Notch and Gabe Newell Are Among the World's Richest People
Forbes has published its annual list of the the world's richest people, and both Gabe Newell and Markus "Notch" Persson have made the cut.
While Bill Gates reclaimed his top spot, Newell and Persson are a bit further down, tying for #1,415 with a net worth of $1.3 billion each. #1,415 might sound unimpressive, but think about it outside the context of this list--there are about 7 billion people who aren't on it--and suddenly it looks a lot better.
Persson is of course best known for Minecraft; already a massive, industry-changing success, he sold its developer, Mojang, to Microsoft last year for $2.5 billion, approximately $1.75 billion of which went to Persson. He recently put a chunk of that to use, outbidding Beyonce and Jay-Z for a $70 million mansion in Beverly Hills.
Newell, on the other hand, is a former Microsoft employee and the founder of Valve, which has come to dominate the PC gaming business by way of Steam. He continues to serve as the company's managing director, taking occasional breaks to answer support emails.
Other games industry figures to make the list include NCsoft CEO Kim Taek-Jin (#1,605) and Nexon founder Kim Jung-Ju (#1,054).
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