Recession blues: Forbes sums up the fiscal hit taken by tech tycoons in 2009

Published by Charl Norman on Mar 17th, 2009, No Comments

The global economic meltdown has hit hard everyone and it seems that even the biggest tech tycoons in the world are finally feeling the pinch of the difficult times.

Image by Joi

Some would argue that the $40 billion that Bill Gates potentially owns is still no joke, but just the fact that it could have been a lot more and could end up being a lot less in the next couple of years is a clear sign that the rich are not getting richer that easily anymore! The list of world’s leading billionaires recently published by Forbes (cut down to 793 from 1125 the previous year) gives an indication as to how the tech tycoons have lost tons of cash and could be heading in the wrong direction…

The 40 tech and media moguls had a cumulative loss of around $ 81.5 billion in the last year alone and have seen their collective wealth drop to $ 203.4 billion. Although it sounds small compared to the whooping $1.4 trillion that left the billionaire club when compared with 2008.

While Bill gates sits on top of the tech giants list and gained a couple of spots, it is only because others have also lost huge. Gates lost a staggering $18 billion while Sergey Brin of Google parted with over $6 billion. With Michael Bloomberg the only one gaining ($5 billion), numbers are further expected to take a hit in the billionaire club.

That’s how nice the financial world is …

No?

Popular Now: Alan Knott-Craig Appointed Cell C CEO