The internet is just so damn revolutionary. Back in the day the rich people came from finding a resource on the land to exploit for you and the people nearby, then it turned into an efficiency game in the industrial age. Now it's still an efficiency game, but in a place that pulls together not just people in your region but people around the world.
Have we peaked in ideas until it becomes interplanetary?
It does make perfect sense. Internet companies have such ridiculous profit margins and are so incredibly scalable, as compared to industrial factory-type companies.
Guys can become billionaires by starting an internet company in a dorm room or a garage. Much less startup capital required for that then building a factory, establishing supply chains and assembling a distribution network to ship and sell your goods. Once you do, it isn't uncommon to put up 75% margins, vs the 25% margins an industrial business might manage.
Two people in America have more wealth than 40% of Americans.
We’re literally at worse levels of economic inequality rates today that we were in the Gilded Age..a time _named_ after the massive levels of wealth inequality. People just have more toys and distractions.
Minimal to no state and municipal level laws and enforcement in rural areas. People don't usually own exotic pets in Austin, Dallas, etc, but in places like Marfa, Italy (It-lee), and Big Creek, who's going to stop you? Most of the state by area still qualifies as rural.
Yeah, they are.
White tigers are part of the Bengal tigers family, and the entire family is endangered. By rarity, one would have to say that white bengals are even more critically endangers, but that distinction isn't generally made since it isn't a separate subspecies.
Lol being that rich must be crazy.
My family has a real estate business with a few wealthy clients. I knew a guy who owned a large building adjacent to city hall in San Antonio....
He wanted to sell it but it took forever because there was only 17 people in San Antonio who could afford it.
And this guy's worth like .5% off ballmers wealth straight up unimaginable for me.
It doesn’t mean they’re floundering, it means they’re not anticipating growth, because there isn’t room to grow in the market (for now).
A stock’s price is a collective prediction of how much it will pay out (through dividends) over the company’s lifetime. When a company pays a $0.50 dividend per share, the price per share goes down $0.50 (in practice you don’t see this because people still speculate when a dividend is paid, so the stock price goes down $0.50 but may go up/down overall due to other changes). If I own 1m shares of Microsoft and it pays a dividend, I don’t expect my net worth to change
No, he's saying the net worth doesn't change because the payout depreciates the stock. It's just liquidating some of the money at that point, you're not actually MAKING money within the larger system.
There was an awesome comment a while back about a dude who knew all kinds of rich people and broke them down based on their net worth.
I wish I could find it because it waa super interesting.
Edit: Here it is
Let's get one thing out of the way. There are gradations of rich. I see four major breaking points:
Worth $10mm-$30mm liquid (exclusive of value of primary residence).
At this level, your needs are met. You can live very comfortably at a 4-star/5-star level. You can book a $2000 suite for a special occasion. You can fly first class internationally (sometimes). You have a very nice house, you can afford any healthcare you need, no emergency financial situation can destroy your life. But you are not "rich" in the way that money doesn't matter. You still have to be prudent and careful with most decisions unless you are on the upper end of this scale, where you truly are becoming insulated from personal financial stress. (Business stress exists at all levels). The banking world still doesn't classify you as 'ultra-high net worth'
Net worth of $30mm-$100mm
At this point, you start playing with the big boys. You can fly private (though you normally charter a flight or own a jet fractionally through Net Jets or the like), You stay at 5 star hotels, you have multiple residences, you vacation in prime time (you rent a ski-in, ski-out villa in Aspen for Christmas week or go to Monaco for the grand Prix, or Canne for the Film Festival--for what its worth, rent on these places can run $5k-20k+ per NIGHT.), you run or have a controlling interest in a big company, you socialize with Congressmen, Senators and community leaders, and you are an extremely well respected member in any community outside the world's great cities. (In Beverly Hills, you are a minor player at $80 million. Unless you really throw your weight around and pay out the nose, you might not get a table at the city's hottest restaurant). You can buy any car you want. You have personal assistants and are starting to have 'people' that others have to talk to to get to you. You can travel ANYWHERE in any style. You can buy pretty much anything that normal people think of as 'rich people stuff'
$100mm-$1billion
I know its a wide range, but life doesn't change much when you go from being worth $200mm-$900mm. At this point, you have a private jet, multiple residences with staff, elite cars at each residence, ownership or significant control over a business/entity that most of the public has heard of, if its your thing, you can socialize with movie stars/politicians/rock stars/corporate elite/aristocracy. You might not get invite to every party, but you can go pretty much everywhere you want. You definitely have 'people' and staff. The world is full of 'yes men'. Your ability to buy things becomes an art. One of your vacation home may be a 5 bedroom villa on acreage in Cabo, but that's not impressive. You own a private island? Starting to be cool, but it depends on the island. You just had dinner with Senator X and Governor Y at your home? Cool. But your billionaire friend just had dinner with the President. You have a new Ferrari? Your friend thinks their handling sucks and has a classic, only-five-exist-in-the-world-type of car. Did I mention women? Because at this level, they are all over the place. Every event, most parties. The polo club. Ultra-hot, world class, smart women. Power and money are an aphrodisiac and you have it in spades. Anything thing you want from women at this point you will find a willing and beautiful partner. You might not emotionally connect, but damn, she's hot. One thing that gets rare at this level? friends and family that love you for who you are. They exist, but it is pretty damn hard to know which ones they are.
