The Ziff Family
The Ziff family owes a huge thank you to publishing executive William Bernard Ziff Sr., who founded the Ziff Davis Publishing Company in the late 1920s. However, it was William Bernard Ziff Jr. who after his father’s death in 1973, took the business to new heights, becoming one of the most successful publishers of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Ziff Jr. sold the company in 1994 for $1.4 billion after his sons Dirk and Daniel Ziff refused on takeover the business. Instead, the brothers in 1994 started Ziff Brothers Investments. The family’s current fortune boasts approximately $15 billion, even after the brothers shut down the investment company in 2014.