The 9 richest people in tech

Jeff Bezos

Jeff Bezos has overtaken Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world.

A jump in Amazon's share price has propelled the CEO into top place, knocking Gates off his post after four years running. If this holds until the end of the day's trading, Bezos will have a net worth of roughly $90 billion.

Technology tycoons continue to dominate lists of the richest people in the world. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, one-third of the 30 richest billionaires have earned their fortunes in this sector.

Tech money proves to be hard-earned as well: All nine of the richest billionaires are self-made, thanks to the powerful companies they built themselves, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google.

For the ranking, Business Insider culled data from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as of July 27, as well as live data from Amazon's share price. The index updates daily to provide up-to-the-minute data on the world's wealthiest men and women. You can read the full methodology here.

Below, read on to see the nine richest billionaires who made their fortunes in tech.

Emmie Martin contributed reporting to an earlier version of this article.

9. Steve Ballmer

Net worth: $30.6 billion

Age: 61

Country: US

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Self-made; Microsoft

Steve Ballmer dropped out of business school at Stanford in 1980 to join Harvard friend Bill Gates at Microsoft as the company's first business manager, earning a $50,000 salary and a stake in the company. During his tenure, Ballmer held positions as vice president of marketing, vice president of systems software, and executive vice president of sales and support, and was often referred to as "the numbers guy."

He became CEO of the company in 2000 after Gates stepped down, and he remained in charge of the software giant until Satya Nadella replaced him in 2014. While running Microsoft, the company's revenue grew by 294% and profits by 181% — although its market share was surpassed by Google and Apple during the same period. Still, the early stake Ballmer acquired in the company made him immensely wealthy.

After stepping down as CEO, Ballmer fulfilled his dream of owning an NBA franchise, paying $2 billion in a deal to buy the Los Angeles Clippers, now his main venture.

Ballmer's net worth has increased $4.18 billion in the last year.

8. Ma Huateng

Net worth: $31.1 billion

Age: 45

Country: China

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Self-made; Tencent Holdings

Software engineer Ma Huateng (aka Pony Ma) founded China's largest internet portal, Tencent Holdings, in 1998. He was 26. Ma's company has a number of successful and widely used platforms in its portfolio, including QQ, its instant-messaging service, which is one of the world's 10 largest websites; a mobile-texting service (WeChat) with over 900 million users; a mobile-commerce product (WeChat Wallet); and an online-gaming community (Tencent Games), the largest in China.

Ma's wealth has increased by $10.3 billion in the past year.

7. Jack Ma

Net worth: $43.8 billion

Age: 52

Country: China

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Self-made; Alibaba

The richest person in China, Alibaba founder and executive chairman Jack Ma reportedly started China's first internet company in 1988: China Yellowpages. He lost control of that company to a state-owned telecom in 1996 and started Alibaba three years later with just $60,000. Fifteen years after its inception, the e-commerce company broke records with a $25 billion initial public offering — the world's largest ever.

Post-IPO, however, Alibaba's good fortune began to slip. The company's shares dropped 22% in 2015, most likely because of China's slowing economy and concerns over counterfeiters using the company's platform. Ma didn't worry, though. He acknowledged that 2016 would be a trying time for the Chinese economy, but remained confident in Alibaba's long-term success.

Ma's wealth has increased by $10.5 billion over the past year.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider