Dietrich Mateschitz, the Austrian billionaire founder and owner of energy drink company Red Bull, died on Saturday at the age 78 after a serious illness with cancer.
The Styrian-born entrepreneur built a global empire around the energy drink Red Bull and was considered the richest man in Austria. Mateschitz's fortune is estimated at around 25 billion euros . This puts him in 51st place on Forbes' list on the world's richest people.The self-made billionaire was considered a marketing genius. After graduating from the University of World Trade in Vienna, he worked as a marketing specialist for various companies in the 1970s.
After modifying the recipe of a Thai energy drink and developing a marketing concept, Red Bull was introduced to the market in 1987. The bubbly, carbonated, sweet drink, whose taste is described as similar to that of gummy bears, rose to become the global market leader after a difficult market entry. The group achieved a turnover of 7.8 billion euros in 2021 and sold 9.8 billion Red Bull cans worldwide.
The entrepreneur paid a lot of attention to the image of the drink. He associated the Red Bull brand with adventure sports like surfing, mountain biking and cliff diving with the company eventually involved as a sponsor in a lot of them.