手，但他们甚至不看对方。

谈到这场斗争，这不仅对家庭有害。这对公司来说可能很糟糕，因为穆凯什刚刚成为印度最富有的人。他和阿尼尔是全球第五和第六富豪。由于担心他们的纠纷会对市场产生影响，印度财政部长表示，兄弟俩解决纠纷是国家利益所在。私人纠纷，有点像...

...一个问题，这不仅仅是兄弟间的怨恨和愤怒，也是国家大事。最终，他们诉诸最高法院，在天然气纠纷中，法院裁定穆凯什胜诉。所以，这是穆凯什的一大胜利。

母亲在2010年促成了和平协议。阿尼尔撤回了诽谤诉讼，阿尼尔表示：

我们以非常友好的方式分道扬镳，投资者不必有任何担忧。对我来说，这是一个新的开始，我相信穆凯什的未来会非常成功。有趣的是，母亲总是能介入，是的，以某种方式解决问题。

在案件和解方面，母亲在其中扮演了什么角色？无论如何，我再说一遍，我相信穆凯什的未来会非常成功。他确实做到了，而阿尼尔则没有。所以，这实际上...

...是阿尼尔命运的转折点，因为到2019年，阿尼尔从全球第六富豪，身价420亿美元，跌落到亿万富翁榜单之外。

完全崩溃。我们有时间详细探讨他财富急剧下降的确切原因。但是，阿尼尔的企业负债8000万美元。他成为过去100年里最快速摧毁共同价值的企业家之一。

而且，如果他不偿还债务，阿尼尔实际上面临着坐牢的风险。所以，穆凯什...

...实际上替他付清了债务。太好了。这听起来很...

...或者说，非常可能，非常有侵略性。这是我替你付账。谢谢，兄弟。

在2020年，阿尼尔在英国法院申请个人破产，法官明确表示，他的资产或收入比他声称的要多。

另一方面，穆凯什则一路高歌猛进。所以，他开始在阿尼尔实际上...

...失败的领域取得成功，是的，在2016年推出了名为信赖地球的电信公司。这实际上部分导致了阿尼尔现有电信业务的衰落。

因为穆凯什的公司大幅降低价格，并投资于4G技术，而阿尼尔的企业则还在苦苦挣扎于旧系统，现在信赖地球拥有超过4.7亿用户。

这是一个非常有趣的策略，你拥有新技术。所以，你拥有一个优势，你可以进入市场，大幅降低价格，以某种方式抢占市场份额。然后，一旦你获得了市场份额，你就可以稍微提高价格。但你显然已经消灭了竞争对手。

这与优步等公司所做的类似，对吧？你降低价格，让使用该公司的价格比以往任何时候都低。是的。然后，当你拥有市场主导地位时，例如，如果你看到同样的情况，你创造出人们无法离开的东西，然后你开始慢慢地提高价格。

