There many never be another generation of billionaire traditional industrialists, who make their fortunes by conquering our local market. Technology has fostered a new level of dominance, but at a global rather than a local level. Take Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Netflix chief Reed Hastings, or even Tesla's colourful billionaire boss, Elon Musk. There will be new Australian billionaires - there already are - but rather than building their empire here and then maybe venturing offshore, they will need to straight away act on a world stage, and their competition will be global. At its simplest, technology and the corporate giants that dominate that space have been eating away at the businesses that the likes of Lowy and Murdoch built. Amazon and the other large digital retailers have undermined the owners of bricks and mortar property - on which Lowy built his fortune. The digital distribution of television and movie content by operators like Netflix have pulled the rug from traditional operators like Murdoch. Online advertising behemoths like Google have decimated the traditional print and television businesses that Murdoch created.

The Murdoch family. Rupert and sons Lachlan and James. The AFR’s Young Rich list for 2017 shows very clearly where the newly created wealth is coming from. Top of the list is the duo of Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar whose Nasdaq-listed software development group, Atlassian, has grown into a global $10 billion player. Dave Greiner and Ben Richardson, who are next on the list, created an email marketing firm, Campaign Monitor. Running down the list, all but two of the top ten are about technology-based products or services. Global player: Atlassian co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes. Credit:Josh Robenstone It’s a fair guess that in five years time the rich lists will be more heavily dominated by entrepreneurs that have built companies by disrupting the traditional empires created over the past 50 years.

For example, fintech disruptors will eat away at parts of the market that have long been dominated by the banks. In retail, Ruslan Kogan has already made the young rich list by growing his online enterprise and become a thorn in the side of traditional retail companies like Harvey Norman and its largest shareholder, billionaire Gerry Harvey. But it remains to be seen whether Kogan himself can continue to prosper as Amazon builds up its business in Australia. And TPG’s David Teoh has amassed billions by disrupting the telecommunications market. Our success in growing and nurturing a new breed of Australian innovators will be crucial to whether we can capitalise on our well-educated workforce, rather than rely on digging up minerals, building infrastructure and providing holidays for international tourists.

The extent to which the post-war industrialists will keep a legacy through the generations is not so clear. The Pratt family has grown its wealth following the death of its patriarch, Dick, while James Packer has had a more patchy record in the period since his father Kerry died. His major success was recognising the challenges of traditional media, which arguably saved the Packer empire. Packer’s casino business, which has now been restructured and refocused on its domestic properties, should be fairly bullet-proof. He understands the digital disruption to gaming and has been growing Crown’s online assets. Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart have made or grown their fortunes through iron ore. Rinehart has had a difficult and litigious relationship with most of her children, so where that fortune ultimately ends up if difficult to predict. Forrest has already made it clear that most of his billions will go to charity. Loading