
Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B - champagnepapi
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-16/happy-prime-day-jeff-amazon-ceo-s-net-worth-tops-150-billion
======
Endama
I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard
Oil, we have Amazon.

Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average
American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our
civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware
of was just how violent that time in US history was[1].

The US economy isn't just about how comfortable the average US citizen is, it
is also a measure of how much cushion there is in our society between us being
frustrated looking at a job board and being angry and armed in the streets.
The teachers strikes in Oklahoma, Florida, and W. Virginia are showing the
rise of Unions (much like in the gilded age as well). Protest and civic
engagement must be our response, we should take signs like the wealth of Bezos
as a cautionary tale, rather than something to simply marvel at.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Matewan)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Alabama_coal_strike](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Alabama_coal_strike)

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain)

~~~
aphextron
Except we actually had a functioning federal government during the last gilded
age, so we ended up with things like the Sherman Antitrust Act, and eventually
the New Deal.

I doubt we'll be so lucky this time around. Things are about to get absolutely
brutal for the 90%.

~~~
FussyZeus
Or the 1%. Something Rich people tend to forget is that the system of law and
order we have now prevents armed uprising of the lower classes, which has a
history of cropping up during very hard economic times.

Not advocating, and I doubt I'd be one of them holding a pitchfork, but it is
something to keep in mind.

~~~
irrational
Back in the day, most people grew up working on a farm/ranch/etc. and actually
knew how to use a pitchfork. I'm trying to imagine today's obese generation
trying to physically overthrow the government and can't help thinking that it
wouldn't go so well.

~~~
TheAceOfHearts
Most Americans have guns. The police has better weapons, but it would be a war
of attrition, and I doubt most police would want to go on killing sprees
against their fellow countrymen.

Although I doubt it'd reach the point of massive insurrection. That would
require a total loss of trust in the government, and I think we're still far
from that.

~~~
code_duck
How old is the average American gun owner? Are they physically fit?

Merely owning guns is different than possessing the physical ability and
training in weapons and tactics to use them effectively, especially versus
military or paramilitary forces (National Guard and Border Patrol is a much
more likely initial pro-government force than police). Not only are they
equipped and trained with the same weapons civilians may have, they also have
automatic weapons, nightvision, grenades, armored vehicles, helicopters, tear
gas, sonic weapons, fire trucks, and a lot more.

~~~
FussyZeus
In every instance throughout history, the $weapon wielded by the peasant has
been vastly inferior to the one wielded by the noble's army, guards, etc. In
fact one could argue that the peasantry has never been less outgunned that
they are currently, when previous uprisings made do with sticks and rocks, and
the heads of the wealthy still rolled in the end.

The fact is that the select few protect themselves with rolls of the sons and
daughters of the masses. Sure, plenty of them will turn their weapons on their
fellow countrymen for a paycheck, but how many? And for how long?

And especially once those bullets start flying, how useful is the money being
paid to those guards? How long before they have all the money they could ever
want and no one will sell them food?

In our hyper-connected world, we lose people jobs when they crack a racist
joke on twitter. How hard will it be to find the 1%'s executioners?

~~~
code_duck
It’s hard to be sure exactly what scenario people are picturing when they
speculate about this. If you want an example of urban warfare vs. a modern
military, check out Iraq about 10 year ago. While it was difficult, for them,
guess who won. As far as the rest of the theorizing, we would have to be on
common ground about the entire scenario before it’s worth speculating about.

For example, I don’t know what food you’re talking about because in my wild
fantasy scenario, all of the freeways have been destroyed and Walmarts and
grocery stores are empty. Mass starvation, plague, panic, electricity is off,
no communication systems work other than the military. They have seized
anything useful. They have tanks etc, which helps a lot. As far as ‘who will
sell them food’... you’re talking about a highly armed military force fighting
a civil war? Do you think people are going shopping at Kroger with the other
side or something? This isn’t the French Revolution. This is 80 years after
millions of people died in gas chambers in Europe, right? The next major wars
are not going to be very friendly.

~~~
pm90
People can be extremely resilient, especially when their lives are at hand. I
don't think you've thought this through. A true civil war where the US
military is fighting its own citizens won't be like the Iraq war at all. There
is likely to be mass defection of soldiers who are unwilling to fight their
own countrymen. Massive civil disobedience where taxpayers stop paying their
taxes, farmers defect to the sides that they most recognize with.

