Richest Americans - 2007

[Larwee]

Forbes has released their annual list of the 400 Richest Americans. They have been doing this every year since 1982. There are 23 people on the list this year who have been on it every year since it started.

Last year it took one billion dollars to make the 400 richest list. This year it takes 1.3 billion dollars ($1,300,000,000.00). There are 82 known American billionaires who didn't make the list of the 400 Richest Americans.

Bill Gates is the richest American for the 14th year in a row.

Here is a list of names that could be of interest.

Number 1 - Bill Gates - 59 billion dollars - Microsoft ($59,000,000,000.00)
Number 4 - Larry Ellison - 26 billion dollars - Oracle
Number 5 (tie) - Sergey Brin - 18.5 billion dollars - Google
Number 5 (tie) - Larry Page - 18.5 billion dollars - Google
Number 8 - Michael Dell - 17.2 billion dollars - Dell Computers
Number 16 - Steve Ballmer - 15.2 billion dollars - Microsoft
Number 32 - Pierre Omidyar - 8.9 billion dollars - Ebay
Number 35 - Jeff Bezos - 8.7 billion dollars - Amazon
Number 48 - Eric Schmidt - 6.5 billion dollars - Google
Number 56 - Steven Jobs - 5.7 billion dollars - Apple Computer
Number 68 - Gordon Moore - 4.5 billion dollars - Intel
Number 204 - Omid Kordestani - 2.2 billion dollars - Google
Number 239 - David Filo - 2 billion dollars - Yahoo
Number 261 - Jerry Yang - 1.9 billion dollars - Yahoo
Number 271 (tie) - Kavitark Shriram - 1.8 billion dollars - Google
Number 271 (tie) - Theodore Waitt - 1.8 billion dollars - Gateway Computers
Number 361 - Margaret Whitman - 1.4 billion dollars - Ebay

Larry Page and Sergey Brin were number 43 in 2004 with 4 billion dollars. They have done very well the last few years.

This link is to the complete 2007 list The 400 Richest Americans - Forbes.com

[Julia]

Wow, I didn't realize that Bill Gates had been topping the list for 14 years now.

[longroad]

I thought Oprah was meant to be one of the richest?

[Larwee]

It is the Forbes 400 and I just listed some of those who are technology related. I gave 17 of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans. There are 383 more.

Oprah Winfrey is number 165 with 2.5 billion dollars.

[Larwee]

Julia, a few years ago I was in a library looking at a lot of old magazines, including old issue of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans.

In the richest american issues, they cover a lot of related topics but it isn't the same each year. But they often have stories about people who have a good deal of money but who aren't on the list because they don't have enough.

I saw an old issue that was before Bill Gates was the richest and he hadn't made the list yet. He had some worth then but it wasn't enough to make the 400 Richest Americans. The Forbes article went on to say that he never would make the list of the 400 Richest American and gave several reasons why he wouldn't. Obviously they were wrong. He not only made it, he made it to the top.

Bill Gates has been the richest american for 14 years in a row but he has been the richest american 15 times. He was the richest one year and Warren Buffett was the next year. Since then it has been Bill Gates for 14 years in a row.