Bill Gates is the fifth most powerful person in the world. That"s the opinion of Forbes" print magazine and its web site, anyway. Forbes has made a list of what it claims are the 70 most powerful people on the planet. The fact that Gates is considered more powerful than most world leaders, even the Pope, is pretty significant, even if he is no longer working at Microsoft on a day-to-day basis. (Just in case you are wondering, US President Barack Obama is number one on the list).
Instead, he has been working with his wife Melinda to help education here in the US and fighting diseases with vaccines around the world as part of their work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Forbes said that the foundation"s efforts in eliminating infectious diseases as a major source of death could actually succeed.
Other tech luminaries that are on Forbes" most powerful list include Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is listed as the ninth most powerful person on planet Earth. Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, tie for the number 30 spot on the list.
Jeff Bezos, the CEO and founder of Amazon, is on the list at number 40. Robin Li, the CEO of the Chinese-based web company Baidu, is also on Forbes" list at the number 42 position. Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, is on the list at 58. One wonders where Steve Jobs might be listed if he had lived to see Forbes post this list.