 research programs through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established in 2000.
Gates also holds the record of being the Richest Person in the world for 15 consecutive years.
4) Steven Paul Jobs - Apple Inc.
Steven Paul Jobs is the co-founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. and former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.
In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven GUI (Graphical User Interface)
After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets.
Jobs is currently the Walt Disney Company’s largest individual shareholder and a member of its Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and industries.
5) Mark Zuckerberg - Facebook
One of the most admired and successful youngster of the 21st century is a 24 years old Harvard graduate - the world’s youngest billionaire, with an estimated net worth of $1.5 billion
He founded Facebook, the online social networking website. Zuckerberg launched The Facebook (FaceMatch) from his Harvard dorm room in 2004 and started promoting it to all Ivy League schools and some Boston institutions.
Soon, he bought over Facebook.com domain name. Facebook is now a household name with people of all ages, groups and interests, interacting with each other. Its business and pleasure at the same time!
6) Kevin Rose - Digg
You all know Kevin, don’t you? Perhaps one of the most respected internet idealist and TV show host, Kevin Rose has definitely placed a huge impacts among all Digg users.
He became well known as an on-air talent and later as a co-host working on TechTV’s popular show The Screen Savers (which later became Attack of the Show! ) until his departure from the network on May 2005.
He also co-founded Pownce and Revision3 besides his popular Digg.com, social-bookmarking website. He created Digg in 2004 by hiring a freelance programmer who Kevin Rose paid $12 per hour through eLance.
Kevin Rose later bought Digg.com domain name for $1,200 and then went on to buy larger server space. Digg received an ultra boost of capitals when they received $2.8 million of venture capital from Omidyar Network, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and Greylock Partners.
7) Bram Cohen - BitTorrent
Best known as the developer, co-founder and author behind peer-to-peer sharing, Bram Cohen is the inventor of BitTorrent. The other day a cousin of mine said “Bit Torrent has made life easier!” That’s how easily we can sum up the achievements of this man.
Bram Cohen is also the co-founder of CodeCon and co-author of Codeville. In 2001, he quit his job at MojoNation to work in BitTorrent. He firstly revealed his ideas in a CodeCon conference and started luring beta testers by collecting free pornography.
He then spent some time working with Valve, but quit his job later to work in BitTorrent Inc. with his brother and business partner Mike Morhaime - Blizzard Entertainment
8.) Mike Morhaime - Blizzard Entertainment
Mike Morhaime is the president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, a video game developer located in Irvine, California and currently owned by Activision Blizzard.
He is best know for his creation of a popular online gaming fantasy, World of Warcraft (WoW). It has over 10 million online gamers, raking Morhaime at least $1.5 billion every year.
9) Jimmy Wales - Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales is the co-founder of Wikipedia: a free and open content encyclopedia launched in 2001. He is also the co-founder of Wikia, a privately own web hosting company set up in 2004.
Jimmy Wales at first started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia which is Nupedia. He then utilized the ideas of Nupedia with his “wiki” software to form today’s Wikipedia.
His work with Wikipedia, which has become the world’s largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name hi