Its not a scenario that I really want to think about since its so brutal. But
it can happen, and the war is likely to be a prolonged battle.

Not to mention, the unrest in the Motherland will let other rogue forces run
amok internationally as they jostle for supremacy over each other. I can't see
any of that ending well.

~~~
chii
That's not the worst scenario.

If the govt or millitary hold so much tech that you end up in a hunger game
scenario, and the population is oppressed (but unlike hunger games, the
oppression comes in the form of feeble food and entertainment - ala, bread and
circus).

The people feel comfortable enough to not want to revolt. Yet, ignores the
minority that do get harsher treatment, because doing so puts their own lively
hood in jeopardy.

------
0xmohit
Reminds one of a couple of related posts:

> When I worked at Amazon we had to run around the warehouse, bc if our pick
> rate fell below a certain number we stopped getting paid. There were bottles
> & bins full of piss at odd points, bc you were penalised for toilet breaks.
> A co-worker attempted suicide on-site bc of the stress

Source:
[https://twitter.com/OwennnThomas/status/1007957414577090560](https://twitter.com/OwennnThomas/status/1007957414577090560)

> Workers at Amazon warehouse in Minnesota say they've suffered exhaustion,
> dehydration, injuries while working without air conditioning.

Source:
[https://apnews.com/1d62290004b340feac5c359d59b86823](https://apnews.com/1d62290004b340feac5c359d59b86823)

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
You'd think with all that cash Bezos could afford to pay his minions a humane
rate.

But he just doesn't care.

~~~
ralusek
Aren't their margins like, razor-thin? Obviously at Amazon scale, even razor-
thin margins mean huge profits, but that doesn't mean that you have any wiggle
room within the profit.

Imagine you have 100 people working for you, and off of each person, you make
10 cents a day. Now imagine you grow your business and you have 1,000,000
people working for you. At 10 cents per person per day, you're now making
$100,000 a DAY! You're rich! If you wanted to give back to your employees,
just remember that each one produces 10 cents of profit. If you gave them all
10 cents extra per day, it means nothing to any one of them, but your business
now makes $0 profit.

~~~
calcifer
If your margins are so thin that people are forced to pee in bottles instead
of going to the bathroom then your company shouldn't exist.

~~~
ralusek
They're not forced to do anything, including work there.

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Not directly. But since people like Bezos own most of the productive machinery
of the world, people really don’t have a choice except to work for one of the
capital owners. In past times, people were free to work the land for
themselves, as the land was held in common. Now somebody owns everything, and
those of us who want to eat actually have almost “no choice” but to work for
someone else.

------
godzillabrennus
Hardly. He’s a pauper compared to John D. Rockefeller who died in 1937. At the
time of his death his assets equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output.

With a $20T GDP that would be a $300B net worth in today’s dollars or around
200% what Bezos is worth.

Don’t worry. This second gilded age that we are living in is on track to
ensure we have a trillionaire in short order.

~~~
wilsonnb2
That is an interesting way to compare wealth between time periods but I'm not
sure it's the most valid method.

~~~
godelmachine
You spoke my mind.

For one, Rockefeller grew rich quickly coz there wasn’t as much regulation as
compared to what Bezos had to face.

On the other hand, Rockefeller wasn’t in the Internet age and Bezos banker on
the exponential rise of internet.

I am sure there are many more variables.

~~~
hugh4life
"For one, Rockefeller grew rich quickly coz there wasn’t as much regulation as
compared to what Bezos had to face."

Eh, Bezos got rich off of not having to pay state sales taxes while his brick
and mortar competitors did.

But AWS makes up for that IMO.

~~~
jacobush
Wait what? Makes up for it why? It's not like you couldn't virtualised servers
elsewhere.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Anyone could have. Amazon did.

~~~
jacobush
What about Azure and Google Cloud and a bunch of smaller players? Several did
and do, not just Amazon.

~~~
erikpukinskis
They followed.

