O.J. Simpson...not a jew.   

Oy gevalt, I left off Michael Dell!

Good for them..  I couldnt live without Google and Paypal.. 

..now where are all the internet savvy and wealthy Brits?   

Simple Question, Are they American born or not?

They are all American Jews, except for except for Phillipe Kahn, who was born in France.

A while ago, I posted a blog on the American immigrant experience for religious Jews and Mennonites. You might want to check it out at Link

Yay...Larry's a 1337 geek....

I prefer the term "Y1ddis4 h@x0r" actually....

Wealth is an interesting metric. According to the Forbes list for 2007, there is not one Jew in the top 10. However, we begin with Mr. Ellison after that:

Larry Ellison, number 11, $21.5 billion.
Sergey and Larry share the honors at number 26 with $16.6 billion.
Michael Dell at number 30 with $15.8 billion.
Steve Ballmer at 31 with $15.0 billion.

Rose and Zuckerberg may have more potential wealth than realized at this time.

The point being that we have been good for technology and technology has, in return, been very, very good to us.

I know the saying is there is no such thing as a stupid question...but why?

I guess my reaction to this is "so what"?

Are you suggesting that Jewish people are inherently superior in some way?  Perhaps that Judaism, as a religion creates a culture that is predisposed to being entrepreneurial? Or what?

 

and then there is you, me, adventuredude, andrew, and a few others, maybe wwe should have a Jewish blog roll count one day and see how many joe users are Jewish just for the hell of it.

Frogboy, this disproportionate degree of success should be interesting in its own right.

I don't believe in "inherent" superiority. Ability may be inherent, but the willingness to use it is a matter of individual choice. Success is based on both ability and drive. To your second point, yes, I suggest that the values of Judaic culture, as opposed to the religion itself, increase the odds of entrepreneurial success. Concrete examples:

1- Jews have always valued learning and literacy. It is part of the culture. Jews were required to read and often to be multi-lingual. That was a key factor in ancient days.

2- Jews have always had a sensible attitude towards money and venture capitalism. Look at the Jews of the Middle Ages.

3- The Diaspora created a very diverse gene pool with people identifying themselves as Jews living in places as diverse as Ethiopia to Russia. I doubt that an Ethiopian Jew has the same genetic mix as an Ashkenazim from Minsk, but they both share the common experience of someone coming along every couple of generations and killing half the Jewish population. That tends to weed out the slow runners. While everyone alive today is descended from the "winners" it is more true for some than others.

A supporting article can be found at: Link

A new national study shows that religious affiliation plays a powerful role in how much wealth Americans accumulate, with Jews amassing the most wealth and conservative Protestants the least.

Quoting Lisa Keister, Associate Professor of Sociology, Ohio State University, “The results suggest people draw on the tools they learn from religion to develop strategies for saving, investing and spending, and those tools may be different in various faiths.”

Larry...that reminds me of the PC Game advert that said "You can run, but you'll only die tired"...

Larry,

Who cares?

Regardless of whether this kind of ignorant self-serving rhetoric belongs posted in the "Internet" forum(rather than say a religious forum), you are wrong.

There is no "disproportionate degree". You named a handful of successful entrepreneurs out of literally thousands of billionaires. For every example you present, there are tens if not hundreds of contrary examples.

And to either position, I exclaim "So what?!"

I suggest that you would do better to judge men (and women) on their talents and achievements rather than where they happened to have been born in the world (the overwhelmingly deterministic factor in anyone's religion).

You might also take note that PRIDE is a major sin in EVERY religion.

Ahem.

Er...clearly you do, hence your own colourful choice of rhetoric 'ignorant self-serving'.

It looked to me more as a curious observation, perhaps with a modicum of causuality, but hardly 'sinful pride'....

And the division of people into class and categories and religions continues ... and continues....