FX.co ★ Top-7 successful businessmen of Silicon Valley

The activities of entrepreneurs represented in this rating are inextricably linked with the American technology market. In addition, for these businessmen the Silicon Valley is the second Motherland. When creating the rating, Forbes materials and person's data were used.

Sergey Brin

Sergey Brin stopped at the first line of this rating. Sergey Brin is a Russian-born American computer scientist, internet entrepreneur, and philanthropist. Together with Larry Page, he co-founded Google. Brin is the President of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. As of March 2017, Brin is the 13th richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $39.8 billion. Brin immigrated to the United States with his family from the Soviet Union at the age of 6. He earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Maryland, following in his father's and grandfather's footsteps by studying mathematics, as well as computer science. IT-entrepreneur does not hide that he communicates with parents in Russian, but spends almost all his time in America.

Jan Koum

The second place belongs to Jan Koum, who is an American internet inventor and computer programmer. He is the CEO and co-founder of WhatsApp (with Brian Acton), a mobile messaging application which was acquired by Facebook Inc. in February 2014 for $19 billion. Koum was born in Kiev, Ukraine (then part of the Soviet Union). The entrepreneur moved to the USA at the age of 16.

Valentin Gapontsev

The third place is occupied by 76-year-old Valentin Gapontsev, his personal fortune is estimated at $1.3 billion. Valentin Gapontsev is considered by Russians to be the father of the fiber-optic laser industry. In 1990, at age 51, he founded IPG Photonics, which produces high-power fiber-optic lasers for cutting materials and telecommunications. The company is based in Oxford, Mass., but operates all over the world. He studied laser physics at the Soviet Academy of Science's Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. Gapontsev holds Russian and U.S. citizenships and lives in Worcester, Mass. His company owns about 80% of the world market of fiber lasers. In one of his interviews Valentin Gapontsev said: "In Russia there is no such high-tech market. Business related to high-technology equipment should be exclusively international".

Yuri Milner

The hero of the rating is Yuri Milner, one of the most successful Russian-speaking investors in the Valley. The state of the businessman totals about $1.1 billion. When investing, Milner gives his preference to promising American start-ups: at one time the entrepreneur successfully invested in Facebook, Zygna, Twitter, Spotify, Groupon and other projects. Milner left Russia for the United States at the age of 29.

Maksymilian Levchyn

Maksymilian Levchyn is a Ukrainian-born American computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is the Chief Executive of digital lending start-up Affirm. He is also the former chief technology officer of PayPal, which he co-founded in 1998. Born in Kiev, Levchin moved to the United States under political asylum and settled in Chicago in 1991. Levchin's fortune is estimated at $1 billion. After the foundation of PayPal, Levchin started creating several startups of different success rates at the same time.

Sergey Belousov

The penultimate line of the rating is occupied by Sergey Belousov. He is a Russian-born Singaporean businessman, entrepreneur, investor and speaker. Beloussov is the co-founder, CEO and chairman of the board of Acronis, a global data protection company, and is the senior founding partner of Runa Capital, a technology investment firm.He is also executive chairman of the board and chief architect of Parallels, Inc., a virtualization technology company, and co-founder and chairman of the board of Acumatica, an enterprise resource planning software company.

Stepan Pachikov

Finally, the seventh place of the rating is given to Stepan Pachikov, whose fortune is estimated at $300-400 million. He is s the co-founder of ParaGraph Intl., Parascript, Evernote Corp. among other software companies which contributed heavily to the development of Handwriting recognition and VRML technologies. In 1989–1997, he worked in Moscow at ParaGraph International, a company which dealt with handwriting recognition software for the Apple Newton. In 1992 he opened the US branch of ParaGraph in Silicon Valley, where he created and distributed software called Calligrapher for handwritten input on tablets and touchscreens. From 1997 to 1998, he served as vice president and established a Pen & Internet division of Silicon Graphics. An entrepreneur left Russia for the United States at the age of 41.