------
twodave
In my opinion, the biggest risk to Bezos' wealth is the same thing that drew
me into the service to begin with. In the mid-to-late 2000s it was easy to go
to Amazon, search for "thing I want" and blindly purchase the 4.5-5 star item
with enough reviews to appear legitimate. I could do this and expect to get a
great product _every_ time. Now, I find myself spending an hour screwing with
the filters and reading reviews to figure out which listings are noise with
fake reviews and which ones are for real. And even then with many products
fulfilled by Amazon, you end up having to read reviews to figure out which
seller to buy from to get the real item and not a counterfeit.

This combination of fake reviews and counterfeiting is what I think threatens
Amazon's position. I don't make many large purchases on Amazon any more as a
result of the risk, and those that I do make are fulfilled by the manufacturer
so I know what I'm getting is legitimate.

~~~
kart23
Honestly, I fucking hate Amazon. I love going to a store, feeling the product
and then deciding if I like the look and feel of a product. And Amazon doesn't
even carry good stuff anymore. It's all just junk nowadays, and the useful
stuff is often overpriced or out of stock. I want somewhere where I can find
unique, good quality brands, and brick&mortar will always be best for that.

~~~
yayadarsh
Honest question: what stores have this quality? I find that other than local
or high-end/"boutique" stores (with much higher prices), I do not have the
same experience.

------
josephjrobison
If modern history goes back to the 1900s though, Rockefeller still has Bezos
beat by more than double:

"By the time of his death in 1937, estimates place his net worth in the range
of US$300 billion to US$400 billion in adjusted dollars for the late 2000s
(decade)."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures)

~~~
dgacmu
Time for Bezos to endow a university and some libraries?

An earlier major technical university endowed by the richest person of the
time is a pretty awesome place... (he says with no bias whatsoever. :-)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Carnegie)

~~~
dclowd9901
I'd rather see him endow the treasury with the fucking taxes he owes.

~~~
throwaway37585
Why? Government is one of the _least_ effective vehicles for charity.

~~~
lagadu
[Citation needed]

~~~
Rescis
Assuming you are asking for him to pay US Taxes:

The largest line item (29%) is supporting the least efficient 1st world
healthcare system

The second largest item (23%) is supporting blowing up foreigners

The third item (13%) is just paying accrued interest from previous
overspending

The fourth item (7.5%) is the first that may be considered humanitarian,
unemployment.

The fifth item (6%) is us paying for thr psychological and physical trauma
that blowing up foreign nationals causes our own veterans.

[https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-
data/taxday/2...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/interactive-
data/taxday/2016/taxespaid/10000/)

------
whack
> _" Gates would have had a net worth of more than $150 billion if he’d held
> onto assets that he’s given away, largely to the Bill & Melinda Gates
> Foundation."_

Sorry Bezos, you've still got some catching up to do. Lifetime earnings are
what really count, even if you give it all away to charity.

~~~
CamTin
Why not simply avoid making billions so you don't have to give it all away to
assuage your guilt and come out close to neutral?

~~~
throwaway37585
Assuage your guilt?

~~~
ambicapter
> 1\. To make (something burdensome or painful) less intense or severe:
> assuage her grief. See Synonyms at relieve.

> 2\. To satisfy or appease (hunger or thirst, for example).

> 3\. To appease or calm: assuaged his critics.

[https://www.thefreedictionary.com/assuage](https://www.thefreedictionary.com/assuage)

~~~
throwaway37585
I was asking why the GP thinks assuaging guilt is a motivation here.

~~~
CamTin
It's pretty well documented that a lot of the lavish philanthropy of gilded
age barons like Carnegie and Rockefeller was motivated by their guilt and
concern about not being able to thread a camel through a needle. I don't know
about the religious motivations of our current crop of billionaires, but
presumably a lot of the same motivations are at play, since human nature
hasn't changed substantially in the past 100 years.

------
gnarcoregrizz
Wow. Since Amazon's IPO in 1997 (21 years ago), that's like earning $227/sec,
$13k/min, $817k/hr, $19m/day, 7.2b/year, and, 150b/21 years. To put it
differently, you could either hire jeff bezos for a year, or 60k "highly" paid
software engineers. He's richer than God. (yes I know these comparisons are
useless since it's based on valuation based on a single point in time, but it
does give it more perspective)

~~~
ryanmercer
I was like "wait, that doesn't sound right". Nope. Nope it's right, it would
average out to $226.49 a second if an even 21 years heh.

