Telling Fortunes

No. 38: Henry Ross Perot Jr.

Age: 54Home: DallasNet Worth $1.8 billion

Though he grew up with a famous father, Ross Perot Jr. quickly established his own identity. When he was 23, he became the first person to circumnavigate the earth in a helicopter. He spent his twenties flying F-4 Phantom jets in the Air Force. In his thirties he created the real estate firm Hillwood, whose massive AllianceTexas project helped transform the I-35 corridor north of Fort Worth. He also went to work for his father’s Perot Systems, eventually becoming president in 2000 and chairman in 2004 and ultimately engineering the sale of the company to Dell Inc., in 2009, for a whopping $3.9 billion.