The facts:

When WhatsApp’s Jan Koum headed back to his old welfare officelast month to sign the $19 billion deal that made him a billionaire, California’s 10-digit club grew to 111 members.  If the Golden State were its own country, it would be tied with Russia for third-most billionaires in the world, behind only the United States and China. Click here for a zoomed-in view of the map.

More than one-third of California’s billionaires are in tech, focused in Silicon Valley. San Francisco has 20 billionaires alone, second in U.S. cities only to New York City’s 66. Palo Alto, Calif. ranks eighth among U.S. cities with nine billionaires, and Woodside, Calif. is tied for 10th with eight. In total, California billionaires personally hold assets worth $485 billion, more than the entire GDP of all but 24 countries in the world.

New York has 88 billionaires, the second-most of any state. Most of them got their fortunes in finance, and all but one live near New York City. The Empire State is second in billionaires per capita, with one of every 220,000 residents worth 10 figures.

Wyoming, the least populated state in the country, has the most billionaires per capita. One in every 94,000 residents is a billionaire. Wal-Mart heiress Christy Walton is the richest in Wyoming with a net worth of $36.7 billion, more than the entire GDP of the state. Wyoming has six billionaires, four of which live in the Jackson area, an outdoorsman’s paradise near major ski resorts, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park.

Texas is home to 51 billionaires, third-most in the country. While California churns out tech billionaires and New York mints finance fortunes, Texas pumps out oil tycoons. Still, more than half of the state’s billionaires come from industries other than energy.

In total, the United States has 492 billionaires hailing from 40 states. We ranked the states by number of billionaires.

Observations:

1. The most taxed states create the most billionaires.

2. My town Palo Alto has 9 billionaires but terrible roads. Really.

3. The richest people in the world really do have it better off than the rest of us.

California: #1 in billionaires, #49 in education spending. What what?!!

I'd wager that many of those billionaires were not raised in California.