Bill Gates
Net worth: $66 billion

Tech billionaire Bill Gates is widely known for co-founding the world’s biggest software company Microsoft. According to Forbes, as of September 2012, he is America’s richest man with $66 billion net worth. Through Microsoft, he has not only played the prime role in the rise of the personal computer by offering an operating system that could run on different machines but also taken Microsoft to the pinnacle of success by extending its reach beyond Operating System including browsers, search, media players, web-based email and variety of software-based applications.

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.” ~Bill Gates

Larry Ellison
Net worth: $41 billion, September 2012

Larry Ellison is an American business mogul whose fortune comes from his 23.5 percent stake in the world’s largest database company Oracle, 49 percent stake in NetSuite, and interest in educational software maker LeapFrog Enterprises. Oracle is an American multinational computer technology company that he founded in 1977 along with Bob Miner and Ed Oates.

“It’s fascinating as we continue to innovate and lead the way in both the application space and the database space. In the very beginning, people said you couldn’t make relational databases fast enough to be commercially viable. I thought we could, and we were the first to do it. But we took tremendous abuse until IBM said, “Oh yeah, this stuff is good.”~Larry Ellison

money.cnn.com

Jeffrey Preston Bezos is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of the American multinational electronic commerce company Amazon.com which is now the world’s leading online retailer that provides services for lower prices, enabling customers to go for their own selection besides offering wealth of information. Since its inception in 1994, Amazon has become the biggest online bookseller with annual sales of over $48 billion and one of the leading providers of cloud computer services. In 2007, Bezos introduced Amazon’s top-selling item the Kindle electronic book reader.

“I think technology advanced faster than anticipated. In that whirlwind, a lot of companies didn’t survive. The reason we have done well is because, even in that whirlwind, we kept heads-down focused on the customers. All the metrics that we can track about customers have improved every year.”~Jeff Bezos

Larry Page
Net Worth: $20.3 billion, September 2012

Computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur Larry Page is widely known for co-founding the search engine Google in 1998 along with Sergey Brin. Google started as a research project while he was still a student at the Stanford University to organize the immense amount of information available on the web and show them to visitors according to their specific search queries. Page along with Brin own approximately 16 percent of the company and he has sold over $3.5 billion worth of Google stock since 2004.

“It really matters whether people are working on generating clean energy or improving transportation or making the Internet work better and all those things. And small groups of people can have a really huge impact.”~Larry Page

Sergey Brin
Net Worth: $20.3 billion, September 2012

Russian-born American Internet entrepreneur and computer scientist Sergey Brin is the co-founder of search engine Google. Brin was the president of technology until 2011 to take care of company’s special projects and oversee a large investment portfolio. As of September 2012, his personal worth stands at $20.3 billion.

“Obviously everyone wants to be successful, but I want to be looked back on as being very innovative, very trusted and ethical and ultimately making a big difference in the world.”~Sergey Brin

Courtesy: wikipedia

Indian business magnate and philanthropist Azim Premji is the Chairman of one of the largest software companies in India, Wipro Technologies. His largest percentage of fortune comes from Bangalore-based Wipro that he owns about 78 percent of it. Wipro employs over 130,000 people with its presence across 54 countries in the world and has annual revenue of over $7.7 billion. Besides Wipro, Premji has his own private equity fund named PremjiInvest that takes care of his $1 billion personal portfolio.

“We believe this combination of excellence in operations and strong execution of our strategy is critical to achieve our vision. We will continue to focus on both in future as well.”~Azim Premji

Paul Allen: Photo by Paul G Allen Family Foundation

American investor and philanthropist Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft along with Bill Gates in 1975 but left the company in 1983 with his 28 percent stake. He made over $20 billion by selling more than 26 percent of his stake in Microsoft. After leaving Microsoft he founded his Washington based investment company Vulcan in 1986 and the company now has holds in energy, cable, entertainment, technology and real estate.

“In my own work, I’ve tried to anticipate what’s coming over the horizon, to hasten its arrival, and to apply it to people’s lives in a meaningful way.”~ Paul Allen

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American businessman Steve Ballmer became the CEO of Microsoft in January 2000 when Bill Gates stepped down from his position and responsibility of day-to-day management. As of 2012, his personal wealth is approximately $15.9 billion. He has served Microsoft divisions that include operating systems development, and sales and support. He joined Microsoft in 1980, and in July 1998, he became the President and in 2000 the CEO of the company.

