The internet has created some of the world's youngest billionaires, possibly in the shortest possible time scale, ever.

The richest are Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the pair who set up Google in the late 1990s. They went from PhD students to (paper) billionaires in about five years.

The youngest is 25-year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social networking site Facebook, who has returned to the billionaire list in 2010 after dropping out in 2009 amid the economic downturn.

As part of SuperPower - a season of programmes exploring the power of the internet - BBC News lists the top 26 richest internet entrepreneurs according to the latest Forbes ranking, released this week.

INTERNET BILLIONAIRES

	Name	Age	Comment	Worth (billions of US $)	Website	Nationality
	PageLarry Page	37	Co-founded Google	17.5	Google	US
	BrinSergey Brin	36	Co-founded Google	17.5	Google	US
	BezosJeff Bezos	46	Founded Amazon in a Seattle garage	12.3	Amazon	US
	SchmidtEric Schmidt	54	Google's grown-up chief executive	6.3	Google	US
	SonMasayoshi Son	52	Controls Japanese internet and telecom firm SoftBank	5.9	Softbank	Japan
	OmidyarPierre Omidyar	42	French-born immigrant launched online auction site in 1995	5.2	Ebay	US
	MikitaniHiroshi Mikitani	45	Runs Japan's leading online shopping mall	4.8	Rakuten	Japan
	SchwabCharles Schwab	72	Brought online investing to the masses	4.7	Schwab	US
	ZuckerbergMark Zuckerberg	25	Founded Facebook in early 2004 while at Harvard university	4.0	Facebook	US
	HuatengMa Huateng	38	Runs China's most popular online chat service	3.6	Tencent	China
	LiRobin Li	41	Co-founded China's most popular search site Baidu	3.5	Baidu	China
	CubanMark Cuban	51	Former bar tender who sold internet video website to Yahoo for 5.7bn	2.4	Broadcast	US
	SkollJeffrey Skoll	45	Ebay's first president and full-time employee. Now a film producer	2.4	Ebay	Canada
	DingWilliam Ding	38	Founded China's no.2 online game company. Once China's richest man	2.2	Netease	China
	BechtolsheimAndreas von Bechtolsheim	54	His initial $100,000 stake in Google made him a billionaire	2.0	Google	Germany
	CheritonDavid Cheriton	58	Stanford professor who introduced Google's co founders to each other	1.6	Google	Canada
	YuzhuShi Yuzhu	47	Founder of Giant Interactive, one of China's most successful online game companies	1.6	Giant	China
	TanakaYoshikazu Tanaka	33	Founded the second most popular social networking site in Japan - Gree	1.4	Gree	Japan
	FiloDavid Filo	43	Met Yahoo co-founder Yang at Stanford University	1.4	Yahoo	US
	WhitmanMargaret Whitman	53	Former eBay chief, now running for California govenor	1.3	Ebay	US
	YangJerry Yang	41	Turned internet directory project into Yahoo portal	1.3	Yahoo	US
	BenioffMarc Benioff	45	Held posts at Oracle and Apple before launching Salesforce.com	1.3	Salesforce	US
	WagnerTodd Wagner	49	Co-founded broadcast.com with friend Mark Cuban	1.2	Broadcast	US
	ThielPeter Thiel	42	The first outside investor in Facebook 2004. He also co-founded paypal	1.2	Paypal	US
	MaJack Ma	45	Founder, chairman and chief executive of internet business Alibaba	1.2	Alibaba	China
	CaseStephen Case	51	Former Pizza Hut store manager who co-founded AOL	1.1	Aol	US