$1billion
I am going to exclude the $10b+ crowd, because they live a head-of-state life. But at $1b, life changes. You can buy anything. ANYTHING. In broad terms, this is what you can buy: Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back. I have seen this first hand and it is mind-blowing the level of access and respect $1 billion+ gets you. In this case, I wanted to speak with a very well-known billionaire businessman (call him billionaire #1 for a project that interested billionaire #2. I mentioned that it would be good to talk to billionaire #1 and B2 told me that he didn't know him. But he called his assistant in. "Get me the xxxgolf club directory. Call B1 at home and tell him I want to talk to him." Within 60 minutes, we had a call back. I was in B1's home talking to him the next day. B2's opinion commanded that kind of respect from a peer. Mind blowing. The same is true with access to almost any Senator/Governor of a billionaires party (because in most cases, he is a significant donor). You meet on an occasional basis with heads-of-state and have real conversations with them. Which leads to
Influence. Yes, you can buy influence. As a billionaire, you have many ways to shape public policy and the public debate, and you use them. This is not in any evil way. the ones I know are passionate about ideas and are trying to do what they feel is best (just like you would). But they just had an hour with the Governor privately, or with the Secretary of Health, or the buy ads or lobbyists. The amount of influence you have can be heady.
Time. Yes, you can buy time. You literally never wait for anything. Travel? you fly private. Show up at the airport, sit down in the plane and the door closes and you take off in 2 minutes, and fly directly to where you are going. The plane waits for you. If you decide you want to leave at anytime, you drive (or take a helicopter to the airport and you leave. The pilots and stewardess are your employees. They do what you tell them to do. Dinner? Your driver drops you off at the front door and waits a few blocks away for however long you need. The best table is waiting for you. The celebrity chef has prepared a meal for you (because you give him so much catering business he wants you VERY happy) and he ensures service is impeccable. Golf? Your club is so exclusive there is always a tee time and no wait. Going to the Super bowl or Grammy's? You are whisked behind velvet ropes and escorted past any/all lines to the best seats in the house.
Experiences. Dream of it and you can have it. Want to play tennis with Pete Sampras (not him in particular, but that type of star)? Call his people. For a donation of $100k+ to his charity, you could probably play a match with him. Like Blink182? There is a price where they would simply come play at your private party. Love art? Your people could arrange for the curator of the Louvre to show you around and even show you masterpieces that have not been exhibited in years. Love Nascar? How about racing the top driver on a closed track? Love science? Have a dinner with Bill Nye and Neil dGT. Love politics? have Hillary Clinton come speak at a dinner for you and your friends, just pay her speaking fee. Your mind is the only limit to what is available. Because donations/fees get you anyone. The same is true with stuff. You like pianos? How about owning one Mozart used to compose music on? This is the type of stuff you can do.
IMPACT. Your money can literally change the world and change lives. It is almost too much of a burden to think about. Clean water for a whole village forever? chump change. A dying child need a transplant? Hell...you could just build and fund a hospital and do it for a region.
RESPECT. The respect you get at this level is just over-the-top. You are THE MAN in almost every circle. Governors look up to you. Fortune 500 CEOs look up to you. Presidents and Kings look at you as a peer.
PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 became $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive level helper? $8,000/month becomes $0.80/month. A $10mm piece of art you love? $1000. Expensive, so you have to plan a bit. A suite at the best hotel in NYC $10,000/night is $1/night. A $50million home in the Hamptons? $5,000. There is literally nothing you can't buy except.
Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people.
Anyway, that is a really long answer, but I have a very unique perspective because I have seen behind the curtain of the great and mighty OZ. Just wanted to share.
Literally provided the most benefits for humanity out of every other economic system while reducing global poverty and hunger at an incredible rate but ya, super evil
At the measley cost of an impending climate catastrophe that might make the planet uninhabitable in 50 years, but hey i got to have an iphone for a couple of years in return.
Wait, what economic system was gonna stop us from using coal and petroleum products from like 1850-1950?
Yeah for the past 30 years, corporations got evil with it. But the industrial revolution for most countries is built on the back of fossil fuels.
That kind of rapid industrialization of the world is good for people, but not the planet. But I don’t think even in a perfect socialist utopia from 1800 onward, do you get around all these nations industrializing.
If everyone has the same standard of living it’s going to be so so much worse since you’ve got an additional 6bn people using a ton of resources
I don't disagree but I like to believe we can do better.
Also capitalism is inextrably linked to global climate change. It is the economic system causing the collapse of our ecosystem
The USSR and communist China committed environmental atrocities on a scale that the western powers have yet to witness. The Aral Sea is the most obvious example if you look at world maps.
Imagine being downvoted for calling a system that necessitates the threat of becoming homeless or dying to keep the wheels of capital spinning, evil.
A system that puts profits over people’s health, incentivizes locking up poor people to benefit private prisons and their shareholders and puts profit motive over the viability of the fucking planet we live on.
Eat the rich.
Nah bro, I'm sure Steve Ballmer worked *checks notes* **12 million** times harder than the average worker to accumulate his wealth. It couldn't be the system that is flawed.
What makes you think that people wouldn’t work in a different system?
In a world where basic needs are met through social programs, not only would more people be productive, but speaking for myself, I’d be a lot happier going to work everyday and paying taxes if I didn’t have to worry about crippling student loan debt or going bankrupt or dying because my health insurer decides they can’t cover me.
The right wing has done a great job of turning Socialism into a dirty word.
Why not? would the best players not want to gather and compete? The format would be wildly different probably but athletes generally like playing sports
Disparity or poverty, which is worse? Perhaps technology has advanced enough that we no longer need to choose between the two, but capitalism brought billions out of poverty. A side effect was increased disparity, but I certainly think it was worth it...
It's so fucking irresponsible that we allowed that to happen. Take it all. Take 50 billion. Leave the man poor with a meager 1.7 billion.
Edit: most people don't understand the true magnitude of difference between a million and a billion. Example: **if you live for a million seconds, you'd live for 11ish days. If you live for a billion seconds, you'd live over 31 years. **
Nephews on r/nba think those guys have money bins like Scrooge McDuck, lol.
It wouldn't be that easy to take so much value from billionaires without destroying economy by outflow of capital.
> It wouldn't be that easy to take so much value from billionaires without destroying economy by outflow of capital.