“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.”~Steve Ballmer

Michael Dell
Net Worth: $14.6 billion, September 2012

American business tycoon and author Michael Dell is the founder and chief executive of the world’s third- largest computer hardware manufacturer by revenue Dell. His fortune comes from Dell, 15 percent of the Texas-based company Round Rock and his New York-based investment firm MSD Capital. As of September 2012, his personal worth is approximately $14.6 billion.

“It’s through curiosity and looking at opportunities in new ways that we’ve always mapped our path at Dell. There’s always an opportunity to make a difference.” Michael Dell

Mark Zuckerberg
Net Worth: $ 10.0 billion, September 2012

American Internet entrepreneur and computer programmer Mark Zuckerberg is known as the co-founder and chief executive officer of the world’s largest social-media platform Facebook. Since the inception of the site, it has grown at faster rate and by August 2012 the site has grabbed over 1 billion monthly users and generated over $3.7 billion in revenue. Despite the company’s downfall (stock prices), as of September 2012 Zuckerberg’s personal worth is about $10 billion. In 2012, The Company has sold shares in an initial public offering which is called to the biggest technology IPO in history.

“The web is at a really important turning point right now. Up until recently, the default on the web has been that most things arent social and most things dont use your real identity. Were building toward a web where the default is social.”~Mark Zuckerberg

Info Source: bloomberg.com, Forbes

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California-based multinational company Apple was founded in 1976 on April 1 by Steve Jobs along with an American computer programmer and engineer Steve Wozniak and an American electronics industry worker Ronald Wayne. The company is widely popular for the Smartphone iPhone, other handheld devices iPod, iPad and Macintosh line of computers. Apple has approximately 393 retail stores across fourteen countries, more than 60,400 full-time employees and several hundred thousand part-time employees worldwide. Apple is the third largest mobile phone makers and one of the most precious customer-facing brands. Fortune magazine called Apple to be the world’s most admired brand from 2008 to 2012.

Microsoft

World’s largest software maker Microsoft Corporation is a Washington-based multinational corporation that was founded on April 4, 1975 by Bill Gates and American investor and philanthropist Paul Allen. The Company started with developing and selling BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800 but it rose above and extended into developing operating systems for personal computers, phones, servers, and other intelligent devices, desktop and server management tools, productivity applications, software development tools and others. The company’s growth, since its inception, has made three billionaires and 12,000 millionaires. Microsoft is known to be the one of the world’s most valuable companies for which approximately 94,000 employees across the world are working.

Coca-Cola

The history of Coca Cola, a beverage manufacturer dates back to 1885 when Dr. John Stith Pemberton invented a new original recipe for a new cocawine. Coca-Cola became a non-alcoholic soft drink for refreshment after prohibition laws were passed. In 1891, an Atlanta pharmacist and businessman Asa Griggs Candler bought the exclusive right and registered “Coca-Cola” trademark in the US Patent Office in 1893. He made it the most demanding and favorite soft drink of the world with massive advertise campaigns. Some products of Coca-Cola are Cola Turka, RC Cola, Zam Zam Cola, Mecca-Cola, Virgin Cola, Parsi Cola, Breizh Cola, Qibla Cola, Corsica Cola, Evoca Cola, and Afri Cola.

IBM

IBM (International Business Machines) is a New York-based multinational IT consulting corporation and computer manufacturing giant. IBM was founded by an American businessman Charles Ranlett Flint on June 16, 1911. It manufactures and sells computer software, hardware and provides a variety of services that include infrastructure services, consulting services and hosting services. Over the years, the company has invented and developed several hundred things related to computer and information technology. As of 2012, about 433,362 2012 employees work for this company worldwide. Forbes calls IBM to be the 4th most powerful company in the world.

Google

According to Forbes Google is the fifth most powerful company in the world. Google Inc. (Listed on NASDAQ as GOOG) is an American multinational company founded on September 4, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were still studying at Stanford University. Google offers Internet-related services that include internet search, advertising, cloud computing and many other. According to report of 2012, 53,546 employees across the world are working for Google.

Intel

California-based multinational a semiconductor and chip-making company Intel was founded in 1968 by two scientists Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore who were first people to introduce microprocessor to the world in 1971. Since its inception, Intel continues to invent and develop technologies and products and improves the lifestyle and work of people. Intel also manufactures network interface controllers and integrated circuits, motherboard chipsets, graphic chips, flash memory, embedded processors and some other devices related to computing. Currently, approximately 100,100 employees are working for Intel.

