As Facebook’s value has surged, so have the fortunes of its founders. On the 2011 Forbes “World’s Billionaires” list, six of Facebook’s early architects have made the cut.
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sits atop the company’s richest, ranking in as the 52nd richest person in the world. That’s a significant jump from last year, which had him at number 212 on the Forbes list.
Zuckerberg’s fortune more than tripled since 2010, surging from $4 billion to $13.5 billion this year, primarily due to Facebook’s $50 billion valuation after a $1.5 billion cash injection by Goldman Sachs.
Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz is next in line, at $2.7 billion. With a mere 26 years under his belt, Moskovitz is the world’s youngest billionaire. This year is Moskovitz’s first time to make the Forbes list.
Former Facebook president (and co-founder of Napster) Sean Parker secures his spot with a $1.6 billion fortune. Facebook investor Peter Thiel follows with $1.5 billion. And Russian investor Yuri Milner rounds out the bottom end with a worth of $1 billion.
Eduardo Saverin, whose ousting from Facebook was made famous as the primary story line of Academy Award-nominated film The Social Network, also made the list, with Forbes estimating that his settlement with Zuckerberg earned him about $1.6 billion.
“Shed no tears for Eduardo,” Steve Forbes, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, tells the Guardian. “If you do get to be thrown out, a billion dollars isn’t a bad severance package.”
The list’s top three remains unchanged from last year, with Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffet at No. 3 ($50 billion) and Microsoft founder Bill Gates at No. 2 ($56 billion). Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim Helu takes the title of “world’s richest person” with a fortune worth $74 billion.
Overall, Forbes estimates that there the world has a total of 1,210 billionaires.
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