Whether you like it or not, money is a major factor that controls what you can and can't do in life. That's why it's important to be financially wise.

Whether you're planning a retirement fund or getting ready to launch a business, being savvy with your cash is vital.

From Warren Buffett to Oprah Winfrey — some of the wealthiest people in the world started from nothing but were smart about managing money.

So take it from the pros. Here are 15 wise money quotes from millionaires and billionaires. Cha-ching!

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"It doesn't matter how you live. It doesn't matter what car you drive. It doesn't matter what kind of clothes you wear. The more you stress over bills, the more difficult it is to focus on your goals. The cheaper you can live, the greater your options."—Mark Cuban

"Never depend on single income. Make investments to create a second source."—Warren Buffett

"Don't think in terms of taking huge risks to get huge rewards. Think about the least amount of risk for the greatest reward, and be disciplined about that."—Tony Robbins

Self-made billionaire Naveen Jain, who came to America from India with just $5 in his pocket, reveals his best advice on how to make billions of dollars.

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If you're interviewing with Drew Houston, then there are five questions in particular that you should be prepared to answer.

Adam Bryant of The New York Times recently spoke with the 33-year-old billionaire founder of Dropbox, a file-sharing and storage service, and asked, "How do you hire?"

Houston said that there are a few questions he likes to ask:

1. Who is the best in the world at what you do?

2. Who are your influences?

3. What have you learned in the last year?

4. If you were able to sit yourself down 10 years ago, what advice would you give your younger self?

5. What are the most important lessons you've taken away?

He told Bryant: "I'm drawn to people who really love their craft, and treat it like a craft, and are always trying to be better and are obsessed with what separates great from good."

He said that he thinks these five questions help him understand if a candidate has these qualities.

Click here to see what other top executives, like Richard Branson and Elon Musk, always ask in job interviews.

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This slick yacht looks like a supervillians hideout straight out of out of the next 007 film. The superyacht is called The Black Swan and is a design concept by  designer Timur Bozca.

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At least 70% of billionaires have a bachelor's degree, according to Wealth-X, and 22% have a master's degree. While the path to riches may not be paved in college degrees, it certainly helps.

Based on data from Wealth-X, we compiled a list of the top 10 universities by the number of billionaire graduates.

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8. TIE: University of Chicago

Notable graduate: Former Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham

Number of degrees earned by billionaires: 22

8. TIE: New York University

Notable graduate: Twitter founder and programmer Jack Dorsey

Number of degrees earned by billionaires: 22

7. Yale University

Notable graduate: Former Coca-Cola chairman Roberto Goizueta

Number of degrees earned by billionaires: 23

One of the most popular solutions to poverty proposed over the last year has been a pretty straightforward one: Just pay people enough so they're not poor anymore.

Advocates for these direct cash transfers, as they're known, point to empirical evidence that recipients' quality of life goes up when they get more money. More often than not, people don't spend it on booze as much as things like home repair or education.

If the world's billionaires stepped in to provide money, the latest evidence suggests, direct cash transfers could work on a global scale.

A report issued earlier this year by the Brookings Institution finds the cost of closing the global poverty gap would be about $80 billion, according to data released by the World Bank. That's how much it would cost to give each of the world's 767 million poor enough money to lift them above the poverty line of $1.90 a day.

Meanwhile, the latest OECD data reveals the 35 member states collectively spent $131.6 billion in foreign aid in 2015 — meaning the cost of lifting people from poverty, at least in theory, costs about 60% of what the world's biggest donors spend annually to address similar issues.

Or as the Economist recently put it, "The world can afford to end poverty."

The authors of the Brookings report explain that foreign aid includes a lot more than putting cash in people's pockets: The amount that goes toward social payments and their administration is only about 2% of the total aid. Things like vaccines, plumbing, and road-building — "physical infrastructure and strengthening institutions"— make up the remaining 98%.

