10 richest nerds in the world
Net worth
$18.5 billion
Skinny
Premji is the only person on the ranking not from the U.S. He's co-founder of Bangalore-based Wipro Ltd., India's third-largest software exporter. Premji's 79 percent stake of Wipro represents about 90 percent of his $18.5 billion net worth. Premji guided his father's peanut-oil processing company into software when the Indian government ejected foreign corporations from the country in 1977. While Premji initially benefited from the long-revoked India-first policy, Wipro today derives most of its sales from the U.S. and Europe.