Individuals whose net worth equals or exceeds one billion units of currency, representing extreme wealth.
From French 'billion' (originally meaning a million millions) plus the suffix '-aire' indicating a person possessing something. The term became common in the late 20th century as such wealth became achievable.
A billion is such an incomprehensibly large number that if you spent $1,000 every day, it would take you over 2,700 years to spend a billion dollars. The rise of billionaires is a historically recent phenomenon - in 1982 there were only 13 billionaires worldwide, while today there are over 2,000, showing how modern technology and globalization have created unprecedented wealth concentration.
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