"If the elimination of extreme poverty is to be achieved through targeted transfers, it depends on sources other than foreign aid," the authors write. Those sources are the privately wealthy. 

Researchers see cash transfers as a complementary approach to investments in larger forms of aid. More of the world's billionaires could follow in the footsteps of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg to give away large portions of their wealth in the pursuit of curing the world's ills.

In their analysis, the researchers identified countries that have at least one billionaire. Then they assumed that billionaire agreed to give away half of his or her total wealth. 

In most cases, poverty was eliminated or substantially reduced. In special cases where the researchers imagine a group of billionaires pooling their donations, instead of just one single donor, even larger countries see poverty disappear. These include countries like China (home to 213 billionaires), India (90), and Indonesia (23).

Cash transfers aren't the whole solution to ending poverty, the researchers concede. But neither is foreign aid. Private wealth more than covers the cost of getting people over the poverty line, even taking into account the costs of getting that money to people and what impacts there'd be on prices relative to the dollar.

NGOs like GiveDirectly have shown in small-scale transfer trials that poor people fare better when they have more income. If billionaires took a similar approach to their giving, the benefits could be equally profound — only orders of magnitude greater.

SEE ALSO: Here's more evidence that giving people unconditional free money actually works

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It's important to remember that money doesn't solve life's problems.  In fact, these people's lives took a turn for the worse after winning the lottery.

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Your beliefs about money can play a huge role in whether or not you finish rich. 

So why not look to those who have been there, done that for inspiration? 

Business Insider rounded up quotations about money from self-made billionaires that will shift your perspective on business, investing, and success. 

From investor Warren Buffett to tech mogul Jeff Bezos, here's what some of the world's richest men and women have to say about money. 

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“My goal was never to just create a company. A lot of people misinterpret that, as if I don't care about revenue or profit or any of those things. But what not being just a company means to me is not being just that — building something that actually makes a really big change in the world.” —Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook

“When a small business grows like eBay did, it has a multiplier effect. It creates other small businesses that supply it with intellectual capital, goods and services.” —Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett Packard Enterprise

"I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful."—Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

Time is a commodity. Many would argue that it's the world's most valuable commodity. But there are a lot of misconceptions about time.

One of the biggest misconceptions is that you can somehow save time. But the truth is, you can only spend it. There is no way to get it back once it's gone, and you can't store it anywhere. But, you can create more time, and I'm going to show you how.

I have spent a lot of time — pun intended — studying billionaires like Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Cuban, Elon Musk and Warren Buffet, amongst others.

They all have a similar line of thinking when it comes to this magical four letter word.

Time is something that most people mismanage, waste and abuse. But time is the one thing that is going to get you closer to the billionaire entrepreneur's club if you can master it. Here are five things you need to know about time.

1. Distraction is time lost

First and foremost, focus is the name of the game for all of the billionaire entrepreneurs that I've studied and met. Distraction means you are losing time or spending it unwisely.

For instance, distraction happens the minute you open your Facebook feed and aimlessly scroll through. Before you know it, you are three viral videos deep and researching something that is completely unrelated to your goal.

Buffett has a great method of coming up with your most important goal. He tells people to list the 25 most important things they want to do in their life. He asks them to review each goal, and choose the five most crucial ones. Most people want to do the five main goals while sometimes working on the other 20. But Buffett insists that the other 20 are your "avoid-at-all-costs" list until the first five are completed.

2. Writing your goals down increases chances of success by 42%

Goals are extremely important. You have to know what you are fighting for or you've already lost. If there was a way to wave a magic wand and reprogram your brain to be more productive and effective, this would be it.

According to John Assaraf, author of "The Secret" and "Neurogym," goals are 42% more likely to be achieved if you simply write them down. Once you have your goals written down, they become much more real. One of the biggest problems entrepreneurs face is not knowing where to focus their energy. They are trying to accomplish 100 things at once, instead of focusing on specific goals.

