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I’m not sure if these men were very popular back in high school, but I guarantee you they’re pretty famous today. At least 2 of these “Top 10 Techies” have had a movie made about their lives and how they came into to be the men they are today. According to the Forbes list of World Billionaires, there are currently 89 billionaires who have made their money through technology. Coincidentally, the US is home to 47 of these super rich techies. In fact, the US makes up 32% of the world’s 100 richest people, regardless of industry. Let’s quickly run through this list of entrepreneurs and college dropouts.
#10 – $13 Billion
Paul Allen began his fortune as one of the co-founders of Microsoft. Although he left back in 1983 because of Hodgkin’s disease, he still does very well for himself as the chairman of Vulcan Inc. Vulcan, founded in 1986, was set up primarily to manage his business and charitable interests. From owning sports teams to funding clean energy, it has grown into an organization that strives to improve the world. As a former college dropout, I think he’s doing pretty well for himself.
#9 – $13.5 Billion
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder of Facebook. I don’t think I need to say any more than that, but I will elaborate for those few who have not heard of it. He started the largest social network in history while attending college at Harvard. According to Facebook’s latest statistics, they currently have 750 million active users who spend over 700 billion minutes a month on their site. Although this dropout only makes $1 annually, his stake in the company was estimated at $13.5 billion this year. To date, he is known as the youngest self-made billionaire in history.
#8 – $14.5 Billion
Steve Ballmer is currently the CEO of Microsoft. Although he wasn’t one of the founders, he joined the company back in 1980 as one of their first business managers, and was given 8% of the company when they incorporated the following year. Since taking full control of Microsoft a few years ago, his only accomplishment has been the new gaming system Kinect. He graduated from Harvard with a bachelor degree, but he’s still a dropout I guess because he left Stanford’s graduate program to work at Microsoft with Bill Gates.
#7 – $14.6 Billion
Michael Dell is the founder and CEO of Dell Inc. Starting his business as a pre-med student selling computers out of his condo, he turned this company into one of the largest PC manufacturers in the world. He founded the company on a philosophy of building his computers to his customer’s specifications. He also used other strategies to maintain extremely low levels of inventory, which allowed him to account for hardware price fluctuations and leaps in PC standards. With over 100,000 employees and a value of $33 billion, Dell Inc. is making great strides in the tablet PC and enterprise markets as well.
#6 – $16 Billion
Azim Premji is the only non-US citizen on our top techies list. Currently, he is chairman of Wipro Ltd., the 3rd largest IT services company in India. Coincidentally, he did his undergraduate work at Stanford University, one of the top computer science and engineering schools in the US. Last year, Premji transferred over $2 billion worth of shares to his foundation and is now considered as one of Asia’s largest charitable donors. Even though his stake in the company has gone down to 70%, he’s still the 3rd richest man in India.
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