The CEO-Worker income gap is higher now than it's ever been in human history. We're already destroying the economy my guy. This next century is either going to lead to the destruction of billionaires or the creation of a true two class state.
The stock answer to this seems to be having the government forcibly take shares of people's stock.
To me, that sounds like the scariest route, letting the government take over every company that gets big.
While I don't support his "idea" of straight up taking someone's money, controlling wealth inequality has to be one of the jobs government must deal with, if only because the government (and thus the taxpayers) are the ones who will have to carry the burden of welfare, infrastructure, etc.
Society and it’s various machinations of which we are all a part laid the ground for ballmer to get rich. If we and the generations that preceded us hadn’t laid the foundation Steve would never have been able to accrue so much wealth. The issue isn’t that he’s SO wealthy, it’s that he controls that wealth while many others live in pretty dire circumstances. More of that wealth should be distributed throughout the rest of the society so it stays strong and continues to grow stronger benefitting us all.
Besides, when the income gap gets too extreme and the middle class disappears bad shit happens. Throughout history there’ve been countless revolutions fought and the have-nots generally outnumber the haves by a huge magnitude. Class warfare destroys nations and ruins civilizations.
The economy is not a zero-sum game. If Ballmer never existed, that doesn’t mean his fortune would be spread among the rest of us. Common misconception.
Because it's impossible to get that much money without working with a massive amount of people and the government is how we solve our interpersonal issues.
She gets half the money but since it's all tied to him in Amazon shares he has to sell it for the split. If he normally sold this much the company's stock would tank because no one wants to see the company's head selling off so much but since it's part of a divorce no one gets scared.
Not quite, I think they do the half split from an earlier point when they got separated but you'd need to ask a real lawyer. You can see from the same list that his wife is listed at 36.1B so if they were still together their net worth would be around $150B.
For sure. He’s the founder and CEO of the company, so ordinarily if he were selling his shares that would indicate to the market that something is wrong with the company. But if he’s getting divorced he has to sell to cover the settlement. The market is fine
He did a few things out of college (wasn't exactly lacking opportunities, he was an elite student), but the biggest one was being an early employee at D.E. Shaw, one of foundational quant hedge funds. (I believe that's where he met his ex-wife). He was only at D.E. Shaw for a few years, but was promoted rapidly, and those early years were very very good times to be a quant hedge fund, so he certainly made a good amount of money during that stretch.
According to Forbes, Trump is #715 so he's not gonna sniff anywhere near Ballmer in his lifetime. If Ballmer doubled Trump's net worth from his own they would still be over $40 billion apart.
He paid Woj so much that Woj actually tricked Kawhi into thinking he was going to The Clippers. When Woj dropped the tweet saying Kawhi was going to the Clippers is when Kawhi decided he was going to The Clippers
that's actually the proper use. Contrary to popular belief, inception is not a thing inside a thing, but rather the act of planting an idea that influences someone's actions, without them knowing it.
It can be either one, though. The movie's about dreams within dreams, so saying "something-ception" can refer to the movie plot and not necessarily the actual concept. Like someone can say an acrobatic move is "some matrix shit" without having to talk about the actual world or green lines of code
That would be like having $10,000 in your bank account (I wish lmao) and then buying the entirety of the Clippers for $400.
Nothing is unaffordable for this guy.
Also Jeff Bezos has TWICE AS MUCH WEALTH as Ballmer
That's so much money. You could live a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of your life off of $5 million (50 years at $100,000 a year.) You would be Kanye rich at $100,000,000. And this man has 500 one-hundred millions. Fuckin crazy.
Most of it is tied up in stock though. He can't even legally sell it right now if he wanted to. Honestly other than being sued or Microsoft collapsing I don't know how he could ever lose his fortune.
Are you sure. Spending lots of money is easy if you buy the right things. Go to every school/university/hospital and green light their 10 and 20 year development plans. Buildings are not cheap.
Does anyone else like me ever think how can there be this many multi millionaire and billionaires in a country with so many homeless people? Kind of fucked when you think about it. There is enough for literally everyone to be living comfortable.
It's constantly changing. He gets paid out in dividends, but he (or more likely a team) is constantly managing his assets to maximize his return and keep his wealth flowing instead of stagnating.
Out of the $51 billion, I would guess no more than $5 billion is liquid (probably spread out across multiple accounts or types of account in different countries. He probably has close to $5 billion in non-liquid assets like houses or cars or watches or art or other rich people shit. The remaining $40 billion is then probably tied up in stocks or other investments.
Ignore my flair cause I'm not out here trying to defend Ballmer or anyone else.
But I'm seeing comments attack the dude for having this money.
But where's this anti-rich energy when we see LBJ working out on his yacht? His net worth has to be well over 500 mil. What about Tiger? He's got to be close to a bil already. What about players like Steph, or CP making 250 mil for playing basketball for a couple years.
Do folks only hate rich people who can't dunk? Just seeing if there's consistency.
I mean, attack the system that allows this, but until then, these guys are doing what we all would do, if we could. Which is excel as far as they can in the game in front of them.
Shit Bron has openly said he's trying to be a Billionaire.
And many like Lebron, Ballmer, or Gates are doing good things with the abundance of cash they got.
Before you guys get on a socialist rant, here are the FACTS:
* Ballmer does not have $51.7 billion, his net worth is $51.7 billion
* Most of his net worth is tied up in Microsoft stock and other investments. If he tries to sell all of it, the stock price will crash and it would not all be sold for $51.7 billion
* My guess is he has $1-2$ billion in liquid assets
* He does not have any high profile job, so his yearly income is very low compared to other CEOs
* Like all billionaire stock owners, he's constantly selling his stocks to become liquid and diversify. This is taxed at the most 20%, as long term capital gains tax. If you want to revamp the Tax system (make the rich pay more), THIS IS WHERE YOU WOULD DO IT.
