--- title: 'Bill Gates vs. Jeff Bezos: Who Is 2017''s Richest Tech Billionaire?' description: Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are the richest men in tech, and the combined wealth of the world's top 100 tech billionaires tops $1 trillion for the first time ever. authors: - name: Rob Wile url: https://money.com/author/rob-wile/ at_money_since: 2017 articles: 191 covers: - Business - Career Advice - Economy and Politics - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Personal Finance - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/rjwile former_staff: true published: '2017-08-24T20:13:36.000Z' modified: '2024-04-17T06:39:43.000Z' section: Business tags: - Bill Gates - Billionaires - Jeff Bezos - Mark Zuckerberg - rich - Wealth word_count: 415 canonical: https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![170824-richest-people-bill-gates-jeff-bezos](https://img.money.com/2017/08/170824-richest-people-bill-gates-jeff-bezos.jpg) *Microsoft founder Bill Gates (L) and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the world's two richest tech billionaires.* 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](https://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2017/08/23/100-richest-tech-billionaires-2017/#38c989782d51). The magazine released its latest [ranking](https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/list/) 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](https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/list/#tab:women)). The wealthiest, as well as youngest (among those whose ages are known), self-made woman on the list is [Zhou Qunfei](https://money.com/billionaires-zhou-qunfei-youngest-self-made-woman-tech/), 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](https://money.com/judy-faulkner-billionaire-epic/), the founder of medical records provider Epic. You'd also know the youngest person on the list: Snapchat's [Evan Spiegel](https://money.com/evan-spiegel-net-worth-snapchat-ipo/), 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 ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Business", "item": "https://money.com/business/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Entrepreneurship", "item": "https://money.com/entrepreneurship/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Bill Gates vs. Jeff Bezos: Who Is 2017's Richest Tech Billionaire?" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/", "name": "Bill Gates vs. Jeff Bezos: Who Is 2017's Richest Tech Billionaire?", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2017-08-24T20:13:36.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2024-04-17T06:39:43.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Bill Gates vs. Jeff Bezos: Who Is 2017's Richest Tech Billionaire?", "articleSection": "Business", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2017/08/170824-richest-people-bill-gates-jeff-bezos.jpg", "width": 2100, "height": 1498, "caption": "170824-richest-people-bill-gates-jeff-bezos" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Rob Wile", "url": "https://money.com/author/rob-wile/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/rob-wile/#author", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/rjwile" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2017-08-24T20:13:36.000Z", "description": "Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are the richest men in tech, and the combined wealth of the world's top 100 tech billionaires tops $1 trillion for the first time ever.", "abstract": "Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are the richest men in tech, and the combined wealth of the world's top 100 tech billionaires tops $1 trillion for the first time ever.", "@id": "https://money.com/billionaires-bill-gates-jeff-bezos-richest-tech/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2024-04-17T06:39:43.000Z", "wordCount": 415, "keywords": [ "Bill Gates", "Billionaires", "Jeff Bezos", "Mark Zuckerberg", "rich", "Wealth" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Business", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Entrepreneurship", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneurship" ] } ] } ] } ```