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]

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) will be employing another "me too" move this year as it opens retail locations near existing Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) retail stores. This is apparently meant to be a second act to the "laptop hunter" ads the software giant has been running that tout the affordability of Windows-powered laptops above Apple's more expensive MacBook laptops. But retail stores? What gives?

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) just can't seem to do any better. It dominates the main market where it competes (internet search) and figured out long ago how to maximize revenue from that market share. It has billions in cash and low debt as a result. This doesn't mean Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) still are not gunning for the leader, though.

Yahoo!'s attempt to foil a Microsoft takeover that started almost a year ago caused damage to both companies. While everyone involved was bitterly fighting with each other, Google just kept on building market share and pumping revenue into its coffers. However, Google's plan to become one of Yahoo!'s largest partners ended in failure late last year due to anti-competitive concerns. Was Yahoo! really wanting to get Google powering some of its vast global searches, or was Yahoo! looking for some kind of Achilles heel within Google?

Some in the U.S. Government may be eying Google as the AT&T of 1982 (Baby Bell breakup) or the Microsoft of 1998 (operating system browser monopoly). Is Google -- even without a Yahoo! partnership and even with keeping Microsoft at bay in search -- a monopolist? It's the capitalist's best question: does a company that serves customer needs so well that it takes so much business really a monopolist?

Circumventing the law to build a monopolist position is one thing. Building some of the best products and recruiting the majority of customers without any legal circumvention is another. Is absolute success a recipe for being labeled as a monopolist? In many circles, yes. Every competitor wants a piece of Google's pie, and they're watching every move it makes. But, if Google continues to build the products people want and use -- and the competition does not or cannot -- Google will become even more powerful that it already is. That's not a monopolistic behavior.

Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) is talking to Verizon Wireless in an effort to replace Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) as the default mobile search provider on the second-largest wireless network in the U.S. Why does Microsoft want this? Because, it has lost the web search business to Google on the PC screen -- so perhaps it thinks it can compete better (or win) the web search race on the cellphone screen.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has reminded the world that Google's next large focus is on the mobile market. Although mobile search and mobile web browsing has taken a while to gain steam, the sheer number of mobile devices with internet connectivity dwarfs the PC market. Google and Microsoft are both licking their chops over this one.

So, it's kind of like entering the web search market back in 1988 here -- whichever company can seal as many deals to become the de-facto mobile search and information portal for major wireless companies will own the space. It's the same argument that has stood for a while in the PC market: consumers will use whatever default software or services offered on the device they just bought. Why type in "google.com" on your cellphone or smartphone keypad if Microsoft's search is right there waiting for you? Seeing that Verizon Wireless doesn't have an outside partnership for mobile web searches, this may be a huge battle that gets little attention -- but that doesn't mean it's not important.

After Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) walked away from a $40+ billion dollar deal with Yahoo, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) this past week, competitor Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) was very, very relieved. After all, a combined Micro-Hoo would have been a significant competitor (in a best-case scenario) to Google. To help dissuade both parties to make a deal, Google ran a two-week test on Yahoo! to supply the competitor with its own advertising system. The test went well.

Now that Yahoo! has proved that is could one day dump its search technology and outsource that piece of its business to Google, Google executives are looking for that exact scenario. They believe it will help prevent another attempt by Microsoft to purchase Yahoo! in the future. They are probably right -- if Google were to become one of Yahoo!'s largest partners, there would be issues with Microsoft buying Yahoo! now or in the future, from a regulatory perspective.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin said that "We have been talking to Yahoo and we are very excited to be working with them ... we share a lot of values with them" in his remarks at yesterday's annual Google shareholder's meeting at Google's Mountain View, Ca. headquarters. Brian added that a potential deal with Yahoo! was "not about scuttling (the deal)." Hogwash -- I say that was exactly why the Google-Yahoo! test was performed. Look for a Yahoo!-Google search advertising partnership in the very near future, folks.

It's no secret that Google, Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is trying to undermine Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) software business at every turn. Although Google continues to be non-chalant about it, the company's "software as a service" approach to competing with Microsoft's established "software on your PC approach" is popular in many circles, but still doesn't seem to be affecting Microsoft's revenue stream.

Microsoft's Windows Vista is the pre-installed operating system on almost every PC sold in the world, and its corporate selling of the Microsoft Office package continues to be one of the company's cash cows, even with similar competitive software given away for free. One of Microsoft's corporate staples is its Exchange Server product, which lets all those installations of Outlook on millions of business desktops access company email. What if all those copies of Outlook could be using email, calendaring and contact management from Google's freely available Gmail service?