
Companies and Billionaires - hackerews
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ajA2_Bzz7HO5B_9knCsbNriLrdoor36B4TO9gjFV1Os/
======
kens
I think most people don't realize just how much money the richest people have.
People generally think of normal(ish) distributions like height, where if
you're 10% taller or shorter than average, you're a tall or short person, and
40% taller makes you the tallest person in the world. In comparison, wealth
has a very, very long tail, making it hard to visualize.

Here's what I've come up with to visualize wealth. Suppose you start counting,
going up by 1 million dollars every second, and people sit down when you reach
their net worth. Most people in the US will sit down immediately. After about
9 seconds, people in the "1%" will start sitting down. Mitt Romney would sit
down after 4 minutes. Near the 17 minute mark, billionaires would start
sitting down. Eric Schmidt would sit down around 2.8 hours. Finally, after
nearly a day, Bill Gates would sit down.

The point of this is there's a huge range of billionaires (analogous to
comparing 17 minutes to a day), and the 1% hardly even registers on this scale
(like a few seconds).

~~~
jahnu
One way I think about it is I ask myself how long would it take to spend in an
average adult life?

To spend $1m in 60 years you have to spend $45 a day every day for the rest of
your life.

To spend $1bn in 60 years you have to spend more than $45,000 a day, every
day.

Those are figures I can kind of work with.

~~~
jschulenklopper
That's almost like Brewster's Millions,
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/).

~~~
jahnu
That's a blast from the past :)

------
kilroy123
Naïve question. The richest people in the world, who are billionaires from
pretty much just stock. How do they convert that to real money to buy things?

Do they just simply wait until the stock is at a high point, and sell a lot?
Maybe move that money to other investments?

~~~
dfischer
These individuals can easily call up banks and get a loan on their worth.

"Hey, Morgan Stanley I need 2 mil deposited in my account" \- "ok"

This is also how they avoid income tax. ;) They can take in millions and it's
just a loan. Then they pay it back off with stock or other asset deals.

~~~
harryh
You might be able to move around when you incur income tax a little bit that
way, but you can't avoid it.

~~~
ChuckMcM
This is exactly right, you can shift it into another tax year but you can't
legally avoid it. But everyone's tax situation is different.

~~~
charlesdm
There are ways, e.g. by donating to your own accredited charitable foundation.

~~~
icebraining
But then you can only use the money for certain purposes.

~~~
charlesdm
Of course, you can't get rid of your entire tax bill (well, maybe you can, in
one tax year). But you can probably do more with charities than you'd assume.

For example: let's say you buy a mansion. This mansion has a forest or large
amounts of land surrounding it. A charity focusing on land or nature
preservation could acquire that land.

------
davidf18
#2, who owns Zara among other clothing brands, never completed high school,
but Zara has brilliant ideas. No connections, I think he started as a
messenger for the firm that he was to head. He's sounds like someone Malcolm
Gladwell would write about.

~~~
zerr
Lets also not forget he pays Spanish/EU taxes.

------
idlewords
I don't understand why the source of the Koch brothers' wealth is listed as
"Diversified". They owe their fortune to petroleum.

~~~
chollida1
Well if you are asking where did their initial wealth come from, you are
correct, it came from oil.

But keep in mind that they have more than doubled their net worth in the past
8 years. And in those 8 years it was a diversified portfolio that more than
doubled their wealth, so given that more than half their net worth was
accumulated with a diversified company I can see where Forbes is coming from.

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-brothers-net-
worth_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/koch-brothers-net-
worth_us_56a3ac86e4b076aadcc6d1f4)

For what its worth Bloomberg also lists their industry as diversified.

TL/DR you and Forbes both have a point and the only reasonable thing is to is
to take Obi Wan Kenobi's advice and agree that you're both right "from a
certain point of view"

~~~
dwaltrip
For those who are wondering (I was), doubling your money in 8 years is about
an average return of 9%. So pretty solid, but not absurd.

Although I imagine such returns, with acceptable risk levels, become harder to
find when you are dealing with 11-figures.

~~~
doublerebel
The Rule of 72 will save you from having to wonder from now on.

------
rdlecler1
Forbes missed Kimbal Musk. Looks like they need to add a wikisearch to their
methods:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbal_Musk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimbal_Musk)

~~~
_archon_
I was also surprised to not see any familiar names from the superrich
industrialists in 19th and early 20th century America. Where are the
Vanderbilts and Carnagies? I know the industrialists donated hugely to charity
and public works, but I'd expect wealth to remain.

------
foundersgrid
Nice work!

Quick q: How did you set Google Docs to display like that where no one can
edit the widths of the columns?

~~~
md8
Share the read only sheet and append htmlview?sle=true# at the last

If you remove this part, you can see the read only version of the spreadsheet.

------
softwarelimits
How to download this as an open-office document? Or at least a csv file?

~~~
md8
Remove htmlview?sle=true# in the url and you can see all the spreadsheet
options. In the File Menu, you can see save as option.

------
imron
In 20-30 years, Zuckerberg is going to be in a league of his own.

~~~
nugget
My money is on Bezos to take the #1 spot and stay there for decades.

~~~
imron
My comment was more related to the ages of everyone else on that list rather
than the reasons behind their fortunes.

------
hbbio
Are you sure about that line?

Elizabeth Holmes Holmes elizabeth-holmes elizabeth-holmes 32 blood testing
Healthcare F United States 1.47E+12 1000 1867

------
kelukelugames
How accurate is this? Asking because Trump not releasing tax returns made some
news.

------
thecosas
+1 for the OP's username

------
known
Pyramid scheme

