75. DAVID SHAW

$7.3 BILLION  SELF-MADE SCORE: * SOURCE: HEDGE FUNDS AGE: 68 RESIDENCE: NEW YORK CITY PHILANTHROPY SCORE: Originally an academic, Shaw worked at Columbia U’s computer-science department before leaving to explore computational finance in 1986. He started his firm D.E. Shaw a couple years later. He stepped away from management of the firm in 2002 to return to research; he now leads a group of scientists studying computational biochemistry. He still has a stake in the hedge fund he created.