10 Indian Americans Figure in Forbes’ List of Billionaires

Ten Indian American persons, including one woman, made it to Forbes’ billionaires list 2018, which was released on March 6. Among the 10 Indian American billionaires is Rakesh Gangwal, the co-founder of India’s IndiGo airlines, who is worth $3.3 billion and ranked at No. 703.

After Gangwal, the second richest Indian American is Romesh T. Wadhwani, worth $3.1 billion, at rank 766. Vinod Khosla, who is worth $2.3 billion, is ranked 1070. The others include Kavitark Ram Shriram ($2.1 billion, No. 1157), Brian Sheth ($2 billion, No. 1215), embattled entrepreneur John Kapoor ($1.8 billion, No. 1339), Niraj Shah ($1.6 billion, No. 1477), Aneel Bhusri ($1.6 billion, No. 1477). The only woman in the list of Indian Americans, Jayshree Ullal, ranks 1756 and is worth $1.3 billion. At rank 1999 is Bharat Desai, who is worth $1.1 billion.

The Forbes’ list has 2,208 people with two new Indian American entries — Niraj Shah, the CEO and cofounder of e-commerce company Wayfair, and Arista Networks CEO Jayshree Ullal.

The richest Indian on the list is Mukesh Ambani, who is ranked 19 with $40.1 billion. Among the other Indian billionaires named are Azim Premji ($18.8 billion, No. 58), and Lakshmi Mittal ($18.5 billion, No. 62).

Wadhwani, the California-based founder of Symphony Technology, and his brother Sunil Wadhwani, the Pennsylvania-based co-founder and co-chairman of Mastech Digital Inc. that had revenue of over $40 million in 2017, recently launched the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Mumbai to seek AI solutions in the fields of agriculture, health, education and infrastructure.

Rishi Shah, the CEO of Chicago-based Outcome Health, was dropped from the list. He was the richest Indian American in 2017 but has since run into trouble over accusations of fraud. He stepped down from the position of CEO in February 2018.

The youngest Indian American billionaire is 42-year-old Sheth. His wealth increased by $900 million, while venture capitalist Khosla’s net worth increased by $700 million in the past year. The net worth of Wadhwani, Shriram, Kapoor and Desai increased by $100 million each in the past year.

The richest person on the Forbes’ list is Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who is worth $112 billion. Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, is the second richest person with $90 billion.

There are three Asians in the top 20 richest billionaires list — Mukesh Ambani, Ma Huateng, and Jack Ma — and two women — Alice Walton and Francoise Bettencourt Meyers.