The World’s 15 Most Powerful People From Tech Industry !

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We all love power. Don’t we?

Who doesn’t love being powerful and influential? Unless you are an ascetic or a yogi living up the Himalayas, wanting to be in a powerful position is a basic human trait.

Finding a mention on the list of 72 most powerful people listed by Forbes for this year according to the power they wield and the influence they exert would be like a dream for many!

It is no small feat after all, to be listed among the top 72 who call the shots out of the 7.2 billion walking on this planet.

The Forbes editors choose 1 person for every 100 million on this earth and compile a list of these 0.000001% people every year. Since the total population of the world is 7.2 billion at present, Forbes has placed 72 people on its list this year.

The Forbes team considers hundreds of nominees every year and measure their power along four dimensions:

  1. Over how many people does the candidate have power or how many people are within his sphere of influence?
  2. The financial assets controlled by him
  3. The power of the candidate in multiple spheres
  4. How actively the candidates use their power?

All candidates are ranked along these four parameters and those individual rankings are averaged into a composite score.

Top 15 people from tech and related fields who found themselves on the list for this year include:

Bill Gates at #7

The richest man in America, Bill Gates, is placed at No. 7 in this list. Behind only the Presidents of Russia, USA, China, Germany, The Pope and Janet Yellen (the head of Federal Reserve in the USA).

This 59-year-old self made is the founder of the No. 1 computer software company in the world and has assets worth billions. More importantly, he is using those billions to affect and change the lives of many across the globe through his philanthropic efforts. His Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has given away $30 billion during the last 14 years. Some of his noticeable charitable projects include working towards polio elimination in three countries, donating $50 million towards combating Ebola, $500 million towards fighting malaria besides dozens of scholarships and stipends for meritorious students.

Gates also has the highest Real Time Net Worth ($81.8 billion) among all the 72 people mentioned on this list. Incidentally, he was placed at No. 6 in this last year.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page at #9 and #10 

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the 41-year-old co-founders of the most powerful company of the digital era, Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL), are listed at No. 9 and 10 position on the list.  Their powerful search engine accounts for almost 65% of online searches in the world and their Real Time Net Worth has been listed by Forbes as $29.6 billion and $30.1 billion. They have more than 40,000 employees in 40 countries. They also own Android, the most popular operating system for cell phones, and YouTube, the world’s most popular online video sharing site besides a lot many other projects, touching the lives of several billion people across the planet everyday!

Carlos Slim Helu And Family at #14

This 74-year-old telecom giant is again a self-made man. The second richest man in the world, he together with his family owns America Movil, the telecom company which operates in 18 countries on the two American continents and has 265 million mobile phone customers. Besides that, he also has interests in the retail, industrial and financial sectors in his home country, Mexico. He also owns a minority stake in one of the world’s leading newspapers, The New York Times and is a leading philanthropist.

“He has partnered with the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation as well as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,” says the Forbes.

The Real Time Net Worth of Carlos Slim Helu has been estimated by Forbes at $80.6 billion.

Jeff Bezos at # 16

The 50-year-old Amazon founder and owner, again a self-made man, owns the largest online retailing company, Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), in the world which he founded in 1994. 18% of this company’s shares are owned by Jeff Bezos and though the company is yet to ‘report’ a profit because it keeps plowing back its profits and growing bigger with every passing day. It already almost completely dominates the publishing industry in the USA and is now diversifying into various projects like its much talked about smartphones and the recently launched Fire television set-top box. His two-decade old company whose revenue is forecasted to hit $90 billion this year has grown at a rate of 22% over the last year.

Bezos’ Real Time Net Worth has been put by Forbes at $27.5 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg at #22

The 30-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, known to most people across the world because of his hugely popular social networking site Facebook, is the youngest person on the Forbes list.

This founder, Chairman and CEO of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) is also a self made man and he has spent a lot of time on strengthening the position of his social site. He spent $19 billion on acquiring the most popular mobile messaging app, WhatsApp last year and then $2 billion on buying Oculus VR, the virtual reality headset maker. He also donates generously towards a variety of causes.

His Real Time Net Worth, as per Forbes, is $33 billion.

Timothy Cook at # 25

With a fabulous response to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air and a host of other products launched over the last two months, 54 year old Tim Cook has finally stepped out of his predecessor Steve Jobs’ shadow. The CEO of one of the most popular companies and most valuable brands in the world, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently hit the headlines when he publicly announced that he is gay.

“I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he had written in a blog on Bloomberg.

Jack Ma at # 30

Not many would know that this 50-year-old owner of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE:BABA), the online retailing giant of China, was once an English teacher. Ma, who is being mentioned on this list for the first time, became the richest man in China in September when the IPO to the public listing of his company on the New York Stock Exchange got an earth shattering $25 billion response.

Ma also has a stake in a football team and owns a film production company besides his e-commerce company. Like many other people on this list, Jack Ma is also a philanthropist and has a Real Time Net Worth of $23 billion according to Forbes.

Lee Kun-Hee and Jay Y lee at #35

This father-son duo, Lee and Jay together own Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (KRX:005930), the South Korean cellphone manufacturing company which sells the maximum number of handsets in the world. After72 year old father Lee was hospitalized in May following heart-related ailments, his 46-year-old son is handling the company in the capacity of its Vice President. 23% of the contribution to South Korea’s 1.4 trillion economy comes from this smartphone vendor.

The Real Time Net Worth of father Lee has been estimated by Forbes at $12 billion while that of son Jay’s is $4.9 billion.

Other technology related people who find a mention on this list are 45 year old Robin Li (owner of Chinese social site Baidu) at No. 41, 43 year old Elon Musk at No. 52, Ma Huateng at No. 53, Ginni Rometty at No. 55 and Satya Nadella at No. 64.

Watch the complete Forbes list of the 72 most powerful people of 2014 here.

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