Carlos Slim Helu, Bill Gates Top Forbes' Billionaires List
Come to Hollywood to be famous, go to Silicon Valley to get rich. Forbes published its annual list of the world's billionaires on Monday, and technology executives predominate in the top 100. 11 people classified under "technology" are worth more than $10.5 billion.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates leads the pack, once again ranking as the world's second richest man after Mexican telecom kingpin Carlos Slim Helu. Gates is worth $67 billion.
Also read: Natalie Portman, Kristen Stewart Top Forbes' List of Most Bankable Stars Meanwhile, Microsoft's current CEO Steve Ballmer charts at 51, worth $15.2 billion. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Google co-founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Dell Computers magnate Michael Dell all fall in between. Fellow tech titans Paul Allen and Mark Zuckerberg remain in the top 100, though Zuckerberg took a tumble from $17.5 billion to $13.3 billion. Send him a condolence card. Even Laurene Powell, the wife of deceased Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, sneaks into the top 100 at 98. The Jobs' family's net worth sits at $10.7 billion, a cool $2.5 billion more than Google chairman Eric Schmidt. Sorry Smitty. All told, there are 95 "tech" billionaires, including everyone from Gates to China's Wang Jinayi and Israel's Marius Nacht -- both worth a comparatively embarrassing $1 billion. As for Hollywood, there's no dearth of entertainment giants on the list -- just a paucity of household names near the top. Just four "media" executives fall in the top 100 -- seven less than tech -- and just five of the top 10 media billionaires reside in the United States. One of those five is Rupert Murdoch. David Thomson, the Canadian chairman of Thomson Reuters, charts first with $20.3 billion.
The only executives with familiar entertainment properties in the top 150 are Cox Enterprises' Anne Cox Chambers, Murdoch and former Dish CEO Charlie Ergen. Beyond that it's a troika of Brazilian communications giants, the Marinhos, and the Newhouse boys of Conde Nast. Magazines are the future? The list includes the ho-hum usual suspects -- David Geffen and his $6 billion, Steven Spielberg and his $3.2 billion, Haim Saban and his $3.1 billion -- but just about the only new blood on the list is Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh.
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