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My guess is that he probably knows actual, bona fide net worth numbers for some of the people on that list, and the Forbes numbers for those people that he know

• GCA10 11y ago
  That's totally possible for the founders of not-yet-public companies such as Dropbox and Airbnb, where the Y Combinator connection is highly relevant. You're right to add that to the conversation. At the same time, lots of other numbers for companies with public share prices and proxy-disclosed ownership data should be exquisitely accurate. My issue was mostly with PG's presentation style, where he offers up data, dismisses it in a footnote, and then says it will do anyway. It's a weird way to make an argument. On an intricate issue like this, I appreciate exposition that is steadily nuanced, rather than battling self-made contradictions.
  • jonstokes 11y ago
    Even in the best-case scenarios, you have no way of knowing what those people have borrowed against those shares and/or what they've done with that leverage (maybe bought some illiquid assets that it's difficult to mark to market even if you knew what they were), so it's still impossible to compute a net worth. I'm sorry, but for all the efforts of the Forbes guys, I'm inclined to agree with PG -- the numbers are probably hot garbage.