Four Indian-Americans in Forbes’ rich list

While Khosla occupies the 308th spot in the list with fortunes worth USD 1.3 billion,Desai ranks 252 with a net worth of USD 1.6 billion.

Shriram occupies the 288th position with assets worth USD 1.45 billion and Wadhwani is on the 290th spot in this year’s list with a total valuation of USD 1.4 billion.

The list is topped by Gates,which has retained his position as the richest man in America with a net worth of USD 54 billion,for the 17th year in a row.

Desai earned his engineering degree from IIT Mumbai and moved to the US after landing a programming job for Tata Consultancy Services in 1976.

He founded outsourcing outfit Syntel in 1980 with wife,Neerja Sethi,while earning his MBA from University of Michigan. Although he stepped down as Chief Executive last year,Desai remains the Chairman.

The Florida resident launched a deep value hedge fund last year and recently established foundation supporting entrepreneurship and education.

Desai played for India in 1994 bridge world championship and says “his biggest failure” is “not being able to play cricket for India.”

Shriram is the founding board member of Google and one of the first investors in the company. “Shriram was one of the first people to write a cheque to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in 1998.

“He would advise them one day a week in their Menlo Park garage,” Forbes said.

The University of Madra alumnus is still a board member and large shareholder of the search giant. The California-resident is now running his own investment firm,Sherpalo Ventures,which has big stakes in online outsourcer 24/7 Customer.

It has also invested recently in Inkling,which makes interactive textbooks for the iPad. Born in India,he joined Netscape in 1994. His next company,Junglee,was bought by Amazon in 1998.

The 53-year-old was elected Stanford University trustee last December.