There is a common misconception that only the management guys can become rich while the programmers end up working under them. The misconception arose from Steve Jobs time who could not write code yet was the face of Apple and one of the richest guys of his time. There were times when in most cases, the programmers who are responsible for developing the products that make the management guys rich never get as rich as them. But it is no more true in today’s world where programmers themselves become the management guys and start their own start-ups after realizing their abilities and ideas can make them billionaires. Here are the top 10 richest software programmers who took care of the business for themselves.

  1. Bill Gates – Bill Gates is the second richest person in the world and the richest software programmer. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is not a programmer as such, and he is more like Steve Jobs who is the face of the company and a marketing guru. In fact, Bill Gates is still considered to be one of the best software programmers to date. He wrote BASIC language interpreter, DOS, and much more such software that laid the foundation for the future.
  2. Mark Zuckerberg – The inventor of Facebook and co-founder of the computer, Mark coded the basic version of Facebook all by himself. The idea might have been borrowed for developing a better idea, but there is no question raised on his abilities and vision for the future. He was not a super coder like Bill Gates was at his prime, but he was a smart coder and had innovative ideas to constantly keep on upgrading Facebook features to increase the engagement. He is the third richest person in the world at present.
  3. Larry Page – He is the co-founder of Google, and he is the fourth richest person in the world. Along with Sergey Brin, he founded Google, and he is currently the CEO of Alphabet, the parent holding company of Google. It is a co-coder of the famous PageRank which is Google ranking algorithm. But he is not an elite programmer in the industry, and the most part of the programming has been done by Brin.
  4. Sergey Brin – He is the co-founder of Google along with Larry Page. More than Page, Brin is considered to the genius programmer who led the team to develop some of the most innovative products and technologies the company has today. He is among the top 10 richest people in the world and considered to be one of the best software programmers available today.
  5. Larry Ellison – He is the co-founder of the Oracle Corporation, and till date, he is the chief technology officer of the company. He is the pioneer behind the development of the database system Oracle. Even though he is a prolific coder, he gave up writing codes regularly as he assumed the role of the management of the company. But he constantly develops the ideas for betterment and put them to the developers to transform them into the reality.
  6. Pony Ma – Pony Ma is the founder of Asia’s most valuable company Tencent. It is also the largest gaming company in the world. They become popular with WeChat, and most of their market share is based out of China as Google, Facebook, and other popular platforms and services are banned in China. He was the coder among the classmates who together founded Tencent. The first product OICQ which is an instant messing service was developed by Pony Ma, and it became an instant success. He is not related to Jack Ma, but he is just next to him in the wealthiest people in the world list.
  7. Paul Allen –Paul Allen and Bill Gates are the founders of Microsoft and together they developed all the initial software products. Even though he always loved to be the hidden face behind Bill Gates, he is among the top 50 richest people in the world thanks to his share in the company. He is the founder of so many different companies in diverse sectors.
  8. Azim Premji – The first Indian to become a billionaire in the Indian tech world, he founded Wipro and his loves to program. He is one of the faces to bring about a digital revolution in the company. He is known for his philanthropic works. He still owns whopping 73% of Wipro and his current net worth is over $18.8 billion.
  9. William Ding – He is one of the lesser known software programmers on the list. He founded the company called NetEase and he is the programmer behind the computer network development in China. He currently has a net worth of $18.3 billion.
  10. Shiv Nadar– He is an Indian billionaire and the founder of the tech company HCL where he is currently the chairman. He has been awarded Padma Bhushan for his contribution in the IT industry. He is the programmer who is responsible for turning the focus of the company from hardware to software development. He is among the 100 richest people in the world.