Bill Gates

Bill Gates is an American-born software whiz, investor, and commercial magnate. Bill Gates was born on October 28, 1955, in Washington, and is a high school dropout who did not complete his academic studies at Harvard University after making a name for himself in software creation.

When he co-founded Microsoft, he began his road to becoming one of the richest in America. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation founder and CEO of Cascade Investment. Bill Gates' contribution to technology has been recognized in numerous ways. First, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential persons of the twentieth century, as well as one of the 100 most influential people of 2004, 2005, and 2006. Due to his contributions to the development of personal computing, Bill Gates was inducted into the US National Academy of Engineering in 1996.

The now-divorced Microsoft cofounder has been busy writing, with a book on how to combat climate change out last year and another due out in May on how to avoid another pandemic. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation joined a group in March to explore medication options to fight future global epidemics.

Net worth: $129 billion