Rocco Commisso, the founder and CEO of cable company Mediacom, is tied with five others — including Airbnb and DreamWorks Pictures co-founders — as the 93rd richest person in America, a 2022 ranking showed.
Commisso's real-time net worth is $7.8 billion, as of Thursday, positioning him as the 271st richest person in the world, a Forbes profile said of him.
Commisso, an Italian immigrant, previously worked as CFO at Cablevision Industries, which was acquired by Time Warner in 1995, Forbes said. He had immigrated to the U.S. at age 12, and his first job was playing the accordion during movie theater intermissions.
He is one of a few who has been assigned a self-made score of 10, meaning, Forbes said, he "not only grew up poor but also overcame significant obstacles."
However, he has only a 1 philanthropy score, meaning, Forbes said, he has given away less than 1% of his wealth.
His donations to his alma mater Columbia University have earned him recognition, though. The soccer stadium was named for him in 2013.
During his tenure at Columbia, he played soccer, a sport he had learned to play in Italy on cement "with a ball made out of old rags," Forbes said. His love of the game led him to buy an Italian professional football club in June 2019 for a reported price of between $150 million and $200 million.
"I'm not scared of anything," Commisso said in a quote on his profile. "In the business world, it's like soccer. The game gets played over a long period of time. You've got time to make decisions."
