2008 World Billionaires List: Lucio Tan and Henry Sy

Here's something encouraging for budding Pinoy Entrepreneurs (or, depending on your frame of mind, to be envious about) -- the Philippines' Lucio Tan and Henry Sy remain in Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list. In other words, Tan (ranked 785 with a net worth of $1.5 Billion) and Sy (ranked 842 with a net worth of $1.4 Billion) are still among the world’s super-rich in 2008. As reported in Inquirer.net, Tan and Sy were also in the 2006 and 2007 list, but their respective positions were higher back then (but with billions of net worth, would you mind slipping down the bilionaires' ranking?): 2006 Rank 2007 Rank Lucio Tan No. 451 ($1.7 Billion) No. 407 ($2.3 Billion) Henry Sy No. 512 ($1.5 Billion) No. 349 ($2.6 Billion) Now, who knows that years from now, your name will be included in that list? That may seem like an impossible dream, as that "killer" song goes, but perhaps we should also consider that both Tan and Sy are described as "self-made". Years ago, both Tan and Sy started with the first step, from the bottom, and worked their way up. When both started, perhaps others wouldn't have thought that Tan and Sy would be among the world's billionaires today. Same thing for any Pinoy Entrepreneurs. It can be argued, of course, that the list is useless considering the current economic condition of majority of the Filipinos. While this line of argument has a point, it totally disregards the significant fact that the success of any Pinoy Entrepreneurs should encourage others to pursue their dreams. It's definitely better to have more Pinoy Entrepreneurs. No doubt about that.