Tech's superstar CEOs have seen their on-paper personal fortunes plummet since the beginning of the year, as a Wall Street Journal story pointed out last week. Oracle's Larry Ellison is down $6.6 billion, Amazon's Jeff Bezos is off $4.2 billion and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer's fortune is down $4.8 billion.

But it turns out that's a bit of a skewed view. Right at the end of 2007, tech stocks were at an odd high – actually, for most big tech companies, a high that has been unmatched since 2000 or 2001.

Measuring the wealth of these guys using a seven-year high at the start and a panic-driven low now doesn't really tell us much of anything, outside of its gawking value. It's like measuring the New England Patriots by using a start date of the last day of last year's undefeated season and an end date of this year's game after quarterback Tom Brady got injured, and saying that's how far the team had fallen.

I wondered, though, how this wealth comparison looks if you go 10 years back.

In October a decade ago, Amazon was at $21 a share. From there it had a wild ride up, down, back up and back down, arriving at about $78 a share in September before the markets plunged, and today's price of $51. So measured by Amazon's stock price alone, Bezos would still be 2.5 times as rich today as he was a decade ago. (Of course, in between he's sold some shares, gotten paid big salaries, and made other investments, so Bezos is likely many more times as wealthy as he was a decade ago. Same is true of other tech CEOs.)

How about Ellison? In October 1998, Oracle was about $5 a share. It roared up with the tech boom, fell, then slowly ascended again, arriving at $20 in September before dropping to day's price of $16.50. That leaves Ellison more than three times richer in 10 years, based solely on Oracle's stock price.

And Ballmer? In October 1998, Microsoft was about $26.50. It zoomed up in 2000, fell back after the tech bust, and flat-out stalled. In September the stock was – $26.50. It's now about

$21.50. Steve Ballmer is actually poorer than he was a decade ago.

Over the long run, Amazon and Oracle look like healthy, growing tech companies, while Microsoft's fortunes make it look more like some old industrial refrigerator maker rather than an exciting tech company.

Success depends not just on how you measure it, but when.

By Kevin Maney, for portfolio.com

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