~~~
olfactory
That's misleading though, because he's had great risk of ruin and lots of
smart people have tried (Jet, Azure, etc.) to compete with him but have fallen
short.

Compare Amazon to something done by government like the highways. When I order
something on Amazon it nearly always arrives exactly on time as expected.
Highways are always in a state of disrepair and congestion, and get worse
every day.

This is not an example of why Bezos wealth should be used to build highways.
Every penny of his wealth was earned by offering services in a competitive
market better than the alternatives. With government infrastructure there
typically are no alternatives and so nobody cares or expects much.

Bezos is not an enemy of the little guy, he's someone who has made it so much
cheaper to build a startup. Remeber the days when the first $200K of
fundraising would go straight to Dell for a bunch of bare metal hardware?
Contrast that to AWS. He's done the same in many areas of the economy.

~~~
ryanmercer
>That's misleading though

Not really. It's not an actionable metric but it doesn't change the fact he's
filthy rich and I wish I could trade net worth with him.

>Bezos is not an enemy of the little guy

Indeed, he's the opposite. I clear international freight through customs for a
living... it amazes me how many people/companies import direct to Amazon for
FBA selling.

Yeah, Amazon certainly hits you hard with fees if you go FBA and even just
using Amazon as a payment method is more expensive than a traditional credit
card merchant account (I know it's Chris Bair's most expensive way to be paid
by customers for Keto Chow) but Amazon offers all sorts of exposure for
enterprising individuals and companies.

As lousy as compensation to employees may or may not be, there is no shortage
of people willing to take the rather well-paying jobs (Amazon starts at like
13$ an hour in Indy with minimum wage being 7.25).

------
csomar
These numbers are not fair and square.

Let's say someone has $100. Cold Cash.

Let's say someone has $100. In xyz Asset.

Comparing both in terms of wealth is not fair and square.

First. They _might_ have different purchasing power. Bezos can't liquidate
$150bn of AMZ stock without slippage. If he could, then there must be another
party willing to put $150bn of cash. Not many such parties in this world have
that kinda cash laying around.

Second. They have different volatilities. $100 in cash is worth roughly $98 by
next year. $100 in xyz asset might be $50 or $200.

Third. Holding an asset might have unrealized tax positions. I don't know the
fiscal laws of America. But I think bezos will have to pay a significant
portion of the liquidated asset since he is going to make profit. If you have
$100 in cash, you don't have to pay anything. You already "realized" whatever
profit.

But sure Bloomberg and Forbes would like to make headlines. That's their
business.

What I'm trying to say is that this number is meaningless. Literally. Some
asset management company has $6trillion under their management. That's x40
times more $$ power than bezos. But the bosses of these companies don't get as
many headlines. Have you heard of BlackRock?

~~~
WilliamEdward
Asset management is not the same as owning the assets so I don't really
understand that point. If you were to write up a balance sheet to measure the
net worth of an Asset management company, you wouldn't really count other
companies assets as their own.

------
flyGuyOnTheSly
33% of that $150B came to him in 2018 alone (he started the year around $100B)
and some people still claim that "we're not in a bubble".

~~~
superfrank
I don't see how the wealth of one person, who's wealth is mainly shares in
probably the most successful company in the US right now, indicates that we
are in a bubble.

~~~
NeutronStar
The guy made 100k$ off of each of his workers while abusing them this year
alone, it is fucking outrageous.

~~~
ericd
He didn't "make" it off them. This isn't from profit that he just didn't share
with his workers, it's just the current market value of his stock holdings.

Which means it's paper wealth. Which means there's no way he could turn any
significant fraction of that into USD or any other form of value without
obliterating the value.

~~~
retzkek
This is a really important point I think many people are missing: >96% of his
wealth is tied up in AMZN stock.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-
be...](https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/jeffrey-p-bezos/)

------
markhahn
Who really thinks that stock price has anything to do with ownership? Since no
one can actually buy Amazon, it's "market" price is purely speculative. In
both senses.

~~~
mi100hael
What are you talking about? A share represents a literal 1/485320000 ownership
stake in Amazon and the market price of a share is definitely not speculative
as I can go out and easily purchase shares at a given price.

If Walmart or Alibaba or some other sufficiently large enough company wanted
to buy Amazon, they absolutely could. And they'd probably pay a premium over
Amazon's current market cap!

------
ksec
In theory, If you are a CEO, and you knew your stock is in bubble, could you
have leverage it and borrow as much as you could for low rate, say $200B or
more for 2%, and use that buy whatever business when the bubble burst?

