Biography
Mateschitz was born in Sankt Marein im Mürztal, Styria, Austria to a family of Croatian ancestry. His parents were both primary school teachers and separated when he was very young. Although never married, he has a son. He holds a pilot's licence and enjoys flying a Falcon 900 and a Piper Super Cub. Forbes estimated Mateschitz's net worth to be US$5 billion in 2011.
After taking ten years to graduate from the Hochschule für Welthandel (now Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration) with a marketing degree, Mateschitz's first employer was Unilever, where he worked marketing detergents. He subsequently moved to Blendax, the German cosmetics company since bought by Procter & Gamble, where he worked on, among other things, the marketing of Blendax toothpaste. It was as part of his travels for Blendax that he discovered Krating Daeng, the drink that would later become Red Bull. In 1984, he founded Red Bull GmbH with his Thai partners Chaleo and Chalerm Yoovidhya with the launch in Austria in 1987. Subsequently, he turned the Red Bull drink into a world market leader among energy drinks.
He lives in Salzburg, Austria but also owns Laucala Island, off Fiji, which he bought from the Forbes family for £7 million.
Read more about this topic: Dietrich Mateschitz
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