The Next Bill Gates

(Mark Zuuckerberg, facebook founder)


There's a new billionaire in Japan: Yoshikazu Tanaka, who also boasts the title of the youngest self-made billionaire in Asia. Listed at No. 18 among Japan's 40 richest, Tanaka is worth $1.6 billion, almost double the $850 million he was listed at in 2009, due to a pop in the stock price of his online social network, Gree.

After graduating from Nihon University, Tanaka worked at Sony and then joined Rakuten, an online shopping site run by Japan's sixth richest person, Hiroshi Mikitani. While there, he started Gree for fun and after it started drawing fans he struck out on his own. His site allows its now 15 million users (almost double a year ago) to customize their game-playing avatars by purchasing clothing and accessories.

Tanaka reminds us once again that even when the world is in the throes of economic turmoil, young, innovative entrepreneurs can strike it rich. He is one of a long line of tech tycoons from Michael Dell to Bill Gates who made their initial fortunes in their twenties and thirties. Today eight billionaires under the age of 40 have earned their money in technology. That is up from just four in March when we published our ranking of the World's Billionaires. At the time there were only three other self-made billionaires under 40 whose money was made in other sectors; eight more had inherited at least part of their fortunes.

Of the current eight, four are from China, three are from the U.S. and one is from Japan. Several became wealthy from online games or social networks, and all are still involved in the companies they founded.

For most, like Tanaka, their companies started out as hobbies but yielded billions. The youngest, Mark Zuckerberg, became a billionaire in 2008 at age 23, making him the youngest billionaire in the world. As a Harvard sophomore Zuckerberg created Facebook for his campus. The social networking site quickly spread to other schools and now has 350 million members. College dropout Zuckerberg is worth $2 billion now.

These entrepreneurs are already huge successes but they still have a long way to go to catch up to Bill Gates, the world's richest man.

In 1987 Gates was officially declared a billionaire in the pages of Forbes' 400 Richest People in America issue, just days before his 32nd birthday. As the world's youngest self-made billionaire, he was worth $1.25 billion, over $900 million more than he'd been worth the year before, when he'd debuted on the list. Ironically, he was quoted describing himself as a "stick-in-the-mud, over-30 guy now."

Gates has been a billionaire ever since 1987, but not all young tech moguls have had his endurance. Jerry Yang and David Filo, co-founders of Yahoo! were 30 and 32, respectively, when they became billionaires in 1999. They fell below the mark in 2001 and 2002, as their fortunes fell to less than one-10th of the highest value in 2000. Both climbed back on in 2003 but aren't worth anywhere near their peak of more than $6 billion in 2000.

Joe Liemandt, the founder of software company Trilogy, was worth $1.5 billion when he was 32 in 2000. The following year he didn't make the cut. In 2001 hundreds of Trilogy employees were fired and Liemandt shook up its business model. He has yet to rejoin the ranks.

Of today's young tech billionaires, only Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google stand much chance of overtaking Gates in terms of wealth. Last March, they were tied for 26th richest person in the world, with $12 billion each. This fall, Bill Gates was worth $50 billion, while Brin and Page were each worth $15.3 billion. The duo's wealth could continue to climb as Google continues to grow; the company recently expanded into smart phones.

Even if these young techies don't catch up to Gates, they're still the creators of companies that have changed the way we socialize, play and browse. Chen Tianqiao, worth $1.3 billion as chief executive and chairman of Chinese company Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited, told Forbes in May 2005: "As an entrepreneur in China, I respect Bill Gates, but I want to be China's Chen Tianqiao, not China's Bill Gates."



Source : http://news.id.msn.com/forbes/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3827593