At least seven Indian Americans were named among the 1,810 individuals on Forbes’ World’s Billionaires List.
The 30th annual list released March 1 had a familiar name at the top, with Bill Gates and his $75 billion net worth claiming the top spot for the 17th time in 22 years. The aggregate worth of the billionaires on the list is $6.48 trillion, down from $7.05 trillion last year.
Symphony Technology Group founder and chairman Romesh T. Wadhwani had the highest net worth among Indian Americans on the list. Ranking at No. 612 overall, Wadhwani boasts a total net worth of $2.8 billion.
Bharat Desai and his wife Neerja Sethi Desai founded IT consulting and outsourcing company Syntel in their apartment in Troy, Mich., in 1980. They turned it into a multi-million dollar operation and now have a net worth of $2.6 billion and are No. 688 on the list.
At No. 906 on the Forbes list is John Kapoor with his $2.1 billion net worth. Kapoor, 72, made his wealth in healthcare. He is the chairman and majority owner at drug companies Akorn and Insys Therapeutics.
India airline IndiGo co-founder Rakesh Gangwal made his first appearance on the list. The 63-year-old Miami, Fla., resident has a net worth of $1.9 billion and slides in at No. 959 on the list.
Kavitark Ram Shriram made his $1.85 billion with Google and as a venture capitalist. The 59-year-old has been investing in early-stage tech firms and has remains on Google’s board since 1998 when it was founded. He is No. 1011 on the list.
Vinod Khosla, 61, partner at Khosla Ventures comes in at No. 1198 on the world’s richest list. The Indian American has raked in his $1.51 billion as a venture capitalist for two decades, first at VC firm Kleiner Perkins before starting his own firm in 2004.
Brian Sheth, 40, of Austin, Texas, co-founded Vista Equity Partners in 2000 and is the firm’s president. Since then, Sheth has racked up a net worth of $1.1 billion and slides in at No. 1577 on the list. Additionally, he helped boost is net worth by buying and fixing up a less-than glamorous collection of enterprise software companies.
Outside of Indian Americans, another 84 Indians were part of the Forbes list. At the top of the list was Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani, whose net worth of $19.3 billion puts him at No. 36 on the list.
The 84 Indians comprise the fourth most of any country on the list. The U.S. had the most billionaires on the list, with 540, more than double the next country, China, which had 251. Germany had the third most billionaires with 120, and Russia was just behind India with 77.
China had the most of 198 newcomer billionaires, adding 70 to the list. Thirty-three newcomers were from the U.S., eight from India and 28 from Germany.
Notable newcomers included Flipkart co-founders Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal (No. 1476) of India.
India's top ten included Ambani; Dilip Shanghvi (No. 44) at $16.7 billion; Azim Premji (No. 55), $15 billion; Shiv Nadar (No. 88), $11.1 billion; Cyrus Poonawalla (No. 133), $8.5 billion; Lakshmi Mittal (No. 135), $8.4 billion; Uday Kotak (No. 184), $6.3 billion; Kumar Birla (No. 196), $6.1 billion; Sunil Mittal (No. 219), $5.7 billion; and Desh Bandhu Gupta (No. 233) with a net worth of $5.5 billion.
Behind Gates, Spanish clothing retailer Amancio Ortega with a net worth of $67 billion, Warren Buffet at $60.8 billion, Telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu with $50 billion dropped the most in value on the list, previously boasting a $77.1 billion net worth and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos at $45.2 billion rounded out the top five.
Bezos jumped up 10 spots from No. 15 last year while Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg moved into the top 10 for the first time at No. 6 while making the biggest leap in value at $11.2 billion to a total net worth of $44.6 billion.