所以，今年，在2020年，穆凯什的信赖与迪士尼合作，在印度创建了一个流媒体服务，旨在挑战奈飞和亚马逊Prime视频。所以，他们试图抢占流媒体市场。

是的，他现在是亚洲最富有的人。他的身价高达1150亿美元。

他还计划进入电子商务领域，挑战亚马逊和沃尔玛等全球巨头。所以，他的野心显然不满足于现状。

考虑到印度经济的扩张，以及他们在许多行业中扮演的关键角色，我将大胆预测，五年后，穆凯什·安巴尼将成为全球最富有的人。

哦，这是一个有趣的预测。让我们五年后再来看看。

看看你是否正确。好的，世界各地不断涌现新的亿万富翁，我们可能仍然需要一点运气。

希望一切顺利。所以，一位前员工说穆凯什想成为奈飞，想成为阿里巴巴。他想要成为所有的一切。

这就是亿万富翁的特性。他们对更多财富有着永不满足的渴望。正如我们经常说的那样，你必须从几百万美元开始。

我得走了，是的。但是如果你想从几百万美元变成数十亿美元，你必须非常精确。

所以，我们必须评判他。我们必须对穆凯什进行评估，并给他打个分数，看看他是好是坏，还是仅仅另一个亿万富翁。我们总是从数字开始。

财富。所以，在危机之前，安巴尼家族的财富相当于印度GDP的10%。根据一项报告。穆凯什个人财富约占印度GDP的3%。

印度GDP的3%。这相当于你在一国花费、赚取和做的一切的3%。

一个国家的全部经济活动，占3%。现在，如果这是美国，那大约是20万亿美元的GDP。

所以，1%是2000亿美元，3%就是6000亿美元。所以，与美国相比，他如此富有，如果美国人有6000亿美元，那将是目前任何人的两倍多。

我的意思是，这代表着大量的经济活动。难怪财政部长说这是国家大事。所以，当我们看到他和他的兄弟发生争执时...

...我的意思是，在英国，政府可以借入超过GDP的3%来平衡预算。这是整个国家的赤字。无论如何，尽管缺乏现金，穆凯什在2023年声称，金钱并不驱动他，他说。

他的父亲说，如果你只为了赚钱而做任何事，你就是个傻瓜，因为你永远不会赚到钱，也永远不会成为亿万富翁。如果你从目标开始，如果你想成为世界上最好的人，想做别人从未做过的事情，那么金钱只是副产品，而副产品永远不应该成为重点。我仍然遵循他的建议。

是的。而且，关于穆凯什财富的评估，不仅仅是看他拥有多少，还在于他如何使用它。回到那6亿美元的婚礼...

...正如你所说，6亿美元的婚礼支出，低于普通印度富裕家庭在婚礼上的平均支出。

他在婚礼上花费的比例不到他财富的0.5%。印度的父母平均在孩子的婚礼上花费了他们财富的5%到15%。按照他的标准，这很便宜。我的意思是，话虽如此，建造一个私人摩天大楼，配有冰淇淋店、人造雪房和100名员工，仍然让他在全球范围内脱颖而出。

我无法想象更昂贵的消费系列。世界上最昂贵的住宅，拥有直升机停机坪、六层停车场和600名员工。我的意思是，他知道如何花钱，这就是事实。

我的意思是，他对我来说得分很高。我想我会给他打个9分。

...甚至可能更高。我不能给他10分，因为他不是我们遇到的最富有的人。但我给他打9分。就像我说的，我预测他会成为世界上最富有的人。

所以，会有更多豪华的摩天大楼...

...正在为安巴尼家族建造。好的？所以，他在财富和白手起家的方面获得了9分。

这就是他们的成就。我们见过一些人，就像温菲尔德一样，从字面意义上从贫困中崛起。但这并不意味着任何事情。

嗯，这很有趣，因为我认为如果从他父亲那开始，追溯他的家族史，是的，我们当时住的条件，帐篷和贫民窟，是的，那么他的旅程可能会更曲折。但是话虽如此，到麦克去上学的时候，他已经接受精英教育了。所以精英教育让爸爸担心他会脱离现实吗？他们有老师、机构，有真正的生活教育。是的。是的。所以我觉得……

也许是对的。如果我们只看家庭背景，是的，他们会接受教育，但他上学的时候，他的父亲已经很富有。

他随着帝国一起崛起，帝国也随着他一起壮大。所以我会给他打3分。甚至更低一些，也许，是的。

我想我会同意你的看法。我想，嗯，对我来说，也许甚至只有1分，因为很明显他得到了0分。不，我想也许只是10分中的1分。我仍然认为我们还没有看到真正的从贫民窟到富豪的案例，好的，因为他得到了进入家族公司的机会，但他确实……

