Net worth: $41.6 billion

Age: 43

Country: US

Industry: Technology

Source of wealth: Self-made; Google

Along with cofounder Larry Page, Sergey Brin helped facilitate Google's massive restructuring, which the company announced in 2015. The move put Google under the auspices of a holding company called Alphabet, run by Brin as president and Page as CEO. Google's other ventures, such as Nest and Google X, are separate companies also under the Alphabet umbrella. 

The restructuring allowed Brin to focus on exploring inventive new "moonshot" projects and ideas. With top talent and an abundance of resources at its disposal, Alphabet has already made automated homes and self-driving cars a reality.

Brin, who emigrated from Moscow to the US as a child, connected with Page in 1995 at Stanford, where they were each pursuing a PhD. Three years later they founded Google, now one of the most powerful companies on the planet.

Over the past year, Brin's wealth has increased by $4.1 billion.