Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield of Ben & Jerry's Fame Has a Pretty Sweet Net Worth

When it comes to Ben & Jerry's, it's hard to think about one founder without the other. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were childhood friends who approached life one scoop at a time. Together they opened their first ice cream parlour in 1978, in Burlington, Vt., which was a bit of an epicenter for hippies. What better place for two social justice-loving advocates to spread a little sweet joy?

According to The New York Times, the dynamic dairy duo has rarely disagreed. Their biggest argument to date was about the size of their chunks in the ice cream, whatever that chunk may be. Because Ben has no sense of smell, which affects his sense of taste, he prefers larger chunks. Jerry made the ice cream and, as such, understood that bigger isn't always better. What they never fought about was money. With that in mind, grab a pint of ice cream, and let's dig into their net worths.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Ben Cohen is sitting pretty at $150 million. The entrepreneur and activist had $8,000 to his name when he got a $4,000 loan to start the ice cream empire with his best bud Jerry. The crazy thing is, we almost had a Ben & Jerry's bagel business, which is more filling but less fun.

They told The Times that their breakfast bread business was going to be called United Bagel Service (U.B.S.), and was meant to provide delicious New York City bagels to people living outside the Big Apple. They basically almost invented Uber Eats, or more accurately, Goldbelly. This idea didn't stop at bagels because they would also deliver lox and issues of The New York Times, and hoped to do this in rural college towns. Ben said they eventually realized this was a supply and demand issue.

Outside of ice cream, but still a bit related to it, Ben started a nonprofit organization that offers cannabis products in an effort to fight back against the so-called War on Drugs. Ben’s Best Blnz promises to set aside 80 percent of its profits for "Black cannabis entrepreneurs while the rest will be equally divided between the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance and the national Last Prisoner Project, which is working to free people incarcerated for cannabis offenses," per the Associated Press.

Jerry's net worth is also reportedly $150 million, per Celebrity Net Worth. In 2000, Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry's for $326 million, which explains Ben and Jerry's net worth. We suspect Ben's might actually be a bit higher, as he still runs a separate company. Neither of them is heavily involved in Ben & Jerry's

If the fact that two hippies sold their business to a large corporation sounds strange, it kind of wasn't up to them. At the time of the sale, Ben & Jerry's was publicly owned, and when Unilever came along, they offered a ton of money. "The board of directors felt that they had no choice but to accept the offer," said Ben to the Boston Phoenix. "So that’s what happened." The good news is, this gave Ben and Jerry more time to focus on their advocacy work.