Net Worth:

$715 million -21%

Last Year:

$910 million*

Age:

50

Residence:

Los Angeles

Source of Wealth:

Computer hardware, software

The Money:

Co-founder and chief executive of Cogent Inc., which has developed automated fingerprint identification technology that can match a print to a database. Net worth took hit as stock of South Pasadena company dropped 21 percent over past year. Hsieh owns 54 percent of $1.35 billion market cap company.

Buzz:

Cogent has a border security edge through contracts with the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, foreign governments and the Italian police. But Cogent shares have taken a beating for not meeting heightened expectations, given reliance on government contracts. Company is stepping up efforts to gain traction with private sector retailers interested in conducting credit card transactions using fingerprint scanners. Born in China, Hsieh is now a U.S. citizen. Started out as r & d; engineer for chip-maker International Rectifier Corp. in 1985, after graduating from USC with master’s in electrical engineering. In October, gave $35 million to USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering.

*recalculated to better reflect holdings