努力工作了，好的。我想你会说服我给他也打1分，威伦也给1分。嗯，你准备做什么才能……

取得成功？所以这很有趣，对吧？所以一位亲密的朋友接受了纽约时报的采访，我们也了解到他为此与兄弟发生了冲突。他说，记住，这些人都在许可的愤怒中长大。

他们从小就生活在肮脏的环境中。这是一个非常有趣的画面，啊，这让他们变得坚强，让他们变得多疑，有时让他们显得急躁，并让他们表现得匆忙。他们总是把生活看作是上帝的恩赐，但他们从小到大从未错过任何机会。

你没有第二次机会，是的，而且你也不需要读很多关于印度过去的书就能意识到腐败一直存在。印度商业界有腐败，他感觉自己会走到顶峰。很多人说，你不可能没有拉关系、走后门。

2024年5月，印度国大党要求总理莫迪对穆克什·安巴尼展开彻底调查，因为安巴尼被指控拥有黑钱。现在这意味着大量的现金被隐藏起来，以逃避税务机关的追查。2016年，我碰巧在印度，当时我坐在酒吧里，他们说，等等。

总理莫迪要进行电视直播，所以大家围过来。他宣布废除或禁止500卢比和1000卢比的钞票。

人们可以在接下来的几天内将旧钞票兑换成新钞票。这直接打击了他们认为的地下经济。几天里一片混乱。

一定有人，在某些情况下……

试图控制局面。有人指责人们囤积了大量的现金，而这些现金并没有进入真正的经济循环。这并没有什么生产力。第二天我无法去机场，因为我没有钱付给机长。

然而，值得注意的是，莫迪在宣布废钞令几个月后，参加了安巴尼的婚礼。我的邀请函不幸在邮寄途中丢失了。

安巴尼一直声称自己从未行贿或违规，他告诉《纽约时报》。所以这些都是传闻，但他承认有间接的方式来获得青睐。虽然信赖公司从未支付过官员子女的学费，但他承认由信赖公司控制或与信赖公司有联系的基金会有时会，用他的话说，提供一些奖学金，也许，但这都在公开场合。

2014年，有消息称信赖公司每年向政治家支付10万美元作为“咨询顾问费”。2024年，莫迪和他的竞选对手拉胡尔·甘地互相指责对方接受了大量现金。

是的，所以，好吧，你可以对这些事情做出自己的判断。我只想说，在英国议会，也有很多政客和议员收取咨询费。所以这在印度并不独特。

我们还需要注意到，当谈到不平等时，奢华婚礼的支出在媒体上曝光后，受到了广泛批评，这被视为印度富人和穷人之间差距的象征。

我认为这确实是一个关键点，因为印度确实存在严重的贫困。

我认为，实际上，印度的收入不平等现在比英国统治时期更严重。

我们过去讨论过的亿万富翁的存在本身就是一种压迫和不平等的象征，人们觉得这很可耻。

所以，当谈到……

你会如何评价他？天哪，我将直接给他打5分。

嗯，我感觉，我想你可以把他的故事和他的兄弟放在一起。他是一个非常强硬的经营者。我认为，你知道，他以一种……

压倒性的方式进入电信行业……

压倒他的兄弟，即使你知道公司被分割是为了让兄弟拥有电信业务，这对我来说有点暗示着某种不光彩的行为，是的，因为，你知道，这两兄弟本应一起继承家族企业。所以我会给他打稍微高一点的分数。我会给他打6分。

10分，好的，好吧。你给6分，我给5分。慈善事业。他们有很多钱，他们捐了多少钱。

所以，据报道，2023年，穆克什·安巴尼及其家人通过信赖基金会捐赠了大约5000万美元，该基金会专注于教育和医疗保健。听起来很多。但当你将其置于背景中时……

实际上，这只是小数目，与他的财富相比，他捐赠的金额不到他资产的0.6%。2023年，这与比尔·盖茨或查克·菲尼不同。

是的，完全正确。所以，在印度慈善家排行榜上，他只排在第三位。尽管他是印度……

……甚至亚洲最富有的人。

对我来说是2分。我的意思是，我会……

……甚至说1分，好的，可以，然后是权力。这是一家创造了印度3% GDP的企业。所以他一定很强大。

所以，2024年，CNN的一篇关于印度作为超级大国崛起的报道，将他列为莫迪和另一位亿万富翁的三人之一，因为他在塑造印度未来几十年将成为经济超级大国的过程中发挥了关键作用。