So you know what you need to do, you have your most important goals in hand, you aren't distracted, but you still just don't have enough time to do everything you want to do. What next?

3. Empower others by allowing them to take responsibility

This can be one of the hardest to actually execute, but it is extremely important. If you are a one-man or one-woman show, you are always only going to only have 24 hours in a day. But, if you can hire even one additional person, you now have 48 hours in a day. And this obviously multiplies with every person you add. You could get five to seven productive hours out of each person you hire, on average.

The big question is — how do you get employees to stay with you? The iconic saying from Branson sums that up very clearly. "Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so that they don't want to."

4. Utilize technology instead of people

People aren't always the answer. Often times, it's easier to utilize technology instead of people. Automation is something that works in all sorts of businesses. But before you implement automation, you need to make sure your system is working efficiently, or you could turn a small problem into a big problem.

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."— Bill Gates

5. Don't be afraid to be a contrarian

Billionaires and wildly successful people are known to not follow the rules. For every one rule, there is a billionaire out there breaking it.

SEE ALSO: A CEO shares the unusual strategy billionaire Richard Branson taught him for hiring the best employees

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If Mark Zuckerberg wasn't planning to give away 99% of his family's Facebook shares before he dies, I bet he'd be a trillionaire at some point in his life. For now, though, he'll have to settle for a net worth of $51.7 billion, according to Bloomberg's Billionaire Index. That's up $5.9 billion year to date as of this writing.

His wealth increase was driven by his 14% stake in Facebook. The stock price increased a solid 13.5% so far this year, although it was up more than double that amount at one point this year. Those gains were offset by the sale of some of Zuckerberg's stock to fund the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the vehicle through which Zuck plans to donate 99% of his stock.

Facebook's revenue and earnings growth didn't slow down

Throughout 2016, Facebook consistently posted earnings results that beat analysts' expectations. Over the last four quarters, Facebook grew its revenue 55% to $24.7 billion. What's more, its net income grew a whopping 165% to $7.5 billion.

Those strong results were fueled largely by continued user growth, increases in engagement, and more advertising in Facebook's News Feed and Instagram.

Monthly active users (MAUs) increased from 1.55 billion at the end of the third quarter last year to 1.79 billion today. Daily active users (DAUs) increased from 1.01 billion to 1.18 billion. Engagement also increased as evidenced by the DAU-to-MAU ratio improving to 66% this year.

Facebook also provided an update on average user time spent per day across Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Users now spend an average of 50 minutes per day as of the company's first-quarter earnings report. That's up from the 40 minutes per day the company reported in the second quarter of 2014.

Additionally, Facebook has managed to display more advertisements in user's News Feeds and Instagram feeds. Total ad impressions increased 50% in the third quarter, in line with the first and second quarter. What's more, Facebook has managed modest average ad price increases while increasing its revenue so significantly.

Just a little bit of bad news

But a few pieces of bad news kept Facebook stock from flying too high this year. In February, India's telecom regulator banned Facebook's Free Basics app in the country, saying it violates net neutrality principles. Free Basics allowed users to access select apps (including Facebook) without the data counting against their data caps. The ban was seen as a major blow to Facebook's ambitions in the huge emerging market.

Additionally, despite reporting strong results for the third quarter, investors were scared by comments from CFO Dave Wehner saying ad load would have less of a meaningful impact on revenue growth. "With a much smaller contribution from this important factor going forward, we expect to see ad revenue growth rates come down meaningfully," Wehner said on the third-quarter earnings call.

The comments sent Facebook shares tumbling from an all-time high of $133.50 before Facebook reported its third-quarter earnings.

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A new kind of philanthropist is emerging in the 21st century. They show little interest in the old philanthropic model - attending galas and endowing their alma mater.

Today, relatively young technology billionaires are creating a new paradigm of philanthropy, one that arguably sets a new standard of ethical practice in the non-profit sector.

