Those with aspirations of unfettered wealth look for clues everywhere. From top schools to unique talents, they build profiles of what it takes to become absurdly wealthy ... as though the process can be blueprinted. Well, if you're looking for answers, the Forbes 400 list is a great place to start. If anyone has mastered the art of making money, it's this collection of billionaires. They have the answers, and you are ready to learn.

A look at the lives of the Forbes 400 implies that the most important attribute is the ability to sift through ambiguity. Contradictions abound, meaning that shades of gray hold the answer to your burning desire for riches. Should you go to a great school? Well, yes ... but only if you're going for an MBA and plan to work for a major financial firm. But, you can still go to an Ivy League school if you're not studying finance but join Skull and Bones. Of course, dropping out of Harvard can be a great way to launch a career in the technology field.

It's tricky. There are no easy answers. But, the road to billions is littered with the corpses of aspiring magnates who thought it wouldn't be difficult. So, don't just read the seven attributes after the jump. Understand them. Read them twice. Then, your future financial situation will be assured.

Or, you can just do one of those chain e-mails and wish for wealth.

[Thanks, Forbes and MSNBC]

Harvard Business School (HBS) got its first black eye from Enron when an alumnus about which HBS had written gushing cases, Jeff Skilling, ended up causing one of America's biggest corporate frauds. And now Enron and HBS are joined again with the scandal at Satyam Computer Services (NYSE: SAY) -- whose stock finally opened yesterday on the NYSE and plunged 86% -- which has been dubbed India's Enron.

Satyam's founder and chairman Byrraju Ramalinga Raju is a graduate of HBS's executive education program. And HBS accounting professor Krishna G. Palepu was on Satyam's board of directors. But both of these gentlemen are gone now. And while I would have thought that Palepu would serve on Satyam's audit committee -- he opted out of that rule because of a consulting contract he had with Satyam which he felt would have compromised him had he served on the audit committee.

Palepu said he didn't learn about the fraud until after he had resigned from the company. So we are left with many questions: Why did Palepu resign if it wasn't because of the fraud? As an accounting professor, why didn't he detect problems with its books? (It would have been simple to compare Satyam's stated cash position with the content of its bank accounts). Was Palepu window dressing on Satyam's board? Did he just fly to India for the board meetings and accept his compensation or did he ask probing questions and try to understand Satyam's finances and strategy?