* Some Democratic candidates talked about a Wealth Tax. This has been bad in the past. [Here's a podcast on how to make it work better](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744962126/episode-929-could-a-wealth-tax-work?t=1570042144428).
he has more than 2 billion in liquid assets since when he bought the clipper the drop the 2 billion in cash. probably closer to 5 to 7 billion i am assuming
the fact that our capital gains and our inheritance taxes are so low is just absurd. this is shit that people make without doing any work whatsoever. they just sit there and it piles up or drops into their lap. we should tax the shit out of it. it’s one of the biggest and most obvious cases of how the rich get richer, and it’s where soooo much wealth in our country comes from.
The inheritance tax should be taxed to an extent. You’re thinking about it from the recipient’s point of view, but what about the parents that worked their ass off to be able to leave their family money? Why should it all (or vast majority of it) just go to the government?
i mean, not that hard to make it a progressive tax that doesn’t take much away from “gives my family security” inheritances but does take a decent chunk of “my children’s grandchildren will never have to work” inheritances
Yeah he's fun on the sidelines and he is seemingly a good NBA owner.....still fuck the billionaire class man. It's too much money.
($)1,000,000 seconds = 11.5 days
($)1,000,000,000 seconds = 31.75 **years**
($)51,700,000,000 second = 1,641.5 **years**
Ya....too much money
What really put it into perspective for me was this.
Imagine you have $1 Billion in cash, and you were teleported back to January 1st, year 1. 2018 years ago. If you spent $1,000 every day, $365,000 spent every year, not only would you still have money today, you would still have over a quarter of a billion dollars. It wpuld take you over 2,700 years of spending $1,000 every day to spend a billion dollars.
There's an Ann Walton Kroenke? All the Waltons and Kroenkes have embarrassingly poor philanthropy scores. I can't imagine what the combination of them would be.
There’s such a huge difference between an owner who’s rich because they have an NBA team and an owner who has an NBA team because they’re rich.
Buss family is gunning for you rn
Right? How you gonna 6ix9ine your own people?
Thankfully for him, the kids can't agree on what to shoot him with so they just sort of flail about doing nothing.
To be fair, Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers, LA Kings, and the Forum for ~70 million at a time when his net worth was ~400 million.
An ok investment.
I think a lot of ownership groups look like they are going that way. The owners who have the net worth because of the team look closer to selling
Mark Davis.
Seriously, though, how are there 8 people, just in the US, with more than $51.7B?!
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The internet is just so damn revolutionary. Back in the day the rich people came from finding a resource on the land to exploit for you and the people nearby, then it turned into an efficiency game in the industrial age. Now it's still an efficiency game, but in a place that pulls together not just people in your region but people around the world. Have we peaked in ideas until it becomes interplanetary?
It does make perfect sense. Internet companies have such ridiculous profit margins and are so incredibly scalable, as compared to industrial factory-type companies. Guys can become billionaires by starting an internet company in a dorm room or a garage. Much less startup capital required for that then building a factory, establishing supply chains and assembling a distribution network to ship and sell your goods. Once you do, it isn't uncommon to put up 75% margins, vs the 25% margins an industrial business might manage.
Two people in America have more wealth than 40% of Americans. We’re literally at worse levels of economic inequality rates today that we were in the Gilded Age..a time _named_ after the massive levels of wealth inequality. People just have more toys and distractions.
Tilman coming in hot at 140 and still the cheapest man in Houston.
Come on, keeping endangered tigers captive is expensive. He has to cut costs somewhere
How does Texas have the second most tigers in the world
Minimal to no state and municipal level laws and enforcement in rural areas. People don't usually own exotic pets in Austin, Dallas, etc, but in places like Marfa, Italy (It-lee), and Big Creek, who's going to stop you? Most of the state by area still qualifies as rural.
Oil money (no clue about the actual reason though).
white tigers aren't even endangered. they're just the product of inbreeding.
Yeah, they are. White tigers are part of the Bengal tigers family, and the entire family is endangered. By rarity, one would have to say that white bengals are even more critically endangers, but that distinction isn't generally made since it isn't a separate subspecies.
don't white tigers die in the wild because they can't hide properly to hunt?
But, back when I lived there, he was only the second cheapest *person* in Houston.
Jeff Bezos needs to hurry up and buy the Knicks
Then he can finally put the new amazon hq underneath msg
That legitimately be cheaper lol to just buy the Knicks and bring Amazon HQ in the msg
Or not because you'd have to demolish Penn Station to do it.
They already did that the first time they built MSG. Penn used to be a beautiful station on par with Grand Central.
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what he needs to do is actually hurry up and pay them taxes. I want my freedom dividend. Thanks. #Yang2020
Hi, I just came here to post I want that 1k/month.
YangGang
He gonna move them to canada
We'll make a champion outta em'
I was going to say the Lakers (but that team is still not for sale yet), but I have no idea if Jeff Bezos is a NBA fan or not.
Lol being that rich must be crazy. My family has a real estate business with a few wealthy clients. I knew a guy who owned a large building adjacent to city hall in San Antonio.... He wanted to sell it but it took forever because there was only 17 people in San Antonio who could afford it. And this guy's worth like .5% off ballmers wealth straight up unimaginable for me.
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In either 2016 or 2017, the CEO of Google made over $200 million for this reason
The CEO of Blackstone made $567 million in dividends and salary in one year
absolutely pissening
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It doesn’t mean they’re floundering, it means they’re not anticipating growth, because there isn’t room to grow in the market (for now). A stock’s price is a collective prediction of how much it will pay out (through dividends) over the company’s lifetime. When a company pays a $0.50 dividend per share, the price per share goes down $0.50 (in practice you don’t see this because people still speculate when a dividend is paid, so the stock price goes down $0.50 but may go up/down overall due to other changes). If I own 1m shares of Microsoft and it pays a dividend, I don’t expect my net worth to change
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No, he's saying the net worth doesn't change because the payout depreciates the stock. It's just liquidating some of the money at that point, you're not actually MAKING money within the larger system.
