Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – boasting a massive $41billion fortune – has topped a list revealing how the world’s richest young billionaires have generated their staggering wealth, the Daily Mail reports. 

Among those to feature in the world’s top 20 billionaires under the age of 35 are the brilliant young entrepreneurs responsible for start ups such as Snapchat, Airbnb and Facebook.

However, many others have inherited old money – companies, fortunes and vast real estate empires passed down from their parents, and in some cases, their grandparents.

Dwarfing the fortunes of all others on the list is Zuckerberg, 31, who founded Facebook in 2004, and is now worth an estimated $41.6bn.

His nearest competitor on the list is his 31-year-old co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who, like Zuckerberg, is self made, but has only earned a comparatively paltry $9.3bn.

In third place sits Huiyan Yang. Heir to her father’s massive mainland China real estate empire, she boasts a $5.9bn fortune and as a member of the governance board of Country Garden, is a fierce businesswoman in her own right.