Their purpose is to use their influence to push the boundaries of science and technology for the creation of social benefit. In a growing trend, in 2014, more than US$5 billion was donated by wealthy technologists for this purpose.

A cynic might say it is about lining their own pockets, yet there is ample evidence to suggest they are motivated by a kind of win-win altruism. These are men and women who think global and want to leave a legacy.

Who are we talking about? It is a long list indeed, with names like Gordon Moore (Intel), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan, Sean Parker (Facebook), Paul Allen (Microsoft) and Michael Dell, to mention a few.

Shortfalls in government funding

One factor in the rise of the new philanthropy is that government spending on science in the US has been dropping in recent times. Research institutes are closing, projects being put on hold or abandoned for want of funding. Increasingly, science philanthropy is stepping up to address the shortfall.

It is not surprising that wealthy technologists would want to invest in pushing the boundaries of science. Technology is, after all, applied science. Without the research, technological progress slows to a crawl.

As a result, we are seeing the priorities of science being influenced less by government policy and academia, and more by the priorities of the philanthropic giver. After all, who pays the piper calls the tune. It is a trend giving rise to some disquiet in the science establishment. With pressure on government budgets from other priorities, the trend towards the outsourcing of science funding is likely to continue.

The Gates Foundation

Even the wealthiest of governments would be hard pressed to match the funding of some of the larger new “venture philanthropists”.

With assets of around US$44 billion, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a prime example of the new philanthropy. To date it has spent roughly US$10 billion on a range of programs in developing countries to improve health care, provide education and reduce poverty. It has funded efforts to control infectious diseases, malaria, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases. It also funds family planning, basic health care, nutrition and sanitation.

It would be difficult to criticise such efforts, though it will not stop some from claiming they are only giving back what they had no right to take in the first place. Being a philanthropist today can be a thankless business.

Is there a dark side?

Silicon Valley billionaire and philanthropist Peter Thiel incurred the wrath of his peers by strongly supporting Donald Trump, donating money and making speeches for his election. Thiel has since been named a member of the President-elect’s transition team, indicating that he is not just a supporter but a trusted friend.

What does Thiel expect in return? Time will tell, but it is likely he will be most valuable serving as a mediator between a Trump White House and the largely left-wing Silicon Valley establishment to implement a new policy agenda. Not an easy job.

The new philanthropy is diversifying

It is a measure of the hyper-partisan nature of politics today that would call participation in the political process a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing. We need more intelligent, capable people with technology skills to enter a field that has been brought into disrepute in recent times. Have you noticed how few politicians really understand technology?

David Tuffley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Ethics and Socio-Technical Studies., Griffith University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Japan’s richest man, Tadashi Yanai, lost $1.4bn in a single day on Friday after his company Fast Retailing, which owns Uniqlo, saw its shares crash by 6.7 per cent. The Chairman and founder of the company suffered the biggest wealth decline among the world’s 500 richest people according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Uniqlo Japan announced a December slump on Friday, blaming unusually warm weather which it said had hit sales of winter clothing. Overall receipts were down five per cent.

Yanai’s net worth currently stands at $17.7bn, with Friday’s losses causing him to slip six places down the global rich list to 44th. 

Sixty-seven year-old Yanai opened the first Uniqlo store in Hiroshima in 1984, and has since steered the firm to rapid growth.

Yanai has predicted the retailer will eclipse rivals H&M and Inditex, which owns Zara, to become the biggest clothing retailer in the world by 2020. He has also pledged to uphold the ethical values for which his company is known. 

Uniqlo’s disappointing numbers added to Japanese corporate woes as Donald Trump threatened to slap punitive taxes on the Toyota’s cars if it imported them from Mexico.

Toyota saw its shares fall three per cent on the news, while other car manufacturers also suffered, helping to drag Japan’s Nikkei stock market down 0.4 per cent overall. Japanese markets were closed today for a national holiday.

