Donald Bren Ranked Richest in SoCal (Again)

The latest Forbes list of richest Americans is out, and Newport Beach's reclusive billionaire Donald Bren once again finds himself ranked the richest man in Southern California.

Forbes pegs the Irvine Co. chairman's wealth at $12 billion, enough to make him the 21st richest man in these United States. The 78-year-old father of seven (that we know of, heh-heh) lands at No. 45 on the Forbes list of world billionaires.
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The complete Forbes 400 is here.

Other Orange Countians who find themselves on the list are:

• Laguna Beach's Bill Gross, 61, of PIMCO investments in Newport Beach, tied with a bunch of richies at 170th place with $2.1 billion;
• Newport Beach's Henry Samueli, 56, the Broadcom co-founder and Anaheim Ducks and Honda Center owner, tied at 238 with $1.7 billion;
• Newport Beach's Geroge Argyros, 73, the former U.S. ambassador to Spain, owner of Arnel Development and sugar daddy to Chapman University, tied 252 with $1.6 billion;
• Newport Coast's Henry Nichols, 51, the other Broadcom founder and secret sex lair dweller, tied at 269 with $1.5 billion;

New Yorker Leonard Stern, the pet products scion who is the founding owner of OC Weekly (he later sold us and the rest of Village Voice Media), is at No. 88 with $3.5 billion.

The list goes up to No. 385 because so many people are tied along the way. It is there you'll find Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles owner Arte Moreno, with a cool $1 billion.

Forbes includes a sidebar on billionaires in the making. Despite his sex addiction, divorce and lost golf game, Cypress native Tiger Woods slices in with $500 million. Other up-and-comers, according to Forbes, include Jay Z, Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Jordan.

Californians account for 84 of the 400 slots on the richest list. If you are in school and harbor dreams of winding up on a future Forbes richest list, do yourself a favor and become a computer nerd. The No. 1 richest man in America is Microsoft founder Bill Gates with $54 billion–or $1 billion for every year of his life so far.

Others near the top of the Forbes list include Larry Ellison, CEO of software firm Oracle, at No. 3, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, tied at 11; Michael Dell of Dell 15, Steve Balmer and Paul Allen of Microsoft at 16 and 17 respectively; and Jeff Bezos of Amazon at 18. 

Those in the cyber set don't necessarily have to wait long to find themselves Forbes listed. The two youngest members of the 400 club, both just 26 years old, are Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (No. 35 with $6.9 billion) and his former business partner Dustin Moskovitz (tied for 290 with $1.4 billion).

But beware, billion-dollar babies: The Social Network, a movie about the Facebook founding years opening Oct. 1, has Jesse Eisenberg playing Zuckerberg in a not-totally flattering portrayal. “I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive,” the real Zuckerberg has said of the flick, proving billionaires don't always get what they want.