是的，所以他随时可以拿起电话，与任何国家元首或世界其他任何国家元首交谈，我会说。所以我会给他打9分。

哦，很有趣。我觉得我会给他10分，只是因为他，你知道，在商业圈里很有名。他在印度非常有名。但我要说的是，在关于安巴尼婚礼的报道开始出现并充斥人们的新闻源之前，很多人不知道他是谁。

是的，我想这是真的。我仍然认为他是一个有影响力的人物。

……无论英国或美国的人们是否认识他，我敢打赌，如果我们在美国街头拦住他，人们不会知道他是谁，但这并不意味着他没有……

……巨大的权力。所以你给9分，我给8分，这样就对了。他的遗产呢？

嗯，我想这还为时过早。这将是其中一种情况，我认为他将在几年内成为世界上最富有的人。所以我会说，他将在印度拥有巨大的影响力，他将成为印度经济崛起的象征，而且不仅仅是在一个行业，而是在多个行业，对吧？所以他们正在改变电信、石油、化工等行业的面貌，不仅在一个国家，而且在全球范围内。

是的，我说遗产。这是一个正在进行中的工作，但我现在给8分。

一个坚实……

……援助。然后我们必须做出这个可怕的决定。我们必须决定他是一个好人、坏人还是一个普通的亿万富翁。我感到紧张，因为这些人说他们很强大。我认为他们正在听取一些黑名单，我余生都会听到。

而且你可能也无法采访他们。

我自己的新闻机会……

……进入大门的机会，以及……

……被邀请参加……

……好吧，我会先看看。

我的意思是，正如你指出的那样，这仍然是一个发展中的故事。他显然有勇气和动力做得更多。他还没有像我们指控的其他亿万富翁那样做过任何非常黑暗的事情。例如，他不是毒品走私……

……的例子。

完全正确。所以，就目前而言，我的判断是，他只是一个普通的亿万富翁。

我完全同意，因为我认为我们不知道足够的信息来做出相反的判断，所以无论哪种方式。所以我会说他只是一个普通的亿万富翁。我说这话时，我的意思是，我得继续关注这个人，因为我认为他将成为最富有的人。这将是他和埃隆·马斯克之间在太空竞赛中会发生什么。他很有可能……

……未来会有安巴尼火箭。

有可能，我的意思是，当你达到一定的财富水平时，你如何处理这种财富？只是把钱花在太空火箭上是你可以做的最昂贵的事情之一。

所以，请密切关注天空的反应。

安巴尼，你只是一个普通的亿万富翁，但你有很多钱。那么下一个是谁？

所以我们有这个人，他象征着俄罗斯在英国的奢华和金钱。

这个人成为伦敦，尤其是在20世纪90年代的象征。这是由汉娜·霍福德在路易斯·莫里斯制作的，并得到了《时代报》和《咖喱》的额外制作支持。詹姆斯·库克是编辑，这是BBC世界新闻的BBC工作室制作。

对于BBC世界新闻，高级播客制作人是大卫·科林斯，播客委托编辑是约翰·马诺。

一次终身冒险，环游世界，将一艘翻新的游艇运送到全球数千英里，从巴西到欧洲。有很多经验。

梦想开始。

但对于被选中的水手来说，这份梦想工作很快变成了噩梦。警察来了。船上有什么东西。但十个嫌疑人中，一个关键嫌疑人却在几英里外。福克斯说了算。

他……

……负责。

但我们从BBC世界新闻中找到了他……

……世界秘密系列第五季，寻找福克斯先生，一个世界秘密，无论你在哪里收听……

……BBC播客。