How do you become the world’s richest person? Answer that and, even if you do not get to be as rich as Croesus, there is a fair chance you will find ways to be wealthier.

Over the past two decades, debate on how to do it has been dominated by the two men who have been the world’s richest for a long time: Microsoft’s Bill Gates, and the legendary investor Warren Buffett. The latter in particular has inspired numerous books that attempt to distil his secrets into simple formulae.