~~~
lainga
Yes, and likely in practice too, but in practice you would probably also run
afoul of insider-trading laws.

~~~
CamTin
The fiduciary thing to do if you're in this spot is simply to issue equity
like it's going out of style: If the market wants to pay you way more than
you're worth, take them up on it and stockpile cash for the lean years that
are coming. That said, depending on the time horizon of your existing
investors, this may not be popular and you may find yourself out of a job.

------
tzs
OT: I've always wondered, if some multi-billionaire became personally offended
by some lesser multi-billionaire and decided to destroy them, what could they
do? Assume that they don't want to do anything illegal enough to get
themselves into serious trouble.

For example, suppose Bezos decided he really hated Rupert Murdoch ($15B). If
Bezos decided he could happily live on a mere $100B, that would leave him $50B
for the "Destroy Murdoch" project. Might not be able to actually destroy
Murdoch for that, but could probably make his life very annoying.

~~~
drinkzima
Carl Icahn [sort of] just did this to Bill Ackman:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/how-carl-icahn-came-to-
join-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/how-carl-icahn-came-to-join-
herbalifes-fight-against-bill-ackman.html)

~~~
jamestimmins
Wow, that was so much more dramatic than I realized. These public fights (esp
where normal people's jobs are at stake) are almost certainly a bad thing, but
they're just fascinating to watch in real time.

------
axiomdata316
Adjusted for inflation John D. Rockefeller is still the richest man in modern
history. Today his fortune would have equaled 340 Billion dollars. More than
twice Jeff Bezos current net worth.

~~~
chrisco255
It's not inconceivable that Amazon's market cap could double over the next 10
years. They still have a long way to grow and they're involved in so many
markets...

------
JustSomeNobody
That's crazy. Let's say the average home price in the U.S. is $200K. If this
was cash, he could buy 750,000 houses. There's about 250 million people over
18 in the U.S. so Bezos could buy a house for roughly 1 in every 330 adults in
the U.S.

That's just unfathomable.

~~~
conanbatt
He wouldn't be able to do it because houses dont materialize with the creation
or burning of money.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I ... I wasn't really suggesting...

~~~
ttoinou

       so Bezos could buy a house for roughly 1 in every 330 adults in the U.S.
    

Looks like you were.

J. Bezos does not have 150 billions baguette and cannot buy 150 billions
baguette with what you think his wealth is

~~~
JustSomeNobody
No, "could" doesn't mean "should". Saying someone "could" do something is
speaking in the hypothetical which is most certainly not _suggesting_ they do
that something.

~~~
ttoinou
And what does the GP means then ?

    
    
      He wouldn't be able to do it

------
erikpukinskis
Tracking a flagged comment from picsao here:

> _And all his riches couldn 't stop the planets demise from a insane
> economical concept, who's crazy ess he took to the next level._

I think this is an interesting point. Has Amazon grown industrial production
and shipping and therefore increased net CO2?

Possible counterclaims:

\- more informed purchasing leads to fewer discarded items

\- centralized shipping is more efficient than driving your car to the store

It does seem like in the limit Amazon could have a profoundly positive effect
on the net carbon of our products. It doesn’t seem like they are optimizing
for that right now. Although and optimal strategy there would probably be
growth first and then carbon efficiency when the growth levels off.

------
ValleyOfTheMtns
Not to downplay the absurd amount of wealth he has, but it's interesting to
look at richest people in history, adjusted for inflation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures)
[https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-
art...](https://www.celebritynetworth.com/articles/entertainment-
articles/25-richest-people-lived-inflation-adjusted/)

Bezos is less than half the wealth of the people at the top of those lists.
Puts this into context.

------
marknadal
What on earth, he just hit $100B like a couple quarters ago. How on earth did
his worth go up by 150% in less than a year?

(Edit: up 50%, sorry you are right, I meant 150% of his previous net.)

~~~
no_one_ever
Wouldn't it be +50%? Doesn't seem unreasonable.

~~~
rtkwe
That's a pretty steep rise in a short time for any asset though.

