12 of America’s top 50 richest billionaires are from the tech industry

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With a total net worth of $72 billion, Bill Gates remains the richest American for the 20th straight year. Joining him in the Fortune 400 are twelve other billionaires, all of whom have made their fortune working in the tech industry. Quartz compiled this handy list which shows the Fortune 400 if it only included those that made their money in tech:

1. Bill Gates (Microsoft)

3. Larry Ellison (Oracle)

12. Jeff Bezos (Amazon)

13. Larry Page (Google)

14. Sergey Brin (Google)

20. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

21. Steve Ballmer (Microsoft)

25. Michael Dell (Dell)

26. Paul Allen (Microsoft)

35. Laurene Powell Jobs & family (Apple)

47. Pierre Omidyar (eBay)

49. Eric Schmidt (Google)

As you can see, twelve of the top fifty richest people in the United States made their wealth from tech.

Google and Microsoft are responsible for the fortunes of six of these Americans, which is quite the impressive feat. On the other hand, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who is just 29, is one of the youngest billionaires on the list. As for Bill Gates’ reign as the wealthiest American, he is unlikely to be replaced anytime soon as he is comfortably ahead of second place Warren Buffett with $58.5 billion.

Fun fact: Bill Gates actually lost his crown as the world’s richest man back in 2010 to Mexico’s Carlos Slim. Slim reigned as the world’s richest man until May 2013, after which Gates regained the throne courtesy of increases in Gates’ wealth and decreases in Slim’s. Slim is currently the world’s second most richest man, second only to Gates. In March 2013, Slim was worth as estimated $73 billion but his net worth has fallen since then and is worth an estimated $66.8 billion today.

[via Quartz, image via Gisela Giardino]

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