Forbes ranking: Hi-tech has made just two billionaires in Russia

Among Russia?s billionaires, only two have made their wealth exclusively or mostly from high technology industries.

Commenting on Forbes? latest ranking of Russia?s billionaires released earlier this month, East-West Digital News, the international resource on Russian digital industries, emphasized that among Russia?s billionaires, only two have made their wealth exclusively or mostly from high technology industries. The Russian edition of the US magazine has estimated the wealth of Arkady Volozh, the co-founder, main shareholder and CEO of NASDAQ-listed search company Yandex, at $1.15 billion. Slightly richer than Volozh, with $1.3 billion in wealth according to Forbes, is 74-year-old Valentin Gapontsev. A former Soviet researcher in laser physics ? now a Russian-American citizen ? Gapontsev founded IPG Photonics, a leading global provider of high-power fiber lasers and fiber amplifiers, which was introduced on the NASDAQ in 2006. In a country whose core wealth still relates to natural resources, only one dozen billionaires are connected to hi-tech sectors to various extents ? with the bulk of their wealth coming, however, from other industries...