Bill Gates vs. Jeff Bezos: Who Is 2017's Richest Tech Billionaire?
The combined wealth of the world's top 100 tech billionaires now totals more than $1 trillion for the first time ever, according to new Forbes data.
The magazine released its latest ranking of the globe's top 100 tech titans on Wednesday. While the world's wealthiest tech entrepreneurs are significantly richer today, the new top 10 looks a lot like last year's.
At No. 1 — as has been the case since the mid '90s — is Microsoft co-founder and overall world's richest person Bill Gates, whose wealth increased 8% to $84.5 billion. That was a smaller jump than the median 17% wealth increase among the top 10. Tencent's Ma Huateng saw the biggest increase at 67%. The combined net worth of the full 100 is up 21%, with half of the $189 billion increase coming from just the 10 richest tech billionaires, Forbes reports.
If you've been reading Money, you'll be familiar with the two most notable women on the list (out of the lamentably just six in the entire top 100). The wealthiest, as well as youngest (among those whose ages are known), self-made woman on the list is Zhou Qunfei, the founder of Lens, among the largest glass screen makers in the world. And the richest self-made woman in tech the United States is Judy Faulkner, the founder of medical records provider Epic.
You'd also know the youngest person on the list: Snapchat's Evan Spiegel, 27, who despite seeing his company's stock decline 40% since its March IPO is still worth $3.2 billion.
All data is according to Forbes' methodology; other sites may have different metrics.
Here's the full list of the top 10 richest people in tech:
10 (tie). Masayoshi Son, $22.4 billion. Source of wealth: internet, telecom. 2016 rank: unknown
10 (tie). Michael Dell, $22.4 billion. Source of wealth: Dell. 2016 rank: 10
9. Steve Ballmer, $32.9 billion. Source of wealth: Microsoft. 2016 rank: 7
8. Ma Huateng, $36.7 billion. Source of wealth: Tencent: 2016 rank: 9
7. Jack Ma, $37.4 billion. Source of wealth: Alibaba. 2016 rank: 8
6. Sergey Brin, $42.7 billion. Source of wealth: Google. 2016 rank: 6
5. Larry Page, $43.9 billion. Source of wealth: Google. 2016 rank: 5
4. Larry Ellison, $59.3 billion. Source of wealth: Oracle. 2016 rank: 4
3. Mark Zuckerberg, $69.6 billion. Source of wealth: Facebook. 2016 rank: 3
2. Jeff Bezos, $81.7 billion. Source of wealth: Amazon. 2016 rank: 2
1. Bill Gates, $84.5 billion. Source of wealth: Microsoft. 2016 rank: 1