McDonald’s

The world’s biggest chain of hamburger fast food retailer McDonald’s started in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant initiated by two brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California but in 1948 it became a hamburger stand. It was American businessman Ray Kroc who purchased the chain and took it to the whole world. The company sells chicken, hamburgers, cheeseburgers, soft drinks, french fries, breakfast items, milkshakes and desserts, smoothies and fruit, salads, wraps and more. According to 2011 report, approximately 420,000 employees across the world are working for the company.

General Electric

American multinational corporation General Electric was founded by Edwin Houston, Charles Coffin, Elihu Thomson, and Thomas Edison in 1892 in Schenectady, New York. Company’s products include consumer electronics, electric motors, electrical distribution, aviation, Appliances, energy, healthcare, water, entertainment, finance, gas, oil, software, weapons, wind turbines and more. Approximately 301,000 employees worldwide are currently working for the company. Forbes ranks it as 8th most powerful company in the world and in 2011 Fortune 500 called it to be the 6th largest firm in the U.S. by gross revenue and 14th most profitable company.

BMW

German motorcycle, automobile, and engine manufacturing company BMW is widely popular for its elegant style and gracious design that people generally directly relate to their personality, reputation, taste and aristocracy. The company was founded back on 21 July in 1917 by Franz Josef Popp, a well-known German engineer of an aircraft company. The company’s headquarter is in Munich, Bavaria, Germany and as of 2011, 102,007 employees worked for the company.

Cisco

California-based Multinational Corporation Cisco Systems, Inc. was founded in 1984 by a married couple Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner who faced trouble in preparing their computers communicate with each other while working as a staff member in two different departments at Stanford University. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking equipment and its products include Network Management, Networking Device, Cisco IOS and NX-OS, VOIP, Optical networking, Interface and Module, Storage area networks, Wireless, and many more. According to 2012 report 66,639 employees are working in the company.

Info Source: forbes.com

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Google, Stanford Graduate Students

Founded by: Larry Page and Sergey Brin
Year: 1998
Alexa rank: 1

Google, the world’s most popular search engine, an American multinational, Internet and software corporation, was initiated as a university’s research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin who teamed up while studying at Stanford. On September 4, 1998, it started with the purpose of indexing the Stanford Digital Library with the name BackRub. After three years, they tried to sell it to Excite for $1 million but they rejected. The very next year Google received $25 million as fund.

Today, Google is a multi-billion dollar company, employing over 32,000 people across the world and making over $10 billion as annual profit.

Read About Larry Page
Read About Sergey Brin
Read About Google

wikipedia

Facebook, Harvard Undergrad

Founded by: Mark Zuckerberg
Year: 2004
Alexa rank: 2

The most popular social networking site, Facebook, emerged as an experiment to connect Harvard undergraduate students through the web. At the age of 19, Mark Zuckerberg launched the site on February 4, 2004 as a Harvard sophomore with the then name “thefacebook.com”. The site was an instant success and within six years, it has become one of the largest web sites across the world. Today, with over 850 million visitors a month, Facebook is the world’s largest Social Media channel with the net worth of $100 billion.

Read About Mark Zuckerberg
Read About Mark Zuckerberg, the Man behind the Phenomenal Success of Facebook

wikipedia

Yahoo!, Stanford Graduate Students

Founded by: Jerry Yang and David Filo
Year: 1995
Alexa rank: 4

In 1995, three years before Google emerged, Jerry and David, electrical engineering graduate students at Stanford University, launched Yahoo! as a directory of their favorite websites with the tag line, “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web.” They were still student when started working for the site in 1994. In April 1994, they renamed the site from “David and Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web” to much shorter name “Yahoo!”, which is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.”

By the end of 1995, Yahoo received one million hits. Founders Yang and Filo could visualize that their website had immense business potential, and On 12 April 1996, Yahoo raised $33.8 million dollars by selling 2.6 million shares at $13 each.

David Filo and Jerry Yang

wikipedia

WordPress, University of Houston Undergrad

Founded by: Matt Mullenweg
Year: 2003
Alexa rank: 18

WordPress, free and open source CMS/Web software, created by Matthew Charles “Matt” Mullenweg, when he was still a freshman. Matt launched it on May 27, 2003 as a division of b2/cafelog and by the end of December 2011, 3.0 version had been downloaded for more than 65 million times. Today, a majority of content websites prefer to use it and there are over 150,000 of the top 1 million websites built on WordPress platform.

