
Bill Gates is named world's richest person again - lentil_soup
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31694951
======
sharkweek
Several friends of mine work at the Gates Foundation up here in Seattle and
they comment a lot about the pressure they're under to GIVE AWAY the Gates'
money faster. There's a running "joke" internally there (Gates himself does
not find it funny and puts a lot of pressure internally on the folks
responsible) that it's been nearly impossible to outspend Gates' financial
gains as his own wealth keeps growing too fast.

Kind of a funny thought.

~~~
josefresco
This seems to fly in the face of the approach that Bill and Melinda have
publicly claimed to have taken. Instead of "writing a big check" they're
managing (very directly it seems) the allocation of funds to effective and
worthwhile programs.

There may internal pressure to "give money away" but I doubt many have the
freedom to start writing checks for ...anything.

~~~
sharkweek
Despite the internal commentary, which is mostly in jest, spending arbitrarily
is going to get you fired pretty quick. But there is still a metric ton of
pressure to find the _right_ things to spend money on, and they struggle to do
so in a lot of cases.

It's interesting to think about from an entrepreneurial perspective, that The
Gates Foundation has plenty of capital to "invest" but the companies and
programs are often not mature enough to warrant massive grants. There might be
a ton of small NGOs doing awesome work all over the world, and they can take
small grants (XX,000-XXX,000), but imagine what a nightmare it becomes for
them if given the burden of tens of millions of dollars all the sudden. Money
solves a lot of problems in the nonprofit world, but sudden cash infusions can
often create a lot of bizarre problems.

And on the other side, even if The Gates Foundation gives thousands of six
figure grants out, that's not going to make a dent in the overall pool of
cash.

~~~
josefresco
I wonder if an element of the foundation could be helping to scale or "staff
up" these NGO's to be able to scale/deal with an influx of funding?

Obviously, "staffing up" is time intensive, but I would think they would need
an alternative approach if finding worthy organizations becomes difficult.

~~~
sharkweek
I do think there is a pretty big incentive now for really smart people to work
on the world's most important problems (disease, famine, poverty, education,
etc) knowing there is a lot of capital to back it up. I know internally at TGF
they've been working to market their grant programs better to encourage more
young "startup" companies apply.

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littletimmy
These lists are pretty arbitrary. They don't include more than $32 trillion
hidden in off shore accounts. Putin, Gaddafi, Mubarak, and other third world
dicators have many trillions stashed away. That is not even to count the
monarchs who practically own entire countries.

~~~
duiker101
I wonder what would anyone do with a trillion dollars... I really can't
comprehend this numbers...

~~~
ChuckMcM
what ever they want.. :-)

I agree, even a billion dollars, as free cash (as opposed to illiquid property
holdings) is mind boggling. At IMF .9% interest rates that is $25,000 a day
you would have to spend just to spend off the interest income.

~~~
arethuza
I vividly remember the BBC reports about the US government flying planes
filled with pallets of cash into Iraq - apparently $12 billion in _cash_ was
flow in:

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1)

------
bryanlarsen
\- Bill Gates only owns about $13Billion of Microsoft stock directly.

\- Over half of his net worth is in Cascade Investment LLC, a private
investment fund run by Michael Larson. Mr Larson appears to be singularly
responsible for Bill Gates' return to the top.

\- The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is worth over $42 Billion, and is not
included in Bill Gates' net worth

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-mans-job-make-bill-gates-
ri...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/this-mans-job-make-bill-gates-
richer-1411093811)

------
davesque
I actually feel really good about this. I like Bill. I think he tries hard to
figure out the right way to spend his fortune. Glad to see he's back on top.

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npalli
This list is static and not really useful given the swings in net worth of
people. A far better and modern list is the bloomberg billionaires index, it
is updated nearly daily.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/2015-02-27/aaa](http://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/2015-02-27/aaa)

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vehementi
So I guess the koch brothers' combined estate is really #1?

~~~
bryanlarsen
The Walton family fortune is considerably larger. Only 2 Walton's make the top
10, but there are 6 Walton billionaires, for a total of $175 billion.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walton_family)

~~~
kyleblarson
Before the fiscal cliff, WMT moved their dividend pay date forward by a few
days so that the Waltons could pay 2012 cap gains on their dividend. They
saved over 100 million in tax on ONE single dividend. This level of wealth is
almost beyond comprehension.
([http://money.cnn.com/gallery/investing/2012/12/21/fiscal-
cli...](http://money.cnn.com/gallery/investing/2012/12/21/fiscal-cliff-tax-
dodgers/4.html))

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speeder
Bill gates keep selling shares on several companies and donating stuff, also
he does not do any "work" anymore, he only do volunteer stuff.

Why his net worth keeps increasing?

~~~
21echoes
investments, along with the rate of return to wealth in investment markets
being greater than the economic growth rate
([http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/05/ec...](http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-
explains/2014/05/economist-explains))

~~~
cjeane
I was going to link to that. Instead here is Mr. Gates' take.
[http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Why-Inequality-Matters-
Capit...](http://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Why-Inequality-Matters-Capital-
in-21st-Century-Review)

------
nashashmi
I wonder how he keeps getting so wealthy. He does not own much of Microsoft
anymore. 95% of his wealth is not Microsoft.

So how does he keep getting wealthy?

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cfederico
I think he is happier for what he has done with Microsoft more than his net
worth.Money is only the consequence of a good job.

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webwanderings
Almost 2000 billionaires. Almost 100 in India. 200+ in China. 500 plus in US.
100 some in Russia. WTH.

------
known
[http://www.moneymeters.org/](http://www.moneymeters.org/)

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blahblah3
a $3 billion dollar return on $76 is not that impressive, this is about a 3.9%
return.

to put this in perspective, in January 2014 30 year treasuries were yielding
3.92% (although they have come down quite a bit since then).

~~~
archagon
I assume you mean $76 billion. Because otherwise that would be a healthy
3,947,368,421% return. ;)

~~~
blahblah3
haha yes, $76 billion.

also note that if bill gates had simply put all his money in an sp500 index
fund last year he would have earned %13.69, or $10.8 billion

~~~
makeset
Also note that putting that kind of money anywhere creates so much market
impact in practice that the gains diminish considerably.

E.g. SPY, the most active S&P500 index (also the single most heavily-traded
U.S. stock), had a total dollar volume of $275B for all of 2014. Buying
billions' worth of it, even over long periods, would drive the price up in the
process and make further purchases more costly.

~~~
blahblah3
he obviously wouldn't put it all into spy, you can buy a diversified portfolio
of stocks that basically replicates the s&p 500.

[http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=DailyMarketSummar...](http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=DailyMarketSummary)
(74 billion dollars traded in one day)

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biscuitt
Although there is no confirmed amounts(obviously), a lot of people feel that
Putin is the world's richest man with all the Russian money has stashed away
to personal accounts

~~~
aluhut
Any credible people there too?

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worldsayshi
You could fund a lot of curiosity rovers with that money.

~~~
thrillgore
Highways, bullet trains, tons of research grants...

~~~
MollyR
This kind of reality check is extremely effective. I think I'll steal this.
Thanks

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johansch
And still he could only buy about 10% of AAPL.

~~~
xpop2027
I wonder what Steve Job's net worth would have been if he never sold his
shares.

~~~
jedberg
When he died the greatest contribution to his net worth was his Disney money
actually.

~~~
damon_c
...and Disney stock has roughly tripled since he died.

