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274 of the 400 self made rich and this includes 4 Indians among America’s most richest

2 October 2009 522 views View Comments

Washington: Four Indian Americans are among America’s super-rich with Microsoft Corp co-founder Bill Gates still holding the top spot on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans with a fortune of $50 billion.

Warren Buffett, who’s worth $40 billion, comes in No.2 in the Forbes magazine’s annual ranking, followed by Oracle founder Lawrence Ellison ($27 billion) and members of the Walton family, owners of Walmart. The four Waltons have fortunes between $21.5 billion and $19 billion.

The number of list members losing value more than doubled to 314, compared with 126 in 2008. Billionaires fell to 391 from 489, as the biggest economic slump since the Great Depression set in.

“There’s a lot of people who think most of the people on this list grew up with a silver spoon but, in fact, 274 of the 400 are entirely self-made, meaning they came from humble origins. Another 52 inherited a small fortune and turned it into a very large one,” says Forbes.

The four Indian Americans on the list are:

#212 Bharat Desai & family:

Born in Kenya, spent teens in India. Earned engineering degree from Indian Institute of Technology; moved to U.S after landing programming job for Tata Consultancy Services in 1976.

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Courtesy of Syntel Inc

Net Worth $1.7 billion		Source Syntel Inc. (quote: SYNT), Software, Self made

Age 54 Marital Status Married, 2 children		Hometown Fisher Island, FL, United States Education Indian Institute of Technology, Bachelor of Arts / Science University of Michigan, Master of Business Administration

Accountant’s son born in Kenya, moved to India at age 11. Studied engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, took programming job in U.S. at Tata Consultancy Services 1976. Earned M.B.A. from U. of Michigan; founded info-tech outsourcing firm Syntel with wife, Neerja Sethi, while in school. “I’m genetically not wired to be an employee.” Went public 1997; shares up 63% in past 12 months. Sales: $270 million. Card player represented India in bridge world championship 1995; enjoys running, yoga

#272 Kavitark Ram Shriram:

Kavitark Ram Shriram

Courtesy of Ram Shriram

Net Worth $1.5 billion		Source Google (quote: GOOG), Technology, Self made

Age 50 Marital Status Married, 2 children		Hometown Mountain View, CA, United States Education

Born, schooled in Madras, India. Created shop bot Junglee; sold to Amazon in 1998. Worked for Netscape, Amazon before launching Sherpalo in 2000. Learned to adapt during the tech bust: “Living in a world where everything is changing constantly, you learn to change.” Early investor, board member of Google. Sold off more than half his shares since public offering 2004; still owns 1.9 million shares worth $760 million. Other investments: Zazzle (custom-designed T shirts, mugs, stamps), PodShow (online radio), 247Customer.com (Indian call centers).

#277 Romesh Wadhwani & family:

Rode tech bubble onto The Forbes 400 in 1999 with $9.3 billion sale of Aspect Development software firm to i2 Technologies. All-stock deal left fortune depleted 4 years later.

Used remaining millions to start or acquire nine business software and IT companies; clawed fortune back to 10 figures. Best investment: bought market-research company Information Resources 2003; former moneyloser now generates operating profit margins of 10 percent.

#347 Vinod Khosla:

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Net Worth $1,100 million	Source Sun Microsystems, venture capital, Self Made
Age 54	Hometown Menlo Park, California, United States
Marital Status Married, 4 children	Education (Indian Tech, Bachelor of Arts / Science), (Stanford U, Master of Business Administration)

Venture capitalist continues to flog the green theme: dismisses wind power, electric cars as too expensive, unreliable to become mainstream. Says efforts should go to solving greenhouse-gas emissions from cement, oil, coal, steel industries; still bullish on ethanol. India-born engineer came to U.S. to attend grad school at Carnegie Mellon. With partners, founded Sun Microsystems in 1985. Four years later joined Sun investor John Doerr at venture outfit Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Split in 2004 to start Khosla Ventures. Recently raised $1 billion across 2 funds to invest in clean tech, IT.