How to Become a Billionaire Calculator

The richest people on the planet got even richer in 2013, adding $524 billion to their collective net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 300 wealthiest individuals. The aggregate net worth of the world’s top billionaires stood at $3.7 trillion at the market close on Dec. 31, according to the ranking. The biggest gains came in the technology industry, which soared 28 percent during the year. Of the 300 people who appeared on the final ranking of 2013, only 70 registered a net loss for the 12-month period.

A billionaire, in countries that use the short scale number naming system, is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000) units of a given currency, usually major currencies such as the United States dollar, the euro, or the pound sterling. Forbes magazine updates a complete global list of known U.S. dollar billionaires every year.