Richard DeVos
E185934
Richard DeVos was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist best known as the co-founder of direct-selling company Amway and former owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Richard DeVos canonical | 11 |
| Dick DeVos | 3 |
| Rich DeVos | 2 |
| Richard Marvin DeVos | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1604586 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Richard DeVos Context triple: [Dan DeVos, hasRelative, Richard DeVos]
-
A.
Rick DeVos
Rick DeVos is an American entrepreneur and arts advocate best known for creating ArtPrize, a large-scale international art competition and festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
-
B.
Dan DeVos
Dan DeVos is an American businessman and sports executive known for his leadership roles in West Michigan professional sports franchises and his involvement with the DeVos family’s business and philanthropic ventures.
-
C.
Frederik Meijer
Frederik Meijer was an American businessman and philanthropist best known as the longtime leader of the Meijer supermarket chain and a major supporter of cultural and community projects in Michigan.
-
D.
Peter Zondervan
Peter Zondervan was a co-founder of the Christian publishing company Zondervan, which became a major producer of Bibles and religious literature.
-
E.
Eli Broad
Eli Broad was an American billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist known for founding two Fortune 500 companies and making major contributions to education, science, and the arts.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Richard DeVos Target entity description: Richard DeVos was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist best known as the co-founder of direct-selling company Amway and former owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.
-
A.
Rick DeVos
Rick DeVos is an American entrepreneur and arts advocate best known for creating ArtPrize, a large-scale international art competition and festival in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
-
B.
Dan DeVos
Dan DeVos is an American businessman and sports executive known for his leadership roles in West Michigan professional sports franchises and his involvement with the DeVos family’s business and philanthropic ventures.
-
C.
Frederik Meijer
Frederik Meijer was an American businessman and philanthropist best known as the longtime leader of the Meijer supermarket chain and a major supporter of cultural and community projects in Michigan.
-
D.
Peter Zondervan
Peter Zondervan was a co-founder of the Christian publishing company Zondervan, which became a major producer of Bibles and religious literature.
-
E.
Eli Broad
Eli Broad was an American billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist known for founding two Fortune 500 companies and making major contributions to education, science, and the arts.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
billionaire
ⓘ
businessperson ⓘ human ⓘ philanthropist ⓘ |
| acquired | Orlando Magic ⓘ |
| acquisitionDate | 1991-09-19 ⓘ |
| almaMater |
Calvin University
ⓘ
surface form:
Calvin College
|
| birthDate | 1926-03-04 ⓘ |
| birthPlace |
Grand Rapids, Michigan
ⓘ
surface form:
Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States
|
| businessPartner | Jay Van Andel ⓘ |
| causeOfDeath | infection-related complications ⓘ |
| child |
Dan DeVos
ⓘ
surface form:
Daniel DeVos
Doug DeVos ⓘ
surface form:
Dick DeVos
Doug DeVos ⓘ |
| coFounded |
Amway
ⓘ
Ja-Ri Corporation ⓘ |
| coFounder | Richard DeVos self-linksurface differs ⓘ |
| conflict | World War II ⓘ |
| countryOfCitizenship | United States of America ⓘ |
| deathDate | 2018-09-06 ⓘ |
| educatedAt |
Calvin University
ⓘ
surface form:
Calvin College
|
| familyName |
DeVos family
ⓘ
surface form:
DeVos
|
| founded |
DeVos Foundation
ⓘ
surface form:
Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation
|
| fullName |
Richard DeVos
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Richard Marvin DeVos
|
| gender | male ⓘ |
| givenName | Richard ⓘ |
| hasRelative | Betsy DeVos ⓘ |
| knownFor |
co-founding Amway
ⓘ
owning the Orlando Magic ⓘ philanthropy in education and health care ⓘ |
| languageSpoken | English ⓘ |
| memberOf | Christian Reformed Church in North America ⓘ |
| netWorth | billionaire status ⓘ |
| numberOfChildren | 4 ⓘ |
| occupation |
entrepreneur
ⓘ
executive ⓘ |
| owned | Orlando Magic ⓘ |
| owner | Richard DeVos self-linksurface differs ⓘ |
| placeOfDeath |
Ada, Michigan
ⓘ
surface form:
Ada, Michigan, United States
|
| politicalActivity | Republican Party donor ⓘ |
| positionHeld |
chairman of Amway
ⓘ
president of Amway ⓘ |
| relative | Richard DeVos self-linksurface differs ⓘ |
| religion | Christianity ⓘ |
| residence |
Ada, Michigan
ⓘ
surface form:
Ada, Michigan, United States
|
| servedIn | United States Army Air Corps ⓘ |
| spouse |
Helen DeVos
ⓘ
Richard DeVos self-linksurface differs ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Richard DeVos Description of subject: Richard DeVos was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist best known as the co-founder of direct-selling company Amway and former owner of the NBA’s Orlando Magic.
Referenced by (17)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Dick DeVos
this entity surface form:
Dick DeVos
this entity surface form:
Rich DeVos
this entity surface form:
Dick DeVos
this entity surface form:
Richard Marvin DeVos
subject surface form:
Amway
subject surface form:
Orlando Magic
subject surface form:
Helen DeVos
subject surface form:
Betsy DeVos