The Wives Of Billionaires
Sure, looks play a part but apparently brains are even better.
July 23, 2008— -- Gaining membership to the billionaire wives' club is no easy feat. Today, there are just 110 eligible 10-figure bachelors, including divorced men, in the world. So what does it take to marry one? Our list of billionaire wives outlines a few tips -- from some of the more notable women who tied the knot with these men.
For starters, looks are great -- but brains are even better. Take, for example, the women who recently nabbed two of the world's most eligible bachelors, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Blonde beauty Lucy Southworth, who married Page in December, is a biomedical informatics doctoral student at Stanford University, where both Page and Brin studied as graduate students before leaving to start their company in 1998.
Click here to learn more about the wives of billionaires at our partner site, Forbes.com.
Earlier in 2007, Brin married longtime girlfriend Ann Wojcicki, who he met when he sublet a garage from Wojcicki's sister. A Yale graduate who was working as a health care analyst when they met, Wojcicki has since launched her own biotech startup, 23and me.
Being famous of your own accord is often a plus. Industrialist Anil Ambani's wife Tina Munim was a famed Bollywood actress before marrying Ambani. Her career began when she appeared in the 1978 Indian blockbuster Des Pardes; she subsequently starred in 30 more films.
Diane von Furstenberg was a premiere name in fashion long before she married media mogul Barry Diller. Her signature wrap dresses have been featured at New York's Metropolitan museum.
Movie actress Kate Capshaw starred in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; that's how she got to know her future husband, director Steven Spielberg.
Which brings up another point: The office, or in Capshaw's case, the movie set, is still a good place to meet a future husband. Wendi Deng met News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch while working as a vice president at the company's Star TV.
Melinda Gates worked as a manager at Microsoft when she met the company's founder, Bill Gates. These days, the couple lead the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which made over $2 billion in grants last year. The pair and U2's Bono were collectively named 2005's Time Person of the Year.
