Premji richest Indian techie

By agencies   |   Thursday, 24 August 2006, 19:30 IST
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NEW DELHI: Wipro chairman Azim Premji has emerged from his 25th rank among the richest in the world and made it into the list of the world’s 10 richest Tech Titans. The 60-year-old chairman of IT major Wipro has been placed in the sixth position with a net worth of $13.3 billion, amidst other runners in the tech industry. A Stanford graduate, Premji is India’s second-richest man after LN Mittal. He took over Wipro in 1966, currently India’s third-largest software exporter. Compiled by Forbes business magazine, Premji has been placed ahead of Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and founder of German business software major SAP, Hasso Plattner. Microsoft founder Bill Gates retained his position since 12 consecutive years as the topper with a net worth of $50billion. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was ranked at the second position with a net worth at $22billion.The list also included Michael Dell, founder Dell in the third slot with net worth of $17.1billion, Larry Ellison, Oracle co-founder at the fourth position with $16billion and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer ranking number five with an asset value of $13.6billion. According to the report, three of 10 Plattner, Paul Allen and Pierre Omidyar were not actively involved in the companies they founded and Gates had announced his plans to move away from the corporate world, making Premji among the few tech leads who was still with the company. The net worth of the world’s 10 richest technology billionaires collectively stands at $174.2billion, which is more than the gross domestic product of Israel. Besides Premji, other Indian IT billionaires include Shiv Nadar of HCL and NR Narayana Murthy of Infosys.