Walmart heiress Alice Walton is the richest woman in the world

With a net worth of $33.2 billion, Alice Walton
isn't just the wealthiest woman on our list of the
50 richest people on earth, she's also a member
of one of the richest families in the world.
Alice, along with older brothers Jim and Rob, who
also graced the list, produced with Wealth-X, a
company that conducts research on the
superwealthy, have a combined net worth of
$101.5 billion, thanks primarily to their stake in
retail giant Walmart.
Unlike her brothers, 66-year-old Walton never took
an active role in running the retail empire her
father started in 1962, though she's still managed
to become the target of pushback from minimum-
wage Walmart employees who view her
highfalutin lifestyle as insensitive and ignorant to
the plight of many workers.
Instead of spending time at Walmart, Walton
became a patron of the arts at a young age.
When she was just 10 years old, Walton saved up
her allowance to buy a reproduction of Picasso's
"Blue Nude," she told The New Yorker.
"Collecting has been such a joy, and such an
important part of my life in terms of seeing art,
and loving it,” she said.
She began buying watercolor pieces in the 1970s
and adorning the walls of her Rocking W Ranch
with them. From there she moved on to more
serious original works, particularly those by
classic American artists; her immense personal
collection now includes pieces from Andy Warhol,
Norman Rockwell, and Georgia O'Keefe, among
others.
In 2011, she opened the $50 million Crystal
Bridges Museum in Arkansas to house her $500
million collection. When it opened, Crystal
Bridges already had four times the endowment of
the famous Whitney Museum in New York.
Before delving into the art realm, Walton made a
brief career as an equity analyst and even
founded her own investment bank, Llama
Company, in 1988. The company closed about 10
years later, shortly after Walton was arrested for
driving under the influence of alcohol (not for the
first time).
Twice divorced with no children, Walton is also a
lover of horses, which she breeds at Rocking W
Ranch, located in Texas, and rides competitively.
The 1,456-acre ranch, however, is currently for
sale for nearly $20 million.
Walton is one of just four women to make our list
of the 50 richest people on earth — and
each inherited their fortune. The next wealthiest
woman is 93-year-old Liliane Bettencourt, the
French heiress to the L'Oreal fortune, with a net
worth of $29 billion.