Bill Gates topped Forbes’ list of the world’s wealthiest people with a sweet fortune worth $86 billion. A Lafayette Hill native and current CEO of Conshohocken-based Kynetic, Michael Rubin, made the list. Rubin placed 896 with $2.3 billion. If you live down by the river in Conshy and wonder who is always coming and going in the big helicopter, that is Rubin.

Here is Forbes’ profile of Rubin:

When he was age 9, Michael Rubin told his parents’ friends that he wanted to grow up to be a “millionaire.” At age 15, Rubin founded a ski-tuning shop in his parents’ basement. By the time he graduated from high school, he operated three stores called Mike’s Ski & Sport. Later, the Villanova dropout created GSI Commerce, which he sold to eBay for $2.4 billion in 2011. As part of the deal he paid $500 million for majority ownership of 3 assets eBay didn’t want: sports merchandiser Fanatics, flash sales website Rue La La and ShopRunner, which now operate under holding company Kynetic. In February Fanatics acquired UK-based Kitbag, an e-commerce retailer for licensed soccer apparel, for $17 million. Rubin owns minority stakes in the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils (sic).

The basement ski shop mentioned was at the family home in Lafayette Hill. The first location of Mike’s Ski & Sport was in the Plymouth Square Shopping Center at the corner of Butler and Ridge Pikes.

Let us know in the comments if you remember a teenager getting you ready for the slopes back in the early to mid-1990’s.

Photo: Kynetic.com