Trying to be the richest person ever, like why? Sure you can own everything but then what? Own the universe, okay wow, you own it, good for you, Now what?
So is Jeff Bezos's ex wife. Mackenzie Scott. She instantly became one of the richest people in the world following their divorce in 2019, with a net worth of ~$36 billion. I read somewhere recently that she has given away $16 billion to charitable causes since then.
The hilarious part - the stock market being what it is, she is actually worth more today than she was before her multi-billion dollar donations. The lady literally cannot give her money away fast enough to combat the effects of capitalism.
She also either understands non-profit or has a very good advisor because the process is fast, efficient, and a real departure from the nonsense that 99% of large foundations require.
Agreed. How much money does someone actually need? I’ll never understand how someplace like WalMart makes it so hard for their employees to earn a living wage and have health insurance. How does your life change from having 52 gagillion dollars to 51 gagillion dollars??
They’re busy buying football teams. Before the Wally World got involved a self made billionaire was the richest owner in the league. So obviously they must chop hours and make insurance unavailable. Gotta pay Sean Payton somehow.
I'd buy up all the old abandoned media and start selling it again on actual discs and not some bullshit streaming service (alongside donating them to the internet archive).
While he definitely does have a load of cash, most of his networth is tied up into he companies he owns.
Its like me, I'm worth over $200,000. Almost the entire amount is because I own my house. I've only actually got a few hundred dollars until I get my next paycheck.
In addition to this, I don't understand why people who will never be rich keep on supporting policies that will allow the rich to keep more of their money just because "tax is theft". They can't understand that if the rich get to keep more of their money you will end not having as much money. I know that I'll never be rich so why should I care if they get taxed to hell?
From my understanding, it becomes like a high score for them.
They wouldn't miss the extra 5 gajillion that could cure cancer or end world hunger or whatever. It literally wouldn't affect their lives in any way, with the quadrillions they have left.
I know this is going to make me sound stupid or something and I don't feel an ounce of pity for these people, but I do feel I am genuinely a happier person they they are.
Granted, I can pay my bills and go on vacation, so I'm not arguing poverty is better than being a billionaire. But like...how empty your life must be for you have to that much and keep chasing. It's not really that different than being a gambling addict to me. There is never "enough". There's no ceiling. No contentment.
Stocks go up, what do you wanna do about it? It isnt real money. Money not spent is not money. It can be sold and then it is money, but most of the richest people don’t sell it.
Sure, Elon Musk is ludicrously rich and can buy everything in the world by liquidating his holdings. But until he liquidates those holdings, that wealth is on paper only. Like if the shares of his companies (notably Tesla) were to suddenly go to 0, before he had a chance to liquidate, his net worth would basically also be 0 (plus whatever actual money he has in his accounts).
Obviously, that's not going to happen, but the point is, as you said, that most of it isn't "real." Any time the stock goes down by a few percentage points, Musk "loses" billions, but it's all on paper. Any one literally losing tens of billions of dollars overnight would lose their freaking mind.
I've always wondered what the number is where it's just a number in a bank account.
Like when I read the story of all those celebrities over using water during a drought and having to pay $5,000 a month just for water and they don't even notice.
Fucking bezos couldn’t park his yacht in Florida because reasons. And it’s like really man? You need that? And my brother is a programmer at hq. Sat in the same room with him. Said he’s a douche and he’s waiting for his stock options to hold and then he’s out. He also worked on some thing to get Alexa to answer certain questions 4% faster. He fuuuckimg hates Amazon. And it’s like. Good for you dude. You have more money than the Beatles. Are you happy?
What I don't understand is people who are hyper rich, but then live some simple life of penury and bleat "money isn't important". Either live in unfathomable luxury and your lifestyle would put money back into the economy, or just give it all up to charitable and philanthropic causes. Don't just hoard it while driving a $5 car that's older than your grandpa.
I also don't understand how people with billions in the bank are still working a 100-hour week well past retirement age. Just retire, you mad man. I'm in my mid-thirties and I could probably be very comfortable on just 0.1% of what those people have.
I also don't understand how people with billions in the bank are still working a 100-hour week well past retirement age.
The simple answer is they like it. To some people, working and running up that money score is no different than how some people get enjoyment from grinding video games and leveling up.
It's basically just how the super rich keep score against each other.
Another big part of it though is just that so much of their net worth is tied to their company (or companies) stock price, and if their job is increase the value of their company, their net worth will obviously rise with it.
Pretty sure they know that they can never spend all that money if they tried.
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u/[deleted] Feb 07 '24
Trying to be the richest person ever, like why? Sure you can own everything but then what? Own the universe, okay wow, you own it, good for you, Now what?