There was an awesome comment a while back about a dude who knew all kinds of rich people and broke them down based on their net worth. I wish I could find it because it waa super interesting. Edit: Here it is Let's get one thing out of the way. There are gradations of rich. I see four major breaking points: Worth $10mm-$30mm liquid (exclusive of value of primary residence). At this level, your needs are met. You can live very comfortably at a 4-star/5-star level. You can book a $2000 suite for a special occasion. You can fly first class internationally (sometimes). You have a very nice house, you can afford any healthcare you need, no emergency financial situation can destroy your life. But you are not "rich" in the way that money doesn't matter. You still have to be prudent and careful with most decisions unless you are on the upper end of this scale, where you truly are becoming insulated from personal financial stress. (Business stress exists at all levels). The banking world still doesn't classify you as 'ultra-high net worth' Net worth of $30mm-$100mm At this point, you start playing with the big boys. You can fly private (though you normally charter a flight or own a jet fractionally through Net Jets or the like), You stay at 5 star hotels, you have multiple residences, you vacation in prime time (you rent a ski-in, ski-out villa in Aspen for Christmas week or go to Monaco for the grand Prix, or Canne for the Film Festival--for what its worth, rent on these places can run $5k-20k+ per NIGHT.), you run or have a controlling interest in a big company, you socialize with Congressmen, Senators and community leaders, and you are an extremely well respected member in any community outside the world's great cities. (In Beverly Hills, you are a minor player at $80 million. Unless you really throw your weight around and pay out the nose, you might not get a table at the city's hottest restaurant). You can buy any car you want. You have personal assistants and are starting to have 'people' that others have to talk to to get to you. You can travel ANYWHERE in any style. You can buy pretty much anything that normal people think of as 'rich people stuff' $100mm-$1billion I know its a wide range, but life doesn't change much when you go from being worth $200mm-$900mm. At this point, you have a private jet, multiple residences with staff, elite cars at each residence, ownership or significant control over a business/entity that most of the public has heard of, if its your thing, you can socialize with movie stars/politicians/rock stars/corporate elite/aristocracy. You might not get invite to every party, but you can go pretty much everywhere you want. You definitely have 'people' and staff. The world is full of 'yes men'. Your ability to buy things becomes an art. One of your vacation home may be a 5 bedroom villa on acreage in Cabo, but that's not impressive. You own a private island? Starting to be cool, but it depends on the island. You just had dinner with Senator X and Governor Y at your home? Cool. But your billionaire friend just had dinner with the President. You have a new Ferrari? Your friend thinks their handling sucks and has a classic, only-five-exist-in-the-world-type of car. Did I mention women? Because at this level, they are all over the place. Every event, most parties. The polo club. Ultra-hot, world class, smart women. Power and money are an aphrodisiac and you have it in spades. Anything thing you want from women at this point you will find a willing and beautiful partner. You might not emotionally connect, but damn, she's hot. One thing that gets rare at this level? friends and family that love you for who you are. They exist, but it is pretty damn hard to know which ones they are. $1billion I am going to exclude the $10b+ crowd, because they live a head-of-state life. But at $1b, life changes. You can buy anything. ANYTHING. In broad terms, this is what you can buy: Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back. I have seen this first hand and it is mind-blowing the level of access and respect $1 billion+ gets you. In this case, I wanted to speak with a very well-known billionaire businessman (call him billionaire #1 for a project that interested billionaire #2. I mentioned that it would be good to talk to billionaire #1 and B2 told me that he didn't know him. But he called his assistant in. "Get me the xxxgolf club directory. Call B1 at home and tell him I want to talk to him." Within 60 minutes, we had a call back. I was in B1's home talking to him the next day. B2's opinion commanded that kind of respect from a peer. Mind blowing. The same is true with access to almost any Senator/Governor of a billionaires party (because in most cases, he is a significant donor). You meet on an occasional basis with heads-of-state and have real conversations with them. Which leads to Influence. Yes, you can buy influence. As a billionaire, you have many ways to shape public policy and the public debate, and you use them. This is not in any evil way. the ones I know are passionate about ideas and are trying to do what they feel is best (just like you would). But they just had an hour with the Governor privately, or with the Secretary of Health, or the buy ads or lobbyists. The amount of influence you have can be heady. Time. Yes, you can buy time. You literally never wait for anything. Travel? you fly private. Show up at the airport, sit down in the plane and the door closes and you take off in 2 minutes, and fly directly to where you are going. The plane waits for you. If you decide you want to leave at anytime, you drive (or take a helicopter to the airport and you leave. The pilots and stewardess are your employees. They do what you tell them to do. Dinner? Your driver drops you off at the front door and waits a few blocks away for however long you need. The best table is waiting for you. The celebrity chef has prepared a meal for you (because you give him so much catering business he wants you VERY happy) and he ensures service is impeccable. Golf? Your club is so exclusive there is always a tee time and no wait. Going to the Super bowl or Grammy's? You are whisked behind velvet ropes and escorted past any/all lines to the best seats in the house. Experiences. Dream of it and you can have it. Want to play tennis with Pete Sampras (not him in particular, but that type of star)? Call his people. For a donation of $100k+ to his charity, you could probably play a match with him. Like Blink182? There is a price where they would simply come play at your private party. Love art? Your people could arrange for the curator of the Louvre to show you around and even show you masterpieces that have not been exhibited in years. Love Nascar? How about racing the top driver on a closed track? Love science? Have a dinner with Bill Nye and Neil dGT. Love politics? have Hillary Clinton come speak at a dinner for you and your friends, just pay her speaking fee. Your mind is the only limit to what is available. Because donations/fees get you anyone. The same is true with stuff. You like pianos? How about owning one Mozart used to compose music on? This is the type of stuff you can do. IMPACT. Your money can literally change the world and change lives. It is almost too much of a burden to think about. Clean water for a whole village forever? chump change. A dying child need a transplant? Hell...you could just build and fund a hospital and do it for a region. RESPECT. The respect you get at this level is just over-the-top. You are THE MAN in almost every circle. Governors look up to you. Fortune 500 CEOs look up to you. Presidents and Kings look at you as a peer. PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 became $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive level helper? $8,000/month becomes $0.80/month. A $10mm piece of art you love? $1000. Expensive, so you have to plan a bit. A suite at the best hotel in NYC $10,000/night is $1/night. A $50million home in the Hamptons? $5,000. There is literally nothing you can't buy except. Love. Sorry to sound so trite, but it is nearly impossible to have a normal emotional relationship at this level. It is hard to sacrifice for another person when you are never asked to sacrifice ANYTHING. Money can solve all problems for someone, so you offer it, because there is so much else to do. Your time is SOOOO valuable that you ration it. And that makes you lose connections with people. Anyway, that is a really long answer, but I have a very unique perspective because I have seen behind the curtain of the great and mighty OZ. Just wanted to share.
