2 Gujarati-origin among America’s super-rich

Two Gujarati-origin businessmen, Bharat Desai of Syntel and software mogul Romesh Wadhwani, have figured in Forbes magazine’s annual list of the 400 richest Americans.

Four Indian Americans, including two Gujarati-origin businessmen, have found place in the list of the 400 richest Americans. The other two Indians are venture capitalist Kavitark Ram Shriram and Sun Microsystems co-founder Vinod Khosla. While Desai is ranked 252, Shriram bagged the 288th position, Wadhwani 290th and Khosla 308th.

Kenya-born Desai, 57, who spent his early years in India to earn an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, (IIT-B), saw his family wealth dip a bit from $1.65 billion to $1.6 billion this year.

Shriram, 53, a University of Madras graduate with an MBA from University of Michigan, found no change in his fortunes totalling
$1.45 billion.

Another IIT-B graduate, Wadhwani, 62, who rode the tech bubble onto the Forbes 400 in 1999 with his $9.3 billion sale of Aspect Development software firm to i2 Technologies, also saw no change in his wealth at $1.4 billion.

But Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, 55, an IIT-Delhi graduate, had a very good year; his personal fortune soared to $1.3 billion from 1.1 billion last year.    

Overall, America's super-rich got even wealthier this year, despite the stumbling economy with their combined net worth climbing 8 per cent this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members on the list, while 85 saw a decline.

Bill Gates, first on the Forbes list with an estimated fortune of $54 billion, up from $50 billion in 2009 is followed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who is worth $45 billion.

Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, stood at No.3 with $20 billion. Christy Walton took the No.4 spot, while members of her family - whose fortune comes from Wal-Mart - took spots 7 through 9. Charles and David Koch of private energy conglomerate Koch Industries, tied for No.5 at $21.5 billion each. Both men saw their wealth skyrocket by $5.5 billion from 2009. Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, rounded out the list at No.10 with $18 billion.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who clocked in at No.35 on the list, saw his wealth rise 245 percent over the year. Forbes said 16 new members joined the list this year, including Facebook's Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin.