"Forbes released its annual list of the world's billionaires Thursday, and technology companies are well represented, even though Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is no longer the world's richest person.
"That honor now belongs to Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helu, who edged out Gates for the top spot by $500 million in net worth. Gates, worth $53 billion, slipped to number two.
"Of the world's top 100 billionaires, however, nine run information technology companies. If you count Thomson Reuters Chairman David Thomson and Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg, whose employees write about technology, there are 11 IT billionaires in Forbes' top 100.
"Unfortunately, for those IT guys and gals who are working in the trenches, several of these richest executives -- the heads of Microsoft, Google, Dell, Amazon, and Apple among others -- run companies that have shed employees or contractors in the last year, even as the executives' personal fortunes increased."
