Slumdog Billionaires

Congratulations are due today to Larry Ellison and his BMW Oracle Racing team for bringing home the Americas Cup to, err, America. Back in 1998 I was working as one of Larry's minions when he came down under to win the ill-fated Sydney to Hobart so I know how important this win will mean to him.

What is of interest to me, however, is that the Americas Cup has essentially become a massive ego contest between some of the world's richest billionaires. In this case between one Lawrence J Ellison, 65, US software billionaire and 4th richest man on the planet versus Ernesto Bertarelli, 44, Swiss Biotec billionaire and 52nd richest man.

Checking a list of billionaires on wikipedia I wasn't surprised to see that the computer industry contains more than its fair share including Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen from Microsoft. Not present was Steve Jobs but at a rumoured $5bn and with Apple's remarkable growth he can't be far off joining that list.

Fortune has shined on Bill, Steve and Larry as some point, aside from dropping out of college, they were at the right place (Silicon Valley) at the right time (early 1970's and the advent of the silicon chip) with the right idea (hardware and/or software for the PC, or database for client server).

My query for today is where and when will the next set of billionaires be sourced. Obviously Larry and Sergey are the real winners from the Internet boom, but it looks like they are the exception of their age rather than the rule.

With hindsight it becomes clear that the early days of the personal computer and client/server computing presented opportunities for hobbyists working for love not money in their garages and with like minded friends in clubs (like the Homebrew Computer Club).

My suspicion is that this was a one off and it is unlikely that the next set of billionaires will be from the hobbyist fold. They will be from the likes of the Biotechs and it's more likely that they will complete their studies than drop out from the likes of MIT or Stanford.

I don't know why but I,for one, find that quite sad.