------
adamnemecek
The scariest part is that he's not done.

~~~
frockington
Why is that scary? Good for him, he has really changed the world, specifically
the way retail has evolved in recent years.

~~~
adamnemecek
Concentration of power is never good.

~~~
frockington
Either is jealousy, but its rampant on hacker news and far more destructive

------
CiPHPerCoder
Isn't this a bit too coincidental, considering today is Amazon Prime Day (i.e.
a boycott/protest of Amazon)?

------
kolbe
Reminder: Qaddafi was worth $200b[1] at the time of his death, and that was in
liquid assets. Not an unsellable position in one speculative stock. Other
notable heads of state that probably blow Bezos away: Putin, bin Salman, and
probably Xi.

[1] [http://www.businessinsider.com/qaddafi-200-billion-
richest-2...](http://www.businessinsider.com/qaddafi-200-billion-
richest-2011-10)

------
amai
That is about 300000 Dollar per Amazon Employee (assuming 500000 employees).
Maybe it‘s time to pay Amazon employees some dividends?

------
ghosterrific
I'm pretty sure that the man/people behind Satoshi Nakamoto are the richest in
modern history.

------
koube
This thread is one of the prime examples of Hacker News being terrible when
going off topic. You only have to read three comments to get to the most
upvoted person saying the rich are at risk of violent revolution. A few more
comments and people are discussing logistics of violent revolution, and
whether police are too obese to participate or perhaps they act only in the
interest of the 1%.

Are these educated opinions?

~~~
ahelwer
Your synonymous use of "educated" with "neoliberal" is notable. Those who
ignore the views of the workers because they are not articulated in language
they find acceptable do so at their own historical peril.

~~~
koube
I didn't advocate any position besides that violent revolution is improbable.
Is the improbability of violent revolution a neoliberal concept? Do I ignore
workers when I state that discussions around police obesity are not grounded
economic discourse? Is there any universe in which this conversation leads to
a reasonable place?

~~~
frgtpsswrdlame
>Do I ignore workers when I state that discussions around police obesity are
not grounded economic discourse?

Well it's not economic discourse at all, it's political discourse.

>Is there any universe in which this conversation leads to a reasonable place?

You're against the conversation in general? It seems that you think discussion
of inequality leads inevitably to the idea that we should engage in violent
revolution. If that's the case maybe violent revolution _is_ the most
reasonable place.

~~~
koube
What exactly do you have a problem with? You want discussions of inequality to
center around police obesity _more_? Or did you perhaps not know that the
order of comments can change?

I am literally pointing out that the top few comments were centered around
violent revolution and police obesity. I'm not saying "inevitable slippery
slope", I am literally describing the content of the first few comments at the
time. If your conclusion from this is that violent revolution is the _most_
reasonable then you just wanted violent revolution in the first place.

And no, this conversation didn't lead to a reasonable place, seeing as you're
now here saying that I, because of a _hacker news comment_ , am _justification
for violent revolution_.

------
bryanlarsen
Vladamir Putin's net worth is estimated to be more than $200B.

------
amelius
Capitalism needs an upgrade.

Our current version breaks down in the global internet economy with digital
platforms and digital retailers, where simple brands combined with external
capital have the ability to turn companies into supermassive black holes for
consumer attention. As we know from math, singularities need special care, so
we better start thinking about how we could fix the situation.

~~~
frockington
We are now at a point in history where the average human is better off than
ever before. Capitalism has pulled more people out of poverty than any other
system. If someone who radically changed the world has a ton of wealth, good
for them. Jeff Bezos having money has no impact on my ability to succeed, if
anything it has positively affected it as he has created so many new jobs

~~~
amelius
True, but it's like saying that MS-DOS doesn't need an upgrade because it
allows the average human to work more efficiently than ever before.

------
sandworm101
Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos
owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop.
Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such
influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's
names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control,
although not all in his name.

What is scary is the math when calculated in how many person-years someone
like Bezos can buy. Divide his net worth by a reasonable cost for a soldier.
Bezos could hire vastly more troops than Henry VII could have in his day.

$150,000,000,000 / $80,000 = 1,875,000 ... he could theoretically field an
army large enough to sway any modern conflict. In person-buying potential, his
wealth is on par with Genghis Kan or Stalin.