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Self-made billionaire Naveen Jain came to America from India with just $5 in his pocket before building his fortune in the tech industry. He explains how his latest company, Moon Express, is going to the moon, and just how big of an opportunity that is.

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Xiao Jianhua, one of China's richest men, was taken from the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong by Chinese police and put into custody in on the mainland, according to media reports.

The New York Times said Jinhua, who is reported to have financial connections to Chinese President Xi Jinping, was taken across the border on Friday.

His family reported him missing on Saturday, the New York Times said, and then asked to withdraw the missing person filing on Sunday. 

Jianhua leads the Tomorrow Group, which is a Beijing-based holding company with investments in different industries such as financial firms and real estate developers. His fortune is valued at around $6 billion (£4 billion).

The Financial Times cited a person familiar with the investigation as saying that "five or six plain-clothed Chinese public security agents" accosted him at his apartment in the Four Seasons at 1 a.m. on the night before Chinese New Year.

The FT said Xiao normally keeps an entourage of female bodyguards but was led away without a scuffle. He is a Canadian citizen with an Antiguan diplomatic passport. The foreign ministry in Ottawa told the FT that "consular officials are in contact with the authorities to gather additional information and provide assistance."

It is unclear why he waas taken and held on the mainland but it echoes actions taken at the end of 2015, when billionaires were arrested amid a government-led nationwide crackdown on corruption.

In December 2015,48-year-old Guo Guangchang, known as "China's Warren Buffett," who is the head of China's Fosun Group, went missing. Guo is worth an estimated $6.9 billion. His investment group, Fosun, owns Club Med and Cirque du Soleil among others. He reappeared in the US after about a week spent out of contact.

Yim Fung, chairman and CEO of the Hong Kong-listed Guotai Junan International Holdings, went missing in November 2015. Guotai shares tumbled 12% when his disappearance was announced. 

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SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Listed firms controlled by Tomorrow Holdings, the company run by missing Chinese-born businessman Xiao Jianhua, slumped on Friday, despite the parent group saying its businesses were all operating normally.

Mystery swirled around billionaire Xiao's whereabouts earlier this week, with some reports saying he had been abducted from Hong Kong and taken to mainland China.

A statement purportedly from Xiao posted in a Hong Kong newspaper said he was seeking medical treatment "outside the country".

Hong Kong police told Reuters Xiao had entered mainland China through a border checkpoint on Jan. 27 and that they were seeking more information from Chinese authorities.

Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing, said in a statement on its official microblog late on Thursday its own operations were unaffected.

"The production activities of Tomorrow Holdings and its subsidiaries are operating as normal," the company said in a statement on messaging service WeChat. "We thank everyone for their interest and deep love for Mr Xiao Jianhua and our firm."

However, shares in firms directly or indirectly controlled by Tomorrow Group slumped on Friday, with Baotou Huazi Industry and Xishui Strong Year Co Ltd Inner Mongolia both down the maximum 10 percent.

Despite conflicting accounts of Xiao's whereabouts, the case has echoes of the abduction in Hong Kong last year of five staff who worked for a bookseller that published gossip on China's leaders.

Three of those staff were detained while in China, but two with foreign passports were taken there against their will from Thailand and Hong Kong.

Xiao is ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with a net worth of $5.97 billion. 

(Reporting by Adam Jourdan and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)

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HONG KONG (Reuters) - Scores of China social media postings about a well-connected billionaire who went missing from a Hong Kong hotel have been deleted, pointing to what appears to be heightened sensitivity in Beijing over the case of Xiao Jianhua.

Mystery surrounds the whereabouts of Xiao, one of China's richest men who has close ties to some of its leaders and their relatives. He was last seen at Hong Kong's Four Seasons hotel in late January, with some media saying he was abducted and taken to the mainland.

The case has echoes of the disappearance of five Hong Kong booksellers more than a year ago who had published books critical of China's leaders.