Read More About him in the Fastest Internet Millionaires

wikipedia

Microsoft, Harvard Undergrad

Founded by: Bill Gates and Paul Allen
Year: 1975
Alexa rank: 35

Bill Gates and Paul Allen, founders of Microsoft, had great passion for programming throughout their high school. After attending Harvard, Paul somehow convinced Gates to dropout to work on their project and launch “Micro-Soft” at the quickest. The initial years were full of hurdles but they succeeded in less than 5 years. In 1995, they focused on the Internet market and created the popular Internet Explorer browser which remained the best browser for almost a decade. Today, Microsoft created operating systems and other software are used in almost every household.

Read About Paul Allen, the Idea Man
Read About Bill Gate

wikipedia

Founded by: Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian
Year: 2005
Alexa rank: 120

Reddit, a social news website, was originally founded by 22-year-old graduates from the University of Virginia, Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. After one year, in 2006, the site was acquired by Condé Nast Publications and in September 2011, it was split from Condé Nast, and recently it operates as a subsidiary of Condé Nast’s parent company named Advance Publications. By the middle of 2010, reddit experienced explosive traffic growth and introduced Reddit Gold to provide new features for a price of US$3.99/month.

wikipedia

Founded by: Michael Dell
Year: 1984
Alexa rank: 267

Dell was started with just an idea by Michael Dell in 1984 with the humble investment of $1,000. He created PCs Limited from his dorm room by assembling computers for customers according to their requirements. By the end of the year, he received $300,000 from his family to invest. He dropped out of college to work for his idea full time and in 1985, he grossed $73 million by trading for the whole year. By 1992, Dell Computer Corporation was enlisted in the Fortune 500 list of the largest companies across the world and Michael Dell, at the age of 27, became the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

wikipedia

Founded by: Frederick W. Smith
Year: 1971
Alexa rank: 337

FedEx Corporation, a United States based logistics services company with headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee, founded by Frederick W. Smith. While still an undergraduate student, Smith submitted a paper, where he showed how to deliver courier overnight or at the soonest in the economics class and the professor awarded him a “C” as the idea was not practical. However, Smith continued working towards his idea and laid the foundation of the today’s FedEx in 1971. Frederick W. Smith started with a $4 million that he had inherited and $91 million which is managed in venture capital.

wikipedia

Napster, Northeastern University Undergrad

Founded by: Shawn Fanning
Year: 1999

Napster, a music-focused online services, was founded by Shawn Fanning in 1999 as a peer-to-peer file sharing network. John Fanning, and Sean Parker are co-founders of the company. Napster completely specialized in music in the form of MP3 files with a user-friendly interface. Napster was closed for two years because of legal difficulties over copyright infringement. In 2008, Best Buy acquired Napster for $121 million. Shawn Fanning literary transformed the face of music sharing for all future generations.

wikipedia

Time Magazine, Yale Undergrads

Founded by: Briton Hadden and Henry Luce
Year: 1923
Alexa 453

TIME, the world’s largest circulated weekly news magazine with 25 million readerships, is an American weekly news magazine founded by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce in 1923. In 1923, when Briton and Henry were the chairman and managing editor of the Yale Daily News, they thought of creating the first weekly news magazine in the United States.

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Google, an American multinational public corporation, evolved in 1996 by two Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin in California. It is now considered one of the largest technology companies across the world.

The journey of Google began as a research project for Larry Page and Sergey Brin as the part of their PhD degree. Later, they came up with idea of creating a universal search engine to rank the webpages comparing with other relational sites as well as pages on the World Wide Web. They named the search engine as ‘BackRub’ as its responsibility was to rank the importance of webpages checking their backlinks. The most interesting fact about Google was that it started at a garage in 1998.

During early years, Google received a variety of funding starting with 100,000 $ from Andy Bechtolsheim in 1999. The following year, with major investors including the venture capital firms Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital and Caufield & Byers on June 7, 1999, a $25 million round of funding was announced. The fund assisted Google to grow rapidly.

Google runs more approximately than one million servers in data centred, processes over one billion search requests and twenty-four petabytes of user-generated data every day across the world. Google offers online productivity software such as social networking tools including Google Buzz and Google+, Gmail email service, and many more. Moreover, Google leads the development of the Android mobile operating system, Motorola Droid and the Samsung Galaxy smartphone series as well as Google Chrome OS.

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