Warren Buffett the Top Billionaire in 2008

Warren Buffett the Top Billionaire in 2008

The World's Top 10 Billionaires List

#1
America's most beloved investor is now the world's richest man. Soared past friend and bridge partner Bill Gates as shares of Berkshire Hathaway climbed 25% since the middle of last July. Son of Nebraska politician delivered newspapers as a boy. Filed first tax return at age 13, claiming $35 deduction for bicycle. Studied under value investing guru Benjamin Graham at Columbia. Took over textile firm Berkshire Hathaway 1965. Today holding company invested in insurance (Geico, General Re), jewelry (Borsheim's), utilities (MidAmerican Energy), food (Dairy Queen, See's Candies). Also has noncontrolling stakes in Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Wells Fargo. Insurance operations flourished in 2007.

#2
Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú now ranks as the world's second richest person with a net worth of $60 billion. Second-richest man in the world this year; even richer than Microsoft's Bill Gates, at least for now, thanks to strong Mexican equities market and the performance of his wireless telephone company.

#3
After a 13 year run as number one Microsoft founder Bill Gates has been toppled from the top place to the third place. Bill Gates is now worth $58 billion and is ranked third richest in the world. He is up $2 billion from a year ago, but would have been as rich--or richer--than Buffett, had Microsoft not made an unsolicited bid for Yahoo! at the beginning of February.

#4 Lakshmi Mittal
#5 Mukesh Ambani
#6 Anil Ambani
#7 Ingvar Kamprad
#8 KP Singh
#9 Oleg Deripaska
#10 Karl Albrecht

*Information from Forbes.com



People like me make Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg may be youngest self-made billionaire in history.
(Hahaha)