~~~
elif
can you please cite putin's monarchic ascendancy? i'm having trouble sourcing
even the premise of your claim...

~~~
shawn
[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0utzB6oDan0](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0utzB6oDan0)

Re: monarch, the rule of law is the baseline for not being one. And laws don’t
really apply to Putin. He’s able to hold onto the presidency for as long as he
wants it, and assassinate whomever he wishes.

~~~
paulddraper
According to this source [1], dictator not monarch would be the proper term,
as the transfer of power for a monarchies is familial, and the transfer of
power for a dictator is political/a coup.

Without seeing into the future, everything since 1917 has been the latter.

[1] [https://difference.guru/difference-between-a-monarchy-
and-a-...](https://difference.guru/difference-between-a-monarchy-and-a-
dictatorship/#Definitions)

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dapf73
Not richer than Putin.

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godelmachine
“I did rather have a kid without a finger than a resourseless kid” - Jeff
Bezos.

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ForHackernews
This is kind of obscene. Even more so since Bezos shuns the kind of charity
work through which other multibillionaires like Gates and Buffet shoulder
their noblesse oblige.

~~~
lostlogin
In fairness to Bezos, did anyone think Gates would turn out like this?

~~~
extragood
The difference between Bezos and Gates reminds me a lot of the difference
between Jobs and Gates, in terms of philanthropy.

Gates has been very public about the plans for his wealth since at least the
mid 90s, famously saying that his kids would only inherit a few million. He's
regularly committed very large amounts of his capital and time to his
philanthropic organization since it was started in 95.

I admired him back then, and even more-so now that he's followed through on
his commitments and his encouragement for other billionaires to do the same.

I get the impression that he understands that hoarding huge amounts of wealth
commits you to using that wealth for the public good more than most other
billionaires.

Jobs was never publicly philanthropic (and actually shut down a lot of Apple's
internal philanthropic work himself when re-instated as chief), and the best
that we've gotten from Bezos so far is the nebulous message that philanthropy
is in his future, but not now. Even Zuckerberg is doing better on that front.

Bezos may turn it around and surprise us, but right now we don't really have
much data to support that.

~~~
erikpukinskis
I think Steve Jobs though, moreso than Gates, drove Apple to produce the kind
of products he thought the world needed. Regardless of whether Jobs was
delusional on this point, I think it’s clear that he put his values ahead of
the profitability of the company, and ahead of his own career at Apple. His
ouster is evidence of that. He was not protecting the throne.

Gates did. He was no Larry Ellison, but he was a raw competitor. He wanted
Microsoft to win. And his vision of what a computer could be was limited to
“whatever the best thing Microsoft could come up with is.” Jobs didn’t care
what Apple the company was capable of, he was driven by an external vision of
what the world needed and he shaped Apple to match that.

Gates killed a lot of good companies out of sheer competitive ferocity, and we
suffered because of it. Computers are _less good_ today because Netscape and
Word Perfect and Samba were mercilessly fucked with. And we’ll never know how
many products were delayed by decades because of the chilling effect Gates
deliberately created. I think in a real sense he owes us for that.

Jobs did what he thought was best for computer users. We can debate whether he
knew what was best, but I think his approach comes with less karmic debt.

------
bsvalley
most of it is virtual money... He could be worth $50B tomorrow if his company
crashes. Still a lot of money though, but $150B don't mean anything.

It would be interesting to see when/if bitcoin reaches $1 million USD. That
Forbes list would get totally disrupted.

~~~
crazygringo
> _$150B don 't mean anything_

That's the silliest thing I ever heard.

Anyone with more than $50K net worth is or ought to be keeping nearly all of
it in investments of some sort, what you're calling "virtual money". It's no
more virtual than your 401(k) or Schwab account or home. By your logic, nearly
the entire American economy "doesn't mean anything."

~~~
bsvalley
I think you miss-understood my statement. They calculated $150B based on is
16.4% stakes in Amazon, 100% financial assets (stocks). Yes, you can convert
it into real assets at any time, after vesting period, but as the CEO and
founder of Amazon, he can't do that. So the point is, he is still considered
the richest man on earth at the moment, but he can't still spend $100 billion
tomorrow on a gigantic island. So, yeah, $150B doesn't mean anything. It's
just a random number.

