World's 10 richest billionaires

Business

Bill Gates tops the list of richest billionaires in 2009.

1. Bill Gates ($40 billion). Gates, 53, is the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen in 1975. In high school he wrote the program that created class schedules and tweaked it so he was always placed in classes with mostly female students.

2. Warren Buffett ($37 billion). Buffett, 78, is an American investor, businessman and philanthropist. He is the largest shareholder and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. The 'Oracle of Omaha' is so frugal he still lives in the same house he bought in 1958 for $31,500.

3. Carlos Slim ($35 billion). Slim, 69, is a Mexican businessman who is largely focused on the telecommunications industry. He controls Tel fonos de M xico (Telmex), Telcel and Am rica M vil companies. The son of Lebanese immigrants, his father changed his last name from Salim to Slim when he arrived in Mexico.

4. Lawrence Ellison ($22.5 billion). Ellison, 64, is the co-founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation. He got his start in the 1970s when he created a database for the CIA he dubbed "Oracle."

5. Ingvar Kamprad ($22 billion). Kamprad, 82, is a Swedish entrepreneur who is the founder of the home furnishing retail chain IKEA. The notoriously frugal Swede began his career as a young boy selling matches from his bicycle.

6. Karl Albrecht ($21.5 billion). Albrecht, 89, founded the discount supermarket chain Aldi with his brother Theo. After serving in the German Army during World War II he and his brother took over his mother's small grocery store. He is a very private person and is rarely seen in public since giving up his position in Aldi S d in 1994.

7. Mukesh Ambani ($19.5 billion). Ambani, 51, is an Indian businessman. He is the chairman, managing director and the largest shareholder of Reliance Industries, a textile firm and India's largest private company. A chemical engineer, he made his mark by creating world-class manufacturing facilities.

8. Lakshmi Mittal ($19.3 billion). Mittal, 57, is an Indian industrialist based in the United Kingdom. He is the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, the largest steel company in the world. As a child he slept on bare floors in India, but his father started an oil company before becoming a partner in a steel firm that made the family a fortune.

9: Theo Albrecht ($18.8 billion). Albrecht, 86, owns and was the CEO of the Aldi Nord discount supermarket chain. In the U.S. he owns the Trader Joe's specialty grocery store chain. A reclusive man like his brother, he was kidnapped in 1971 and a $3 million ransom was paid for his release.

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1. Bill Gates ($40 billion). Gates, 53, is the chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen in 1975. In high school he wrote the program that created class schedules and tweaked it so he was always placed in classes with mostly female students.

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