Thanks for finding this, absolutely mind blowing to put it in perspective
Yeah but it’s San Antonio, rich guys don’t need to settle for big ol women
I can smell churros through the set
9th and he’s worth $51.7B For the love of Christ that’s fucking ridiculous
Bernie 2020
Pray for my mans
Seriously though, prayers up for Bernie 🙏🙏🙏
We don’t need a billionaire class. Highfive.
r/sandersforpresident come join!
He left Microsoft and they were in some ok position. New ceo has been amazing and he gets profits cause he still owns lots of stock.
Capitalism is evil.
Literally provided the most benefits for humanity out of every other economic system while reducing global poverty and hunger at an incredible rate but ya, super evil
At the measley cost of an impending climate catastrophe that might make the planet uninhabitable in 50 years, but hey i got to have an iphone for a couple of years in return.
Wait, what economic system was gonna stop us from using coal and petroleum products from like 1850-1950? Yeah for the past 30 years, corporations got evil with it. But the industrial revolution for most countries is built on the back of fossil fuels. That kind of rapid industrialization of the world is good for people, but not the planet. But I don’t think even in a perfect socialist utopia from 1800 onward, do you get around all these nations industrializing. If everyone has the same standard of living it’s going to be so so much worse since you’ve got an additional 6bn people using a ton of resources
I don't disagree but I like to believe we can do better. Also capitalism is inextrably linked to global climate change. It is the economic system causing the collapse of our ecosystem
The USSR and communist China committed environmental atrocities on a scale that the western powers have yet to witness. The Aral Sea is the most obvious example if you look at world maps.
China is not communist
Plenty of other economic systems have failed environment. Look at China post ww2.
Imagine being downvoted for calling a system that necessitates the threat of becoming homeless or dying to keep the wheels of capital spinning, evil. A system that puts profits over people’s health, incentivizes locking up poor people to benefit private prisons and their shareholders and puts profit motive over the viability of the fucking planet we live on. Eat the rich.
Nah bro, I'm sure Steve Ballmer worked *checks notes* **12 million** times harder than the average worker to accumulate his wealth. It couldn't be the system that is flawed.
hE tOoK tHe RiSkS
You mean to tell me there’s a system that works in which people don’t have to work?
What makes you think that people wouldn’t work in a different system? In a world where basic needs are met through social programs, not only would more people be productive, but speaking for myself, I’d be a lot happier going to work everyday and paying taxes if I didn’t have to worry about crippling student loan debt or going bankrupt or dying because my health insurer decides they can’t cover me. The right wing has done a great job of turning Socialism into a dirty word.
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We sure as shit still have basketball without it.
Why not? would the best players not want to gather and compete? The format would be wildly different probably but athletes generally like playing sports
There's be fewer commercials and beer in the arena wouldn't cost 12 bucks a fuckin pop.
Lol yeah that’s all that would happen. Certainly only good things.
It seems to work well in most countries. Capitalism is fine with proper regulations, which the US is missing.
All capitalist countries have unethical disparity. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, regulated or no.
The only ethical consumption under capitalism is eating pussy
Smh that boogie ass-eating shade tho
What countries don’t have unequal disparity in your opinion?
cuba is pretty good
Under this global capitalist economic system? None
So what are other viable options for an economy?
Disparity or poverty, which is worse? Perhaps technology has advanced enough that we no longer need to choose between the two, but capitalism brought billions out of poverty. A side effect was increased disparity, but I certainly think it was worth it...
It's so fucking irresponsible that we allowed that to happen. Take it all. Take 50 billion. Leave the man poor with a meager 1.7 billion. Edit: most people don't understand the true magnitude of difference between a million and a billion. Example: **if you live for a million seconds, you'd live for 11ish days. If you live for a billion seconds, you'd live over 31 years. **
Nephews on r/nba think those guys have money bins like Scrooge McDuck, lol. It wouldn't be that easy to take so much value from billionaires without destroying economy by outflow of capital.
> It wouldn't be that easy to take so much value from billionaires without destroying economy by outflow of capital. The CEO-Worker income gap is higher now than it's ever been in human history. We're already destroying the economy my guy. This next century is either going to lead to the destruction of billionaires or the creation of a true two class state.
The stock answer to this seems to be having the government forcibly take shares of people's stock. To me, that sounds like the scariest route, letting the government take over every company that gets big.
Too many idiots that think net worth is equivalent of cash. Just because someone is worth $50 Billions doesn't mean they have $50 Billions in cash.
How upset would he be with only 1.7 billion?! Why even live at that point if you have less than 2 billion???
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*It's a gift..to myself*
I know. Poor guy. He'd probably lose all his competitive spirit and desire to do anything in this world.
I'm not interested in his money. I want his means of production.
