Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates has definitively been the richest guy in Silicon Valley since "Friends" first aired on television. But leave it to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to dethrone the king and blow the rankings out of the water with a fortune that now tops $US150 billion.
Although you can be sure that Forbes' annual list of the 400 wealthiest Americans will be loaded with hedge fund execs and investment firm founders, tech executives have steadily infiltrated the ranks and made their way up the chart.
The 400 Americans who made Forbes' list this year averaged a net worth of $US7.2 billion - an estimated half a billion more than last year. To simply make the list, these billionaires needed a net worth of at least $US2.1 billion. That still left more than 200 billionaires out of the rankings, according to Forbes.
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The 2018 list, released Wednesday, has the seasoned founders of well-established tech companies, but also features some new names. Included in the rankings are the founders of file-sharing platform Dropbox, e-commerce site Wayfair, blockchain-based company Ripple, and email provider MailChimp.
Here are the 25 wealthiest tech executives in the U.S. in 2018:
25. John Tu & David Sun, co-founders of Kingston Technology
Net worth: $US5.4 billion each
Change from 2017 ranking: -36
Net worth in 2017: $US6 billion
Although the net worth of Kingston's co-founders did drop by more than a half billion in the last year, the company remains one of the largest providers of USB drives, SD cards, and just about any other memory-storing product.
24. Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber
Net worth: $US5.9 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +11
Net worth in 2017: $US5.1 billion
Kalanick's spot in the Forbes 2017 list dramatically dropped when Uber essentially imploded, and the co-founder was forced out of his role as the company's CEO. Kalanick has since taken charge of a small real-estate startup and made up some ground in this year's rankings.
23. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter & Square
Net worth: $US6.3 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +274
Net worth in 2017: $US2.2 billion
Dorsey made one of the biggest leaps up this year's list, thanks to shares of Square - a mobile payments company - rising exponentially in the past year.
22. Marc Benioff, co-founder & CEO of Salesforce
Net worth: $US6.4 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +104
Net worth in 2017: $US4.5 billion
The CEO of software company Salesforce most recently made headlines when he and his wife bought Time Magazine for $US190 million.
21. Jensen Huang, co-founder of Nvidia
Net worth: $US6.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +77
Net worth in 2017: $US4.4 billion
Since Huang founded Nvidia in 1993, the company has profited from producing graphics cards for PCs and computer gaming.
20. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founder & CEO of NantWorks
Net worth: $US7.3 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -13
Net worth in 2017: $US8.3 billion
Soon-Shiong is a huge player in the biotech industry and is credited with inventing the cancer drug Abraxane.
19. John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Net worth: $US7.9 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +28
Net worth in 2017: $US5.8 billion
KPCB has been one of the largest VC firms investing in tech, and has backed giants such as Google, Netscape, Amazon, and Electronic Arts. Doerr and Kleiner Perkins both made headlines in 2015 when the firm went to trial in a gender discrimination lawsuit.
18. James Goodnight, co-founder & CEO of SAS Institute
Net worth: $US8.9 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -4
Net worth in 2017: $US8.9 billion
SAS software is used by more than 83,000 companies around the world. The company's headquarters is located in North Carolina, where Goodnight himself grew up.
17. Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel
Net worth: $US9.4 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +16
Net worth in 2017: $US7.5 billion
The co-founder is the namesake for Moore's Law, which has widely been used to (pretty accurately) predict the evolution of computers - that the amount of computing power possible would double every two years or so, even as computers have become smaller and cheaper.
15. Jan Koum, co-founder of WhatsApp
Net worth: $US9.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +1
Net worth in 2017: $US9.6 billion
Koum sold his popular messaging app to Facebook in 2014 for $US19 billion, and announced this April he'd be leaving his role to explore life outside of technology.
15. David Duffield, co-founder of Workday
Net worth: $US9.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +190
Net worth in 2017: $US7.5 billion
Duffield also co-founded PeopleSoft, which sold to Oracle in 2005. Workday, which provides companies with human resources and financial software, went public in 2012 and is now in direct competition with Oracle.
