How did they do it? (Donald Bren etc)

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Not sure if this is the right forum to post on but it seemed the closest so here it goes...

So I'm a complete newbie to real estate but I was just curious as to how people like Wang Jianlin and Donald Bren amass their billions. They started off with $120k and $15k decades ago if I remember reading correctly. Do they utilise ridiculous leverage and if so, how do they obtain it in the first place?

I know it seems like an obvious question on this forum but I have little to no experience in investing so it would be great if someone could enlighten me. Of course, those kind of returns are anomalies and not something you should aim for realistically but it's just interesting to know how investors of the calibre got there.