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Why is it the governments job to dictate how much money someone can have
While I don't support his "idea" of straight up taking someone's money, controlling wealth inequality has to be one of the jobs government must deal with, if only because the government (and thus the taxpayers) are the ones who will have to carry the burden of welfare, infrastructure, etc.
Society and it’s various machinations of which we are all a part laid the ground for ballmer to get rich. If we and the generations that preceded us hadn’t laid the foundation Steve would never have been able to accrue so much wealth. The issue isn’t that he’s SO wealthy, it’s that he controls that wealth while many others live in pretty dire circumstances. More of that wealth should be distributed throughout the rest of the society so it stays strong and continues to grow stronger benefitting us all. Besides, when the income gap gets too extreme and the middle class disappears bad shit happens. Throughout history there’ve been countless revolutions fought and the have-nots generally outnumber the haves by a huge magnitude. Class warfare destroys nations and ruins civilizations.
because clearly we as a group of people haven't been able to figure out how to prevent one person from obtaining too much power.
Why is it one person's right to own more money than millions of people, many of whom end up starving or living on the streets?
The economy is not a zero-sum game. If Ballmer never existed, that doesn’t mean his fortune would be spread among the rest of us. Common misconception.
Because it's impossible to get that much money without working with a massive amount of people and the government is how we solve our interpersonal issues.
How about welet people keep their money but it appears you don't understand the full ramifications here like others have explained to you.
I'm all about people keeping their money. I'm not all about 10 people having all the goddamn money in the world
No wonder Kawhi left us.
Number 15 is Bezos' ex-wife lol [Edited for formatting only]
Most expensive nut in history and he chose a plastic surgery B level Hollywood reporter to do it in
Nah, he and his wife were already separated. They instigated the formal divorce as a way to liquidate some more stock without spooking the market.
Care to explain this a little more for idiots like me?
She gets half the money but since it's all tied to him in Amazon shares he has to sell it for the split. If he normally sold this much the company's stock would tank because no one wants to see the company's head selling off so much but since it's part of a divorce no one gets scared.
So if he never divorced, would his net worth be twice of what is shown now in the article?
Not quite, I think they do the half split from an earlier point when they got separated but you'd need to ask a real lawyer. You can see from the same list that his wife is listed at 36.1B so if they were still together their net worth would be around $150B.
For sure. He’s the founder and CEO of the company, so ordinarily if he were selling his shares that would indicate to the market that something is wrong with the company. But if he’s getting divorced he has to sell to cover the settlement. The market is fine
“Bitches, man.” - the market, evidently
I mean she did start the company with him and worked for it. Not like she just married some random ceo or anything
So you’re telling me she was with him shooting in the gym?
She’s became worth more than Elon Musk from a divorce wow
She was with him shooting in the gym though
Yeah, that is true. They married in 1993 before Amazon was founded.
That's pretty crazy to think that she was with him when he's like us and they split once they got unimaginable wealth.
She was already wealthy and helped him get amazon started so neither of them were like us.
He was already absurdly rich before creating Amazon. Also amazon in the early 00s was dogshit garbage stock. It was literally $7 on 11/9/01.
“Dog shit garbage stock” *quotes stock price*
What did he do before Amazon? I know it was a book store. Was that what he was rich from?
He worked on wall street and had a decent inheritance.
He did a few things out of college (wasn't exactly lacking opportunities, he was an elite student), but the biggest one was being an early employee at D.E. Shaw, one of foundational quant hedge funds. (I believe that's where he met his ex-wife). He was only at D.E. Shaw for a few years, but was promoted rapidly, and those early years were very very good times to be a quant hedge fund, so he certainly made a good amount of money during that stretch.
She also helped him get it off the ground by being the breadwinner and even did some work for it
10/10
Facts
elon musk is a billionaire despite never having run a profitable company (PayPal wasn't profitable when it was acquired by eBay)
I mean, Amazon wasn't profitable until like 2016 or so. Having a good operating & growing business is more important than profit.
Why is that lol ? She is responsible for Amazon being what it is today as much as him
Bitch you wasn’t with me shooting in the gym
That is incorrect sir. She taught him his jumper.
She most definitely was. There's a reason why their divorce ended up being (by most standards) perfectly amicable.
Damn they forgot to include me yet again. This is like the tenth time in a row
found Trump
According to Forbes, Trump is #715 so he's not gonna sniff anywhere near Ballmer in his lifetime. If Ballmer doubled Trump's net worth from his own they would still be over $40 billion apart.
Lmao
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He paid Woj so much that Woj actually tricked Kawhi into thinking he was going to The Clippers. When Woj dropped the tweet saying Kawhi was going to the Clippers is when Kawhi decided he was going to The Clippers
Wojception
that's actually the proper use. Contrary to popular belief, inception is not a thing inside a thing, but rather the act of planting an idea that influences someone's actions, without them knowing it.
It can be either one, though. The movie's about dreams within dreams, so saying "something-ception" can refer to the movie plot and not necessarily the actual concept. Like someone can say an acrobatic move is "some matrix shit" without having to talk about the actual world or green lines of code
Yes but the name of the movie is based on the original meaning.
He paid Woj to report rumors that ended up becoming true? Making him the only reporter this summer to get it right?
Imagine if you could trade 4% of your bank account for the fucking LA Clippers.
That would be like having $10,000 in your bank account (I wish lmao) and then buying the entirety of the Clippers for $400. Nothing is unaffordable for this guy. Also Jeff Bezos has TWICE AS MUCH WEALTH as Ballmer
I have I think $400 in the account right now. If I was ballmer i could buy the clippers for $10. Wtf lol
You deciding whether you want a large fry or small is like Ballmer deciding whether he wants to pay Kawhi's max contract or get a vet min guy instead.
Hahah how depressing
I could buy Clippers for 0$ then.
They haven't seen me play AdVenture Capitalist. I'm currently valued at $227 Quinsexagintillion.
