FOCUS ON AMERICA

With the emergence of new technology-based and financial fortunes, the geography of American wealth has changed. In 1982 New York had 77 members on the list, California 48. Today California has 89 members. (At its peak, before the Internet bubble burst in 2000, California had 107 people on the list.) New York now has 56 members, a decline of 27 percent over the life of the index. But New York City has more 400 members (45) than any other American city. Texas had 65 members on the list in 1982 and 36 in 2006. The flow of fresh money to California is mostly concentrated in Silicon Valley, near San Francisco. In the last twenty-five years, Silicon Valley has joined Wall Street, Hollywood, and the Texas oil patch as a storied and almost mythical source of American riches.

The average net worth in 2006 of Forbes 400 members without a college degree was $5.96 billion; those with a degree averaged $3.14 billion. Four of the five richest Americans—Bill Gates, casino owner Sheldon Adelson, Oracle’s Larry Ellison, and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (whose combined net worth was $110 billion in 2006)—are college dropouts. The fifth, Warren Buffett, has an undergraduate degree from the University of Nebraska—and subsequently got a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University. A broader study of the Forbes 400 over the last twenty-five years indicates that in any given year about 10 percent of the members dropped out of high school, possess only a high school diploma, or never completed college.

In the first Forbes 400, oil was the source of 22.8 percent of the fortunes, manufacturing 15.3 percent, finance 9 percent, and technology 3 percent. By 2006 oil had fallen to 8.5 percent and manufacturing to 8.5 percent. Technology, however, had risen to 11.75 percent and finance to an extraordinary 24.5 percent.

In the last twenty-five years, 97 immigrants have made the list. Only 13 working women have made the cut, and this small number includes several who began life with substantial advantages, such as Katharine Graham and Abigail Johnson, each of whom inherited a large fortune. (The fortunes of Oprah Winfrey; Martha Stewart; Pleasant Rowland, founder of the American Girl doll empire; and Meg Whitman, the chief executive officer of eBay, are entirely self-made.).

People , there are less than 20 Africans on the Forbes 400 list. CIAO.