Chaleo Yoovidhya, 1923–2012

Chaleo Yoovidhya went from living on a dirt-poor duck farm to becoming one of Thailand’s richest men, thanks to his invention of an energy drink that contains twice as much caffeine as a Coca-Cola and has kept a generation of truck drivers, partiers, and struggling college students awake.

Yoovidhya was born in Thailand to a migrant Chinese family, said the Bangkok Nation, who “earned their living raising ducks and selling fruit.” Yoovidhya excelled as a salesman, and by the early 1960s had saved enough money to found a small pharmaceutical firm. Although his main business was antibiotics, Yoovidhya invented an energy syrup he called Krating Daeng—“red bull” in Thai—in 1976. He marketed the heavily caffeinated beverage to blue-collar workers and truck drivers as a pick-me-up, and it soon became extremely popular among working-class Thais.

Then, in 1982, an Austrian toothpaste salesman named Dietrich Mateschitz stumbled across Krating Daeng, said The New York Times, and discovered that it relieved his jet lag. He and Yoovidhya each put up $500,000 toward a “partnership that would bring Red Bull to the rest of the world.” It proved a huge success, finding particular favor with students who needed a “caffeinated jolt” for late-night study sessions and/or all-night parties.

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Despite his estimated $5 billion wealth, Yoovidhya “was the opposite of the adrenalized fun his drink inspired.” A virtual recluse, he gave no interviews for the last 30 years of his life. He preferred to quietly tend to his private duck farm.