Red Bull’s billionaire maniac
Little known outside of his native Austria, Dietrichitz is one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our age, a man who single-handedly changed the landscape of the beverage industry by creating not just a new brand but a whole new category : the energy drink. As the visionary who brought the world red bull's, affectionately known as "speed in a can" or even "liquid cocaine," Manteschitz, 67, has been a patron saint for more than two decades to late night partiers, exam week undergrads, long haul truckers, and, above all, extreme-sports athletes everywhere. In return for his sickly sweet innovation, the world has made him very, very rich. Last year the privately held company, also remade red bull, says it sold 4.2 billion cant of its drink, including more than a billion in the U.S. alone. That represents a 7.9 percent increase over the year before, and revenue jumped 15.8 percent to 5.175 billion. Manteschitz run as efficient enterprise that as yet to trip on is rapid growth: At the end of 2014, he had just 2,605 employees; in 2010, red bull employed 7,758 people which works out to more than 667,000 in revenue per person. Now he’s set his sights on media. On May 15, subscribers to the Los Angeles times, Chicago tribune, Miami herald, Houston chronicle, and New York Daily News found a magazine called Red bulletin inserted in their Sunday papers. The 98-page glossy magazine feature a cover story on San Francisco Giants ace Tim Lincecum, as well as pieces on bob Dylan, Graffiti art, and Russian BASE jumper Valery Rosov. Billed as “an almost independent monthly,” the magazine is a product of Red bull media house, a subsidiary Media Company launched in Austria in 2007 that expended with a Los Angeles outpost this January. Mateschitz calls the multimedia assault “our most important line extension so far. As a major content provider, it is our goal to communicate and distribute the “world of red bull” in all major media