Warren Buffett is the 41st-richest person in human history, Malcolm Gladwell writes in his Outliers: The Story of Success
"Outliers" discusses the factors that lead to human success. Gladwell includes a list of the 75 richest people in human history, as measured in current U.S. dollars (the book was published last year).
John D. Rockefeller of Standard Oil topped the list with a $318.3 billion net worth. Also in the top five were Andrew Carnegie, Nicholas II of Russia, William Henry Vanderbilt and Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad. There were 19 names on the list with net worths of more than $100 billion.
Buffett's net worth was at $52.4 billion when "Outliers" was published. It's since slipped to around $40 billion due to declines in Berkshire Hathaway's stock price.
Buffett didn't quite measure up to some of history's most-famous names, including Andrew Mellon, Henry Ford, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Elizabeth I, Sam Walton and Cleopatra. He was also beat out by contemporaries Bill Gates and Carlos Slim.
Among the people on Gladwell's list that Buffett topped are: Lakshmi Mittal, J. Paul Getty, Leland Stanford, Howard Hughes Jr., Paul Allen, J.P Morgan, Henry Clay Frick and George Pullman.
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