Larry Page & Sergey Brin Grow Richer, Mark Zuckerberg Tumbles in Forbes 400

The 400 richest people in America are worth a combined $1.7 trillion, according to the 2012 installment of the Forbes 400 list. Find out which search and social bigwigs counted the most billions this year. Hint: it wasn’t Mark Zuckerberg.

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Mark Zuckerberg, who shot past Google co-founders Larry Page & Sergey Brin last year, has fallen 22 places to No. 36 on the Forbes 400 list of the Richest Americans. Facebook founder Zuckerberg saw his personal fortune shrink from $17.5 billion to $9.4 billion over a year plagued by his company’s problematic IPO.

Page and Brin tied again this year, at $20.3 billion apiece, making them the 13th wealthiest people in America. Last year, each had amassed $15 billion.

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer came in slightly lower, with $15.9 billion and in 19th place. Ballmer’s position on the list hasn’t changed since last year, though his fortune this year increased over 2011’s $13.9 billion.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos fared even better than the Google duo, ranking 11th with $23.2 billion to his name.

Bill Gates topped the list for the 19th year running, increasing his personal wealth from $59 billion last year to $66 billion today.

Other familiar names on the list:

  • 28 – Lauren Powell Jobs & Family, with $11 billion
  • 45 – Google’s Eric Schmidt, with $7.5 billion
  • 218 – Mark Benioff from Salesforce with $2.2 billion
  • 229 – LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman, with $2.1 billion
  • 360 – Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, with $1.2 billion

According to Forbes, the average net worth of those on the Top 400 list is $4.2 billion, the highest ever recorded. The combined net worth of the 2012 class of the 400 richest Americans is $1.7 trillion, up from $1.5 trillion a year ago.

You may now return to crying into your Ramen noodles.

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