Apple CEO Steve Jobs lands at #140 on Forbes list of the world’s richest people which is topped for the twelfth straight year by The Empire’s Darth Vad…, er Microsoft’s Bill Gates with US$50 billion (up from $46.5 billion last year).
Forbes writes, “#140, Steve Jobs, $4.4 billion (up from #194, $3.0 billion last year): Apple icon riding high on iPod —Apple shares are up 70% in the past year—and his animation hit factory Pixar, which he agreed to sell to Disney for $7.4 billion. Music execs who grumble that Apple sells lots of iPods but not much music may have to change their tune: company’s iTunes site now selling 3 million songs a day, accounting for 83% of the downloadable music sold on the Internet. Now mobile phone carriers take aim at Apple, planning their own MP3 services, but Jobs trumps them with new iTunes-branded Motorola phone. Business equally rosy in Hollywood. Movies by animation powerhouse Pixar grossed $3.2 billion at worldwide box office. Underwent surgery for pancreatic cancer August 2004; back at work after a month.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Besides the usual list topper, the fact that Michael Dell now stands at #12 with $17.1 billion is a testimony to the power of marketing mediocrity to the masses; you don’t have to be great to get fabulously rich, just “good enough.”
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