Friday, September 21, 2012

Five Indian Americans on Forbes rich list in US

Five Indian Americans, including Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and founder of IT major Syntel, Bharat Desai, have been named among the richest people in the US by Forbes, a list of 400 billionaires topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Gates, 56, whose net worth grew $7 billion from a year earlier to $66 billion in 2012.

He is followed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s Buffett (No. 2) with $46 billion, also up $7 billion from last year, and Oracle Corp’s Larry Ellison (No. 3) with $41 billion, up $8 billion — and the biggest dollar gainer this year.

Desai with a net worth of $2 billion as of September 2012 has been ranked 239 in the list released on Wednesday. Desai, 59, started Syntel in 1980 with his wife while earning his MBA from the University of Michigan. An IIT Mumbai alumnus, Desai stepped down as chief executive of the firm in 2009 but remains chairman.

Founder and chairman of the Symphony Technology Group, Romesh Wadhwani is ranked 250 with a net worth $1.9 billion.

Google board member and shareholder Kavitark Ram Shriram occupies the 298th rank with a net worth of $1.6 billion.

Manoj Bhargava, founder and CEO of the popular energy drink ‘5-hour energy’ is ranked 311 and has a $1.5 billion net worth.

Khosla follows on the 328th rank and a $1.4 billion net worth.

The net worth of the richest Americans grew by 13% in the past year to $1.7 trillion, Forbes magazine said in a statement.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has been pushed down in the rankings to the No. 36 spot with his estimated net worth falling by about $8 billion to $9.4 billion since Facebook went public in May.