
Jeff Bezos Is Now Worth More Than Bill Gates Ever Was - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-08/bezos-s-net-worth-tops-105-billion-as-amazon-climbs-in-new-year
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pbw
The article says "Gates is only other person to have built 13-figure fortune"
but isn't $100B a 12-figure fortune? I suggested we count zeros instead which
would make Bezos a level 11 and Gates a high level 10:
[http://www.kmeme.com/2017/11/the-richer-
scale.html](http://www.kmeme.com/2017/11/the-richer-scale.html)

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groom
Measuring paper wealth is an exercise in too many assumptions. It doesn't take
into effect any exogenous factors such as interest rates, and depends upon a
vast, fragile edifice to protect his property rights--there are probably
100,000 people protecting his net worth.

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adventured
Measuring paper wealth in such an exceptionally massive, highly liquid market
with such a long track-record, is extremely easy in fact. It requires few
assumptions.

There's absolutely nothing fragile about what's protecting his property
rights.

Quite the opposite. It has endured for hundreds of years while the most of the
rest of the world has constantly failed and been remade by war, famine,
poverty, social collapse, political upheaval and shifting borders.

What political structure or arrangement would you name from the last thousand
years or so that has endured better or longer exactly? There are few.

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goialoq
....because Gates gives his money to his foundation (lowering his net worth)
and Bezos doesn't.

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thesmallestcat
Yes, that's how inflation works.

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melling
Don’t you also have to figure in GDP, etc? It’s a relative number.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historica...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wealthiest_historical_figures#Early_modern_to_modern_period)

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thesmallestcat
That's right, but the media doesn't think that way. It's always the most
expensive painting sold ever, the biggest box office hit, and so on.

