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]

If you've spent much time trying to figure out how to market a startup business, you've surely come across one-half of the bald head of Seth Godin. Seth ("still in hardcover, still no hair" he says about his first and most famous book, Permission Marketing) made his fortune by selling a company, Yoyodyne, to Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) in 1998, and his fame by capitalizing on this instant stardom by writing iconic and colorful books. Books full of buzzwords and internet-savvy platitudes.

Ever heard of viral marketing? "Small is the new big"? The importance of telling "authentic stories"? While Seth didn't exactly invent the concepts, he certainly popularized them, applied them to the web and (most importantly) used them to make millions of copies of his books almost float off Amazon.com's warehouse racks onto the bookshelves of aspiring internet millionaires everywhere.

Fame came naturally to Seth Godin, and it's no surprise he's been named #5 in Forbes.com's "The Web Celeb 25" ranking. But if you ask me the Seth Godin phenomenon is like a pyramid scheme gone legit -- by creating "buzz" around viral marketing, he markets his books virally -- by proclaiming the brilliance of ebooks his becomes the most popular, ever -- by insisting that "All Marketers are Liars" he becomes the most trusted, most "authentic" of all. You could say that he's living (bank account balancing) proof that his marketing schemes work; yes, they work, and best of all for Seth Godin.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two wunderkinds who founded Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) less than 10 years ago, have again made it into very respectable places in the Forbes annual list of richest Americans. Brin and Page ranked 12th and 13th respectively, while making in the area of $13 million per day over the last two years according to Forbes' account. Bill Gates, of course, still tops the list of the world's richest people, with as estimated net worth of over $40 billion.

Are the Google guys worth it? Both Page and Brin sure do not act like stereotypical billionaires, as they have been known to drive green cars like the Toyota Prius and wear everyday blue jeans and t-shirts. In fact the Google employee culture -- which looks like something out of a movie from what I've seen -- is a direct result of the unique environment both founders have instilled in the company.

Sure there is bound to be a little bureaucracy in a company growing like Google still is, but from almost all accounts the company has a "small company" feel to it, kind of like a startup. With ideas, innovations, and market-conquering products in some areas, this culture would seem to have worked wonders for the Mountain View, California company. Many Google shareholders who bought into the IPO at nearly $85 a little over two years ago are probably sitting pretty right now if they haven't sold their shares yet. How about you?

While Wal-Mart selling prepaid wireless plans and phones from many different carriers, it generally only carries postpaid (contract required) plans from the largest U.S. wireless carrier, Cingular Wireless. However, Verizon Wireless is now moving in to muscle up some room at the nation's (and world's) largest retailer by announcing it will be selling its contract plans and phones in Wal-Mart stores where Verizon has licensed coverage available. (Verizon was booted out of Radio Shack last year for Cingular.)

With Wal-Mart being quite an impressive wireless retailer of late (unlike Circuit City, which exited the market recently), this is another example of high-tech being accessible at the store where you buy tires, milk, clothes and home furnishings. Verizon probably hopes to add many Wal-Mart shoppers to its ranks of wireless customers.

But can the overall customer base of Wal-Mart qualify for a postpaid, contract-required wireless plan? The press loves to classify Wal-Mart as servicing more of the lower-income citizens of the U.S., which doesn't exactly fit the profile of a contractual wireless buyer.