Forbes Magazine seems to be addicted to the making of lists, and I have to admit that many of them make pretty good reading.

Lots of them are just conversation starters about topics that can’t really be quantified, like “The 20 Most Important Tools Ever,” “The Top 100 Celebrities” and “The Most Livable Cities.”

But the annual listing of the Forbes 400 Richest Americans is light on opinions and heavy on data, which means it’s right up my alley.

I haven’t delved very deeply into the list beyond the featured Top 20, but there are lots of interesting insights just in that small group.  Here are a few.

1. It’s always good to be rich, but this wasn’t a great year for rich people.  The collective net worth of the fortunate 400 fell by $300 billion in the past year.  The top 10 folks on the list saw their assets shrink by an average of 14%, scrubbing $39.2 billion off their hoard.

2. Money can buy lots of things, but immortality isn’t one of them.  Six people on last year’s list cashed in their chips in the ensuing 12 months.

3. If you want to be really, really rich, there are two preferred methods (at least if you go by the examples of the top 20 richest folks).

a. First, you can start your own business.  That’s what Bill Gates (#1 on the list for the 16th straight year with a net worth of $50 billion) and Paul Allen (tied for #17, $11.5b) of Microsoft did.  You can also sign on early with the company and grow along with it, which is how Steve Ballmer (#14)–Microsoft employee #30–did it.  Larry Ellison (#3) founded Oracle; Sergey Brin and Larry Page (tied for #11 with $15.3b each) invented Google; Michael Dell (#13) is obvious, George Soros (#15, $13b) set up a little investment fund; Donald Bren (#16 $12b) developed real estate in southern California.

b. Alternatively, you can arrange to be one a descendant of someone who had the foresight to found a successful business.  The offspring of Sam Walton take up four of the top 20 spots on the list.  Those fortunate enough to have Fred C. Koch (the man who figured out how to turn heavy oil into gasoline) as a father now take up two spots.  And three grandchildren of Tacoma, Washington, chocolate tycoon Frank Mars enjoy three spots.  (There’s gold in them thar Snickers, even in a recession.)

4. While there are lots of success stories on the list, only two of the enormous fortunes represented there are a direct result of investing in capital markets, and those belong to Warren Buffett (#2, $40b) and George Soros (#15, $13b), who ran his own hedge fund (then retired and is now back at it.)  Abigail Johnson (tied for #17, $11.5b), the daughter of Edward C. Johnson III and co-controller of Fidelity Investments is on the list, too, but running an investment house isn’t the same as actually investing.

Full disclosure here: Even though you needed only $950 million to make the list this year (last year the bar was set at $1.3 billion), neither I nor anyone else at Cabot came close to making the list.