14. Charlie Ergen, founder of Dish Network
Net worth: $US10.8 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -14
Net worth in 2017: $US15.8 billion
Ergen resigned as Dish Network's CEO at the end of 2017. The satellite network has steadily been losing subscribers as more viewers turn to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu.
13. Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook & Asana
Net worth: $US10.9 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -11
Net worth in 2017: $US13.6 billion
Moskovitz left Facebook back in 2008, but he made most of his money when the social network went public in 2012.
12. Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay
Net worth: $US11.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +10
Net worth in 2017: $US9.6 billion
Omidyar became a billionaire just three years after he launched eBay in 1995. Since then, Omidyar has been an active journalism advocate and founded First Look Media, parent company of The Intercept.
11. Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google
Net worth: $US14.4 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +2
Net worth in 2017: $US12.6 billion
By the time Schmidt left his position atop Google in 2011, the company had grown to 32,000 employees and $US38 billion in revenue. Schmidt also served as executive chairman at Google's parent company, Alphabet, before he stepped down in January.
10. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla
Net worth: $US19.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -3
Net worth in 2017: $US20.8 billion
When he isn't busy trolling the SEC or getting a little high during interviews, Musk is shaking up the transportation industry at the two companies he founded - electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX.
9. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft
Net worth: $US20.3 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +1
Net worth in 2017: $US20.6 billion
Allen announced earlier this week he was re-diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, almost 10 years after he beat the cancer the first time. The Microsoft co-founder also owns two sports teams in the Northwest - the Portland Trail Blazers and Seattle Seahawks - and has a stake in the Seattle Sounders.
8. Michael Dell, founder & CEO of Dell
Net worth: $US27.6 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +2
Net worth in 2017: $US23.2 billion
The tech exec announced earlier this year that Dell Technologies would be going public after it had turned private five years earlier. Dell also owns a controlling share in the cloud software VMware.
7. Steve Ballmer, former CEO of Microsoft
Net worth: $US42.3 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +1
Net worth in 2017: $US33.6 billion
Ballmer left Microsoft in 2014 after serving as CEO for 14 years. In an interview last year with Business Insider, the billionaire said his favourite part of being retired was having time to play golf.
6. Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google & president of Alphabet
Net worth: $US52.4 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +1
Net worth in 2017: $US43.4 billion
The president of Alphabet holds the title of America's richest immigrant (he was born in the then-Soviet Union). Brin once headed Google's moonshot factory called "X," where he spearheaded the launch (and failure) of Google Glass.
5. Larry Page, co-founder of Google & CEO of Alphabet
Net worth: $US53.8
Change from 2017 ranking: +3
Net worth in 2017: $US44.6 billion
Page is known as an introvert, and reportedly has traded a life in the spotlight for privacy on a Caribbean island he owns. He also is invested in multiple flying car projects.
4. Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle
Net worth: $US58.4 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: No change
Net worth in 2017: $US59 billion
Oracle's biggest growth came during the 1990s dot-com boom, as new companies relied heavily on its software for their databases.
3. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder & CEO of Facebook
Net worth: $US61 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: No change
Net worth in 2017: $US71 billion
A net worth loss of $US10 billion is small potatoes to Zuckerberg. But Facebook's stock has been a roller coaster ride, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal to recent news that 50 million Facebook accounts were hacked.
2. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft
Net worth: $US97 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: -1
Net worth in 2017: $US89 billion
Gates held the No. 1 spot on Forbes' wealthiest list for 24 consecutive years, but the king has been dethroned. It's not like Gates isn't still making money. But while he's putting time and money into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the new No. 1 hasn't been quite as philanthropic.
1. Jeff Bezos, co-founder & CEO of Amazon
Net worth: $US160 billion
Change from 2017 ranking: +1
Net worth in 2017: $US81.5 billion
After Jeff Bezos set a record earlier this year as the richest man in the world, it's no surprise the Amazon CEO has taken the No. 1 spot from Gates. Even though Bezos' e-commerce giant is regularly criticised for poor working conditions in its warehouses and low pay wages for employees (Amazon recently responded to its critics by more than doubling its minimum wage to $US15), Bezos managed to almost double his net worth in a single year.