The booksellers' case raised concern about interference by Beijing in Hong Kong and the erosion of its freedoms, guaranteed under a 1997 deal that returned the former British colony to Chinese rule.

Authorities in Beijing have declined to comment on Xiao's case.

Hong Kong's government has also not commented. The city's police say they are investigating and have approached Chinese authorities to ascertain his "situation in mainland China".

Xiao's disappearance has sparked widespread media speculation that he has been drawn into Chinese President Xi Jinping's crackdown on corruption, which has ensnared a string of Chinese executives.

After his disappearance, a statement from him appeared on his company's verified WeChat account saying he had not been abducted and had not been taken to mainland China.

The statement added he was "currently abroad being medically treated". Hong Kong police say Xiao crossed the border to mainland China.

When news of Xiao's disappearance in Hong Kong began breaking early last week, searches on Chinese search engines and social media for him generated many results, mostly links to reports related to statements he had issued via his company, Tomorrow Holdings, a financial group headquartered in Beijing.

But those posts and most reports related to Xiao have disappeared, with search results only bringing up reports about him from several weeks earlier.

Deleted posts

According to Freewechat.com, which tracks censored or deleted posts on China's biggest social network, WeChat, more than 40 articles with the keyword Xiao Jianhua had been censored since Jan. 30.

A similar number of reports with the word "Mingtianxi", which refers to Tomorrow Group and its subsidiaries, were also deleted.

Tencent Holdings Ltd , which operates WeChat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesman for Sina, which runs China's Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, told Reuters it censors and deletes posts according to its code of conduct.

But the spokesman declined to comment on any deleted posts related to Xiao and his business ties.

More social media posts purportedly detailing Xiao's business links with high-profile companies and senior leaders were also deleted over the weekend.

The Chinese government routinely censors the internet, blocking many sites it deems could challenge the rule of the Communist Party or threaten stability.

China's internet regulator did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

Shares in firms directly or indirectly controlled by Tomorrow Group slumped on Friday, with Baotou Huazi Industry and Xishui Strong Year Co Ltd Inner Mongolia both down the maximum 10 percent.

Shares of Baotou Huazi were down 2.6 percent on Monday, while Xishui Strong Year was down nearly 5 percent.

Xiao was ranked 32nd on the 2016 Hurun China rich list, China's equivalent of the Forbes list, with an estimated net worth of $5.97 billion.

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Four decades after launching her business, 82-year-old Yoshiko Shinohara has been deemed Japan's first self-made female billionaire.

Shinohara initially launched staffing agency Temp Holdings in 1973 out of her one-bedroom apartment in Tokyo.

From risking everything to start her company to putting her happiness first, there's a lot to be learned from this self-made billionaire who has been on Fortune's list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Global Business.

1. She was willing to risk everything

Uninspired by the jobs available to her in Japan, Shinohara moved to Europe where she was introduced to the idea of temporary jobs. Upon her return to Japan in the 1970s, Shinohana launched her own temp agency, but at the time, temping was illegal in the Asian country. Instead of changing her business idea, she chose to risk it all.

"I used to ask myself: I wonder what it's like in jail. How big are the rooms? Is there a toilet or a window?'" she told Harvard Business Review in 2009.

2. She never intended to become a billionaire

Unlike many self-made millionaires and billionaires, Shinohara never intended to become a member of the 1 percent. Rather, she "want[ed] to contribute to society through business," she said. Simply put, Shinohara just wanted to make her mark on the world.

3. She put her happiness before her marriage

Quickly after Shinohana got married, she got divorced. "I realized that I would rather not be married, that this was not the right person for me," she told HBR. Angering her brother and mother with the divorce, Shinohana decided she needed to do more with her life than become a housewife like most other women at that time.

"After the divorce, I said, 'I have to do something with myself.'"

