A business magnate, also known as an industrialist or tycoon, is a person who is a powerful entrepreneur and investor who controls, through personal enterprise ownership or a dominant shareholding position, a firm or industry whose goods or services are widely consumed.
Etymology and history
The term
magnate derives from the
Latin word magnates (plural of magnas), meaning 'great man' or 'great nobleman'.
The term mogul is an English corruption of , Farsi or Arabic for 'Mongol'. It alludes to emperors of the Mughal Empire in Early Modern India, who possessed great power and storied riches capable of producing wonders of opulence, such as the Taj Mahal.
The term tycoon derives from the Japanese word taikun, which means 'great lord', used as a title for the .
Usage
Modern business magnates are entrepreneurs that amass on their own or wield substantial family fortunes in the process of building or running their own businesses. Some are widely known in connection with these entrepreneurial activities, others through highly-visible secondary pursuits such as
philanthropy, political fundraising and campaign financing, and sports team ownership or sponsorship.
The terms mogul, tycoon, and baron were often applied to late-19th- and early-20th-century North American business magnates in natural resource such as mining, logging and petroleum, transportation fields such as shipping and rail transport, manufacturing such as automaking and , in banking, as well as newspaper publishing. Their dominance was known as the Second Industrial Revolution, the Gilded Age, or the Robber Baron Era.
Examples of business magnates in the western world include historical figures such as pottery entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood, oilmen John D. Rockefeller and Fred C. Koch, automobile pioneer Henry Ford, aviation pioneer Howard Hughes, shipping and railroad veterans Aristotle Onassis, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, Jay Gould and James J. Hill, steel innovator Andrew Carnegie, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst, poultry entrepreneur Arthur Perdue, retail merchant Sam Walton, and bankers J. P. Morgan and Mayer Amschel Rothschild. Contemporary industrial tycoons include e-commerce entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, investor Warren Buffett, computer programmers Bill Gates and Paul Allen, technology innovator Steve Jobs, vacuum cleaner retailer Sir James Dyson, media proprietors Sumner Redstone, Ted Turner and Rupert Murdoch, industrial entrepreneur Elon Musk, steel investor Lakshmi Mittal, telecommunications investor Carlos Slim, Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, Formula 1 executive Bernie Ecclestone, and internet entrepreneurs Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
Business magnates
File:Portrait of Josiah Wedgwood gupjg13 4 ics8nad.tiff|Josiah Wedgwood
File:Samuel Slater industrialist.jpg|Samuel Slater
File:James Finlayson (1771-1852).jpg|James Finlayson
File:Cornelius Vanderbilt Daguerrotype2.jpg|Cornelius Vanderbilt
File:JNTata.jpg|Jamsetji Tata
File:Henry John Heinz by the Pach Brothers Studio, c. 1914, gelatin silver print, from the National Portrait Gallery - NPG-NPG 93 388 14.jpg|Henry J. Heinz
File:Portrait of 49-year-old John D. Rockefeller.jpg|John D. Rockefeller
File:JohnPierpontMorgan.png|J. P. Morgan
File:HearstAbout1910.jpg|William Randolph Hearst
File:Asa G. C..jpg|Asa Griggs Candler
File:Andrew-carnegie-portrait-pd.png|Andrew Carnegie
File:Henry ford 1919.jpg|Henry Ford
File:Kreuger ca1920.jpg|Ivar Kreuger
File:Howard Hughes.jpg|Howard Hughes
File:Dhirubhai Ambani 2002 stamp of India.jpg|alt=Dhirubhai Ambani|Dhirubhai Ambani
File:Sam-Walton.jpg|Sam Walton
File:Warren Buffett at the 2015 SelectUSA Investment Summit (cropped).jpg|Warren Buffett
File:Ted Turner at the LBJ Foundation.jpg|Ted Turner
File:Rupert Murdoch - Flickr - Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer.jpg|Rupert Murdoch
File:Richard Branson March 2015 (cropped).jpg|Richard Branson
File:Li Ka Shing.jpg|Li Ka-shing
File:Bill Gates 2018.jpg|Bill Gates
File:Paul G. Allen (cropped).jpg|Paul Allen
File:Steve Jobs Headshot 2010-CROP (cropped 2).jpg|Steve Jobs
File:Lakshmi Mittal LM.jpg|Lakshmi Mittal
File:Larry Ellison picture.png|Larry Ellison
File:Carlos Slim (45680472234) (cropped).jpg|Carlos Slim
File:Mike Bloomberg Headshot (cropped).jpg|Michael Bloomberg
File:Bernard Arnault (2) - 2017 (cropped).jpg|Bernard Arnault
File:Jeff Bezos at Amazon Spheres Grand Opening in Seattle - 2018 (39074799225) (cropped).jpg|Jeff Bezos
File:Elon Musk 2015.jpg|alt=Elon Musk|Elon Musk
File:Larry Page in the European Parliament, 17.06.2009 (cropped).jpg|Larry Page
File:Sergey Brin cropped.jpg|Sergey Brin
File:Mark Zuckerberg F8 2019 Keynote (32830578717) (cropped).jpg|Mark Zuckerberg
See also
External links
