Meet The Newest Members Of The 2014 Forbes 400

Better blood tests, stronger soybeans, zippier energy drinks. As the backgrounds and businesses of this year's newcomers to The Forbes 400 list of richest Americans once again show, there are many routes to minting a huge fortune. Altogether there are 27 newcomers to The Forbes 400 , compared to 20 last year. The richest newcomer is Jan Koum ($7.6 billion), the founder of mobile messaging service WhatsApp. Only three of the newcomers are women: Elizabeth Holmes, Karen Johnson Boyd and Josephine Louis. Elizabeth Holmes Net worth: $4.5 billion. Age: 30. Route to Riches: Chemical engineering sophomore drops out of Stanford to work on better, cheaper, faster blood tests. Labors in secrecy for a decade. Surfaces with big partnerships, including drugstore chain Walgreens. Her company, Theranos, was valued at $9 billion in latest venture capital fundraising round; she owns 50%. Needlephobe: Afraid of needles, Holmes’ technology can do many blood tests with one tiny finger prick. Rich List Records: Youngest woman on Forbes 400; Youngest woman self-made billionaire. Board Bigwigs: Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, Bill Frist, George Schultz. “What we’re about is the belief that access to affordable and real-time health information is a basic human right, and it’s a civil right.” Harry Stine Net worth: $2.6 billion. Age: 72. Route to Riches: Dyslexic farm boy tinkers with soybeans. Big Break: Licenses genetics to Monsanto in 1997. Company name: Stine Seed. Sales: Est. $1 billion. Up next: Breeding super corn seeds. Hobby: Hunting wild morel mushrooms. Wheels: Ford F-150 Truck. “We can all claim ‘I would’ve done great if I didn’t have this problem or that problem.’ Well, baloney. We make excuses for what we haven’t done well.” David Walentas Net worth: $1.7 billion. Age: 75. Route to Riches: Grew up poor in upstate New York, father paralyzed, forced to milk cows on local farm. Wins scholarship to U. Va., earns M.B.A., then consulting gig. Starts investing in NYC real estate in late 1960s. Dirty Job: After college cleaned military septic tanks in Greenland. First Purchase: Rent-controlled Harlem building at corner of 104th and Manhattan Ave. Big Score: Paid $12 million for 2 million square feet of old industrial buildings in Brooklyn in late 1970s; Dumbo is now one of city’s hippest neighborhoods, and his outer borough holdings are worth over $1 billion. “Well, I got rich, and I was never called dumb, but I’m not a genius. The secret is picking the good spots and staying with it. I’m not a digital wonder like the guys that created Facebook, but we build real stuff where people can live.” Russell Weiner Net worth: $2.5 billion. Age: 44. Route to Riches: Son of lightening-rod conservative talk show host Michael Savage mounts unsuccessful campaign for California State Assembly 1998. Lands on feet working for Skyy Vodka founder Maurice Kanbar. Maurice’s Mistake: Kanbar refuses to fund his lieutenant's energy drink; Weiner quits, founds Rockstar, eventually gets distribution deal with Pepsi, makes billions. Partner-Parent: CFO mother owns 15% of business. Extreme blends: Exotic flavors include creamy horchata, supersours bubbleberry and mango orange passion fruit. “I thought of the name Rockstar because we’d go to Vegas on trips, and on all the trips we used to party like rock stars. Who has more energy than a rock star?”