4 American billionaires who credit their success to reading

There’s a common bond that the world’s most successful entrepreneurs and billionaires share — and you can find it in your local library.

Never wanting to rest on their laurels, many billionaires are known to be voracious readers.

Think this is just a coincidence? Over the past 30 years, Steve Siebold has interviewed 1,200 of the richest people in the world. The one common thread, Siebold noticed, is that they bypassed tabloids and magazines for knowledge-enhancing books.

I’d like to introduce you to four well-known billionaires — and one you may have never heard of — who credit their success to constantly reading.

Charlie Munger

While it’s been well-publicized that Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett spends as much as 80 percent of his day reading, his right-hand man is also a  bookworm. Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, has a net worth of $1.4 billion.

Munger jokes that he reads so much, his children think he’s “a book with a couple of legs sticking out.”

Elon Musk

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, seems to operate on a different wavelength. It’s no shocker that he’s one of the most productive readers in the world — and always has been.

Growing up in South Africa, Musk was usually the smallest and youngest person in his class. He spent his team reading books obsessively, not just for pleasure, but also for knowledge. Musk described himself, in a Bloomberg interview, as a “bookwormy” kid. Growing up, he would read as many as two books per day. When asked how he learned how to build rockets, Musk gives a simple answer: “I read books.”

Oprah Winfrey

As her infamous book club shows, the former talk show host and magnanimous giver loves to read. Oprah credits reading for helping her move from a childhood of poverty into a life of wealth. Reading inspired her to look beyond her meager beginnings and start thinking about how the world could be changed.

“Books were my path to personal freedom,” Winfrey once said. “I learned to read at age three and soon discovered there was a whole world to conquer that went beyond our farm in Mississippi.”

Mark Zuckerberg

Every year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg comes up with a New Year’s Resolution. Unlike most Americans, he actually sticks to it. “Reading has given me more perspective on a number of topics — from science to religion, from poverty to prosperity, from health to energy to social justice, from political philosophy to foreign policy, and from history to futuristic fiction. This challenge has been intellectually fulfilling, and I come away with a greater sense of hope and optimism that our society can make greater progress in all of these areas.”

Bill Gates

While Zuckerberg reading 24 books last year was impressive, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates more than doubles that. Gates, the world’s richest man, reads about 50 books per year — roughly one per week.

Gates still sees reading as his primary avenue to learning and understanding. He doesn’t use a tablet, either, preferring the feel of an actual printed book.