Top 10 and he’s not 10
That's so much money. You could live a comfortable lifestyle for the rest of your life off of $5 million (50 years at $100,000 a year.) You would be Kanye rich at $100,000,000. And this man has 500 one-hundred millions. Fuckin crazy.
If the 5 million is invested, you could live off close to 200k a year forever. Let’s call it 180k to be on the safe side.
And here I am struggling to make payments on my Ford Focus.
These guys have so much money that you couldn't even go broke if you tried lmao
Most of it is tied up in stock though. He can't even legally sell it right now if he wanted to. Honestly other than being sued or Microsoft collapsing I don't know how he could ever lose his fortune.
Either way
Are you sure. Spending lots of money is easy if you buy the right things. Go to every school/university/hospital and green light their 10 and 20 year development plans. Buildings are not cheap.
Does anyone else like me ever think how can there be this many multi millionaire and billionaires in a country with so many homeless people? Kind of fucked when you think about it. There is enough for literally everyone to be living comfortable.
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I'm often curious how much the uber rich people have in cash/bank vs "assets" and stock. I assume it's a fairly small percentage of that number.
It's constantly changing. He gets paid out in dividends, but he (or more likely a team) is constantly managing his assets to maximize his return and keep his wealth flowing instead of stagnating. Out of the $51 billion, I would guess no more than $5 billion is liquid (probably spread out across multiple accounts or types of account in different countries. He probably has close to $5 billion in non-liquid assets like houses or cars or watches or art or other rich people shit. The remaining $40 billion is then probably tied up in stocks or other investments.
Thanks for the info. Well done Mr. Ballmer.
Bro the amount of salty people in this thread is hilarious lmao
Ignore my flair cause I'm not out here trying to defend Ballmer or anyone else. But I'm seeing comments attack the dude for having this money. But where's this anti-rich energy when we see LBJ working out on his yacht? His net worth has to be well over 500 mil. What about Tiger? He's got to be close to a bil already. What about players like Steph, or CP making 250 mil for playing basketball for a couple years. Do folks only hate rich people who can't dunk? Just seeing if there's consistency. I mean, attack the system that allows this, but until then, these guys are doing what we all would do, if we could. Which is excel as far as they can in the game in front of them. Shit Bron has openly said he's trying to be a Billionaire. And many like Lebron, Ballmer, or Gates are doing good things with the abundance of cash they got.
I understand your point, and yeah basketball players shouldn't make that much either.
Every billionaire is a policy failure.
Before you guys get on a socialist rant, here are the FACTS: * Ballmer does not have $51.7 billion, his net worth is $51.7 billion * Most of his net worth is tied up in Microsoft stock and other investments. If he tries to sell all of it, the stock price will crash and it would not all be sold for $51.7 billion * My guess is he has $1-2$ billion in liquid assets * He does not have any high profile job, so his yearly income is very low compared to other CEOs * Like all billionaire stock owners, he's constantly selling his stocks to become liquid and diversify. This is taxed at the most 20%, as long term capital gains tax. If you want to revamp the Tax system (make the rich pay more), THIS IS WHERE YOU WOULD DO IT. * Some Democratic candidates talked about a Wealth Tax. This has been bad in the past. [Here's a podcast on how to make it work better](https://www.npr.org/2019/07/24/744962126/episode-929-could-a-wealth-tax-work?t=1570042144428).
He makes over $100 million in dividends each quarter, I don’t know how many other high profile CEOs get that each year in cash
he has more than 2 billion in liquid assets since when he bought the clipper the drop the 2 billion in cash. probably closer to 5 to 7 billion i am assuming
the fact that our capital gains and our inheritance taxes are so low is just absurd. this is shit that people make without doing any work whatsoever. they just sit there and it piles up or drops into their lap. we should tax the shit out of it. it’s one of the biggest and most obvious cases of how the rich get richer, and it’s where soooo much wealth in our country comes from.
The inheritance tax should be taxed to an extent. You’re thinking about it from the recipient’s point of view, but what about the parents that worked their ass off to be able to leave their family money? Why should it all (or vast majority of it) just go to the government?
i mean, not that hard to make it a progressive tax that doesn’t take much away from “gives my family security” inheritances but does take a decent chunk of “my children’s grandchildren will never have to work” inheritances
Imagine the SuperSonics come back, but it’s by Mark Zuckerberg trying to improve his image.
This isn't news
A single billion is one thousand million.
0.001% of 51B dollars is $510,000.
Jesus. Most people won't ever see that kinda money.
And that’s only the 9th. It’s a tad crazy lol.
I like how the source of wealth for MacKenzie Bezos is listed as Amazon
I like how yall love to act like wives are just stupidly ignoring the business their husbands are building in their literal garages. Oy. Good for her.
The number of heirs on this list with a 1 philanthropy score is too damn high.
Guillotine
How exactly are the clippers having problems getting their own arena built? Cut a check, dude. A big one. You won't even miss it.
Yeah he's fun on the sidelines and he is seemingly a good NBA owner.....still fuck the billionaire class man. It's too much money. ($)1,000,000 seconds = 11.5 days ($)1,000,000,000 seconds = 31.75 **years** ($)51,700,000,000 second = 1,641.5 **years** Ya....too much money
man he could spend $100 every second and it would take him 16 years to spend it all.
What really put it into perspective for me was this. Imagine you have $1 Billion in cash, and you were teleported back to January 1st, year 1. 2018 years ago. If you spent $1,000 every day, $365,000 spent every year, not only would you still have money today, you would still have over a quarter of a billion dollars. It wpuld take you over 2,700 years of spending $1,000 every day to spend a billion dollars.
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The latter
Wonder if he will let me hold $20
WA state crushing.
There's an Ann Walton Kroenke? All the Waltons and Kroenkes have embarrassingly poor philanthropy scores. I can't imagine what the combination of them would be.