World's top 10 billionaires, Buffet is the richest

Warren Buffett, the famed US investor who heads Berkshire Hathaway Inc, replaced his friend and Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates as the richest man in the world, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.

The magazine estimated Buffett's worth at $62 billion in its annual ranking of the world's wealthiest people.
Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim came in second with an estimated worth of $60 billion, pushing Gates to third place after 13 years of holding the No 1 spot.



The magazine estimated Gates' worth at $58 billion.
Buffett's rise to No 1 was particularly noteworthy, Forbes said, as it came at a time of great financial turmoil and as Buffett has begun to siphon off part of his fortune to charity.
"Even though he is giving away a piece of his fortune each year, the stock of Berkshire Hathaway, the source of Warren Buffet's wealth, has been rising very rapidly," Chief Executive of Forbes Magazines Steve Forbes said, noting Buffett's fortune climbed $10 billion in the last calendar year.
Buffett in June 2006 announced plans to give 85 percent of his fortune away, granting it to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities. Bill Gates serves on the board of directors of Berkshire Hathaway and is a long-time bridge buddy of Buffett's. Gates has also given a substantial amount of his fortune to the foundation.
Buffett, often called the Sage of Omaha, has been lauded among investors for his preference for investing in larger companies with easy-to-understand businesses, large or dominant market shares, consistent earnings, and strong management.
In the early 1960s, Buffett started to invest in Berkshire, then a struggling textile maker, and took it over in 1965. Since then, he has transformed it into a holding company for more than 50 companies, ranging from Benjamin Moore paint and Dairy Queen ice cream to Fruit of the Loom underwear and Ginsu knives.
Gates has held the No. 1 spot since 1995, when he unseated Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, a Japanese real estate tycoon. Tsutsumi fell off the billionaire's list last year after receiving a suspended prison sentence for falsifying financial statements and insider trading in 2005.
Slim, a former stock market trader, is known for buying up struggling, cheap firms and turning them into profitable cash cows. He built his fortune by privatizing former Mexican state telephone monopoly Telmex. America Movil, a Telmex spin-off, is is now Slim's flagship business and Latin America's biggest mobile phone company.
Keeping up with the Russians?
The collective net worth of the world's 1,125 billionaires soared to $4.4 trillion, the magazine said.
The list of billionaires has almost doubled in the past four years, Forbes said. There were 469 US billionaires, worth a combined $1.6 trillion, while the 656 billionaires who live outside the United States are worth $2.8 trillion.
Russia came in second place as home to 87 billionaires and Moscow is now the world's billionaire center, the magazine said. The Russian capital is now home to more billionaires than New York City.
India, China and Turkey also saw large gains in numbers of billionaires.
The world's youngest billionaire is 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking Web site Facebook. The magazine estimated his worth at $1.5 billion and said he is the youngest self-made billionaire to ever appear in the Forbes billionaire rankings.
Recent turmoil in the financial markets has taken its toll on the list.
James Cayne, Chairman of investment bank Bear Stearns Cos; William Pulte, who founded US home builder Pulte Homes Inc; and Howard Schultz, founder of coffee chain Starbucks all fell off the billionaire's list amid declines in their companies' stock prices.
The decline in the dollar, a trend that Buffett himself has been betting on since 2002, provided a boost to billionaires outside the United States, particularly because the Forbes list is tabulated in US dollars.

The top ten list of billionaires:

Herewith the 10 richest people in the world, according to Forbes magazine's annual list of billionaires.

Name Net Worth Source of Wealth (in billion USD)

Warren Buffett (US): 62 Berkshire Hathaway

Carlos Slim (Mexico): 60 Telecoms

Bill Gates (US): 58 Microsoft

Lakshmi Mittal (India): 45 Steel

Mukesh Ambani (India): 43 Petrochemicals

Anil Ambani (India): 42 Diversified

Ingvar Kamprad (Sweden): 31 Ikea

KP Singh (India): 30 Real estate

Oleg Deripaska (Russia) 28 Russian Aluminum

Karl Albrecht (Germany): 27 Aldi

Top 10 richest person in IT industry

Bill Gates, known for so many years to be (by far) the wealthiest person in the world, now has to settle for second place, because a Mexican tycoon came in first (and not by a small margin; Carlos Slim Helú beats him by over $8 billion).
Is this a sign that IT is yesterday’s news? Actually, no: Carlos himself is a telecommunications magnate, and while the top 10 list isn’t dominated by tech people, the top 100 still has its fair share of geeks. With the web growing at a miraculous pace, we’re hoping to see the Google founders eventually joined by more web-based entrepreneurs, although the desktop paradigm will likely remain strong for years to come. Let’s take a look at the current list of top 10 wealthiest people in IT.