4. She provided opportunity for Japanese women

"The importance of women being able to work as well as raise children left an indelible impression," she told Forbes Asia. After marrying and having kids, it was the norm for Japanese women to just be housewives and it was difficult or uncomfortable for them to jump back in the workforce. On top of that, there was also few opportunities for them.

Shinohara's company addressed this issue. "Our company was able to grow by matching Japanese women's underlying motive," a spokesperson for the company said.

5. Hiring men saved her business

In the beginning, the company was proud to employ only women — it seemed like an action that aligned with the core values of the company. But when she noticed a sales slump, Shinohara decided to explore the idea of hiring men.

In 1988, she asked her managers, "'How about if we put some men in here?' The managers said, 'No, thank you, we don't need any of those creatures.'" But Shinohara listened to her instincts, brought in men and immediately saw an increase in sales. She found that a balance between men and women was the backbone to her company's success.

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Mornings matter.

Successful people tend to wake up early and start their days with a set routine that may include exercise, meditation, emails, and big glasses of water.

Anthony Hsieh, CEO and chairman of nonbank consumer mortgage lender loanDepot, starts his mornings by waking up well before dawn.

He writes on LinkedIn that he's often asked for his morning routine. He told his 11,000-plus followers that his day begins well before dawn:

"445am wake

"Read, emails, news, misc work. General quiet time to think about the day until 6am.

"6am-640am morning run.

"640am wake kids and out the door by 725am with school drop off. In office by 815am."

"Even when I travel, the first 1-2 hours of the day is still needed for me to warm up and set up my thoughts for the day. Maybe I'm like an old car that just takes time to properly warm up. I need a Tesla body and brain, just go."

Believe it or not, Hsieh's pre-5 a.m. wake-up isn't the earliest on the books. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, for instance, has said she starts her day at 4 a.m., and Apple CEO Tim Cook beats that by another 15 minutes, waking up at 3:45 a.m. 

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In her new book "Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street," author Sheelah Kolhatkar chronicles the incredible story of the biggest insider trading scandal in history. 

At the center of the scandal is Steve Cohen, the billionaire hedge fund manager who was not charged in the case that saw the closure of his firm SAC Capital. 

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President Donald Trump has verbally sparred with both China and Mexico since winning the presidency in November, accusing China of currency manipulation and stealing American jobs and antagonizing Mexico with trade threats and ominous promises of a border wall whose estimated $20 billion price tag would be supported by Mexico.

But the richest people in China have seen their fortunes soar since the new president took over the world's largest superpower, while Mexico's richest have been far less fortunate, according to a new report from Bloomberg.

Since Trump's November 8 win, the 36 Chinese billionaires tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index have seen their wealth climb 13.2%, a $39.2 billion bump that puts their combined wealth at $336 billion. Jack Ma is China's richest, with a net worth of $35.7 billion.

The fortunes of Mexico's eight billionaires tracked on the index, suffering from a battered peso, have fallen by 5.1%.

Carlos Slim — the Mexican telecom magnate who also holds stakes in Philip Morris and The New York Times — has been the biggest loser under Trump. His fortune fell by $4.2 billion to $50.7 billion, which still makes him the world's sixth-richest person.

Overall, the richest people across the globe saw only a 4.7% increase to their net worth over the same period, according to the index, which Bloomberg recently expanded online to track the world's 500 richest people. These 500 tycoons increased their net worth by $207 billion to a combined $4.6 trillion since November 8, according to the daily ranking.

Their financial performance has lagged behind that of the broader market, with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average improving by 10.5% and 13.5% since the election.

And what of the richest in Russia, the nation with which Trump has been perceived to have the coziest relations? The 28 Russian billionaires tracked on the index have increased their wealth by 10.5%, raising their aggregate fortunes by $24.4 billion to $256 billion. They've benefitted from currency and commodities gains, according to Bloomberg.

The 171 US billionaires on the index have seen their combined net worth rise by about 4.7% since the election, adding $85 billion for a combined $1.9 trillion.

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