• Carlos Slim is on top this year. But look deeper. Forbes’ billionaires list, a cultural touchstone, usually only focuses on the top of the list, mainly because it makes a good headline. But Forbes has a TON of information about the billionaires on their list. Here are some of our favorite details from doing a little research:

A good year for rebounds

• 1,011 billionaires are on this year’s list, which is way up from last year
• 164 billionaires returned to the list after losing much of their value in 2008
• 89 billionaires came from China, the largest non-U.S. total source

Extremes in rich bastards

• youngest Mark Zuckerberg, who, at 25, has more money than you’ll ever dream of, with assets worth $4 billion. Just think how much he’d be worth if Facebook took the IPO plunge. Or actually, just sulk. source
• oldest Fellow technology maven Walter Haefner is the real-life Mr. Burns at age 99. Except, instead of a nuclear plant, he owns 24 percent of information technology firm Computer Associates. source

• poorest Actually, trick question: There are 75 billionaires on the list with EXACTLY $1 billion in hand.
• leaper Brazilian oil baron Elke Batista wins, jumping $19.5 billion in a single year, to $27 billion.
• stars Oprah’s leaving her TV show soon, but she doesn’t need it; she’s worth $2.4 billion.

Schadenfreude-worthy subject

• Raj Rajaratnam is in big trouble. One of the guys who lost his billionaire club card, Rajaratnam’s hedge fund, Galleon Group, was caught in a major insider-trading scandal, which caused the fund to lose value quickly this past October, and as a result Rajaratnam is no longer a billionaire (and is probably going to prison!). source

• It’s not like I sit there and feel the same way I did with iPhone where I say, ‘Oh my God, Microsoft didn’t aim high enough.’ It’s a nice reader, but there’s nothing on the iPad I look at and say, ‘Oh, I wish Microsoft had done it.’
• Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates • Regarding his take on the iPad versus the iPhone. In his opinion, Apple didn’t knock it out of the park. Keep in mind, though, that Gates has been wrong before – he said something similar (in fact, about the same) about the iPod before MS came out with the Zune a few years later. source

• $10 billion to make vaccines over the next ten years source

• In case you were wondering why everyone seemed amazed that Bill Gates joined Twitter yesterday, here’s why. It’s a fresh reminder that Twitter is just as susceptible to calculated publicity campaigns as any other medium. It just looks viral. That said, we’re not here to scold, we’re here to praise a guy who gives most of his money to charity because he’s too much of a nerd to be anything but our modern-day Andrew Carnegie. Larry Ellison is probably snorting coke off a hooker in a hotel (not room, hotel) he rented out. Carlos Slim’s wasting his money on bad investments like Circuit City and The New York Times. Warren Buffett’s probably making Jiffy Pop in his modest Nebraska home. But our Bill is using his money to help make the world better. We salute you, dude. source

• … it became a trending topic for no reason. The world’s richest dude, the Microsoft founder who spent 30 years being incredibly cutthroat before finally giving in to the philanthropy bug, joined Twitter today, in large part because he wanted to help Haiti. Among the 40 or so people he’s following: Ryan Seacrest, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wired editor Chris Anderson, CNET Microsoft writer Ina Fried (who’s probably the only transsexual technology writer out there), and “High School Musical” star Ashley Tisdale. Quite the motley crew. source

• Microsoft founder Bill Gates looks like the thin-skinned kid invited to the really cool party, only to be made fun of the entire time. Well, David Bradely is right, y’know.

• one Bernard Madoff: Because he had to save his reputation somehow.
• two R. Allen Stanford: See what we said about Bernard Madoff, then add cricket.
• three Mark Cuban: Because he likes making points in roundabout, absurd ways.
• four Bill Gates: Because he cares too much about helping out sometimes.
• five Joaquin Guzman: Because Mexican drug lords make pretty great benefactors.