Carlos Slim Helú

Net worth: $67.8 billionCompany: Telmex, América Móvil, Grupo Carso
What? Telecommunications are IT. The fact that Carlos Slim may not be as known worldwide as some other people on this list doesn’t mean he doesn’t pack 67.8 billion dollars. Add Rupert Murdoch’s wealth to that of Bill Gates and they still barely overtake Carlos, and that says a lot. If you wonder how he got here so fast, it’s due to his company América Móvil’s stock jumping a whopping 27% in the second quarter of 2007.

2. William H. Gates III

Net Worth: $59.2 billionCompany: Microsoft
Now you’re sorry you gave all that money to charity, eh Bill? Being number two kinda sucks, but don’t worry, Microsoft’s long term online strategy will…oh, wait. In any case, Bill Gates has been numero uno for so long we were kinda used to him in this spot. Frankly, we expected him to be overtaken by those two kids from Google, but the telecoms magnate instead reigned supreme. Bill is actually focused on giving away his fortune to good causes from now on, and has said previously that he doesn’t care much for being the richest man in the world.

3. Lawrence Ellison

Net Worth: $21.5 billionCompany: Oracle
Oracle? Bo-ring. Ellison has been able to lurk near the top 10 overall for quite some time now, and although he’s slowly slipping the ranks (at one point in time in 2000, he was the richest man in the world), he’s still doing really, really well. Well, what can you do: databases are always in fashion.

4. Paul Allen

Net Worth: $18.0 billionCompany: Microsoft
There was a time when Paul and Bill were both in the overall top 10 list of billionaires, but this was a long, long time ago. Now, Paul is at the 19th place overall and only fourth in IT, with the Google guys breathing down his neck. His ties with Microsoft aren’t so strong, and he sold some 68 million shares of the company, which left him with a meager sum of 138 million shares. He likes to invest in anything and anyone: real estate, sports, even space programs. He’s also known for owning the Octopus, the world’s fifth biggest yacht, as well as a couple of smaller ones.

5 & 6. Sergey Brin & Larry Page

Net Worth: $16.6 billion (each)Company: Google
We’ve put these two rascals together because their huge wallets are the exact same size. Combine their wealth, and they jump to number 3; I hope you guys realize why it’s bad to have a co-founder? If you must have one, at least stab them in the back and get rid of ‘em before you get wealthy, so you don’t have to share. But, we digress. The fact that these sheer billions originate from an algorithm and an almost blank white web page with a colorful logo and a single form is still astonishing.

7. Michael Dell

Net Worth: $15.8 billionCompany: Dell
When you count all the problems that Dell (the company) had, it’s a wonder that it still manages to be the number one hardware company in the world (or, if you ask HP, the number two company). Michael is currently struggling to retain this position as he took control of the company once again, replacing Kevin Rollins at the beginning of this year, and the situation is not too cheery at the moment, so you can expect Michael to drop a position on this list real soon.

8. Steven Ballmer

Net Worth: $15.0 billionCompany: Microsoft
Developers developers developers! Laugh all you like (heck, take a look at that dancing video on YouTube again if you must), but he’s got 15 billion dollars, and you have to choose between the iPhone and food for a month. Oh yeah, although he has money to burn, Steve has an office smaller than my bathroom. Go figure.

9. Naguib Sawiris

Net Worth: $10.0 billionCompany: Orascom Telecom Holding
Naguib Sawiris is the chairman and CEO of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, a multinational GSM mobile phone operating in the emerging markets of Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. As a good indicator of just how fast these markets grow, just look at Naguib’s last year position on Forbes’ list: 278.

10. Sunil Mittal

Net Worth: $9.5 billionCompany: Bharti Telecom
More proof that if you want to be a multi-billionaire, the telecoms industry is where it’s at. Sunil Mittal is the chairman and managing director of Bharti group, which runs India’s largest GSM mobile phone service. Although Sunil has nearly $9.5 billion dollars, he’s only the 6th richest Indian in the world.

This top ten list is originated from-http://mashable.com/