Dive Brief:
- Tech entrepreneurs dominated Forbes' 2016 World's Billionaires list, released Tuesday, accounting for four of the top 10 spots on the list.
- Bill Gates is again the world's richest person, with a net worth of $75 billion. Microsoft's co-founder has taken the top spot on the annual list for 17 of the last 22 years.
- Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook's CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg and Oracle's chairman Larry Ellison also appeared in the top 10.
Dive Insight:
This year's list is flush with billionaires who made their fortunes in tech. The 159 tech billionaires have a combined net worth of $818.7 billion. Six of them rank among the top 20 richest people in the world.
The list's rankings should not come as a surprise, as tech companies are some of the most profitable companies in the world. In February Google's parent company, Alphabet, officially became the world's most valuable company. So, it makes sense that Google's co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin each took a spot among the top 20 wealthiest people in the world, with a net worths of $35.2 billion and $34.4 billion, respectively.
