They're young, rich and wired - News

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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They're young, rich and wired

October 13, 2000
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/They-re-young-rich-and-wired-/0,139023165,120102399,00.htm

They're young, they're billionaires, and they're techno-savvy.

Fortune Magazine has produced a list of the richest Americans under 40, and the results would seem to indicate that the Internet may be the best road to riches.

The list was topped by 34-year-old Dell Computer Corp. CEO Michael Dell, who Fortune calculated his worth US$21.49 billion.

Virtually every other man on the list -- and they're all men -- has some connection to the technology industry. The notable exceptions are producer and No Limit chief Percy "Master P" Miller (ranked 28th with a net worth of US$361 million) and basketball legend Michael Jordan (ranked 29th with a net worth of US$357 million).

The top 10 reads like the guest list to a Silicon Valley cocktail party. Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos comes in second at US$5.74 billion, and Dell's chief rival Gateway Inc. CEO Ted Waitt is third, at US$5.44 billion.

EBay Inc. founder Pierre Omidyar (US$3.69 billion) and the Yahoo! Inc. duo of David Filo (US$3.12 billion) and Jerry Yang (US$3.05 billion) round out the top six.

Yahoo! isn't the only firm to have two guys in the top ten -- eBay vice president Jeff Skoll, came in at number 10 with a net worth of US$1.35 billion.

EBay's CEO Meg Whitman would have ranked number 14 on the list, but missed the age cut-off by two years, the magazine said.