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Jeff Bezos Is Just $5B Away from Being the World's Richest Person

69 points by huangc10 9y ago

thaumasiotes 9y ago
1. Bill Gates divides his money, half into his personal bank account[1], half into a tax shelter. 2. Various other people hover around the value in Bill Gates' unsheltered personal account. 3. "Bill Gates is passed up as the richest person in the world!" Let me know when their net wealth exceeds the value of the wealth controlled by Bill Gates. [1] metaphorically
- whack 9y ago
  If only every billionaire had a "tax shelter" that saved millions of lives. http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-is-bill-gates-better-than-batman-2012-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-is-bill-gates-bet...
  - tanderson92 9y ago
    thaumasiotes' point is not that Bill Gates is not a philanthropic individual, it is that most estimates of wealth are not accounting correctly for the total amount of wealth he has accumulated. He is simply using his wealth for more moral actions.
    - thaumasiotes 9y ago
      I'm not even talking about "the total amount of wealth he has accumulated". If he went spectacularly broke, that wouldn't take away from his lifetime earnings, but it would take away from his current wealth. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is under his direct control and the money goes where he thinks it should go. It's fundamentally identical to a personal entertainment fund. There is no reason to leave it out of estimates of his current worth.
  - paganel 9y ago
    We will never know the true opportunity costs of Windows being a closed-platform throughout the '90s and early 2000s, when they also actively tried to kill one of the only open alternatives. This is especially true in this day and age when automation is about to kill a lot of jobs, and the people affected by this might have had a better chance at switching careers had they not seen computers mostly as black boxes when they were younger.
    - Scea91 9y ago
      Or possibly they wouldn't have seen computers at all, because they would have been too complicated for them.
      - paganel 9y ago
        Microsoft making computers not complicated (which is debatable) and them trying to kill off Linux in the aforementioned period are 2 different things, not sure when we stopped looking at how most of Gates' wealth was built. Yeah, good for him that he's saving children in Africa with a part of his huge wealth, but as recently as 2015 he was still actively investing his money in fossil fuels and was spreading FUD about solar energy (old habits die hard, I guess). Here's one of the related articles: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/bill-gates-calls-fossil-fuel-divestment-a-false-solution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/bill-gat... .
roryisok 9y ago
"just" $5B.
- andrewstuart2 9y ago
  It's closer to reality when you consider that this is a 6.3% increase over his current net worth. But yes. It's a ridiculous sum of money to be thrown around casually.
  - roryisok 9y ago
    That little B makes it so easy. "Jeff Bezos Is Just $5,000,000,000 Away from Being the World's Richest Person" reads slightly differently
    - melling 9y ago
      Yes, it reads like a click-baity headline. Read the HN comments. It worked.
- melling 9y ago
  Yes, he's worth $80 billion. So, what percentage increase does Amazon's stock need to increase before he's worth $85 billion? Wow, that could easily happen this year. In fact, in could happen in a few days.
drenvuk 9y ago
Has there ever been speculation as to who the richest person in the world is when taking into account private funds instead of just public? Would the list be any different?
- adventured 9y ago
  Both Forbes and Bloomberg attempt to track private funds. If you look through their profiles for example, they list estimated private funds (non public stock holdings, such as cash, real estate, private business ownership, etc). They generally leave royalty, dictators, and similar abnormal situations off the lists.
  - ido 9y ago
    Why are Gates, Bezos, et al less abnormal than royales and dictators?
    - pcrh 9y ago
      Heads of state often don't "own" their property the same way a private individual does in that they cannot liquidate their holdings. The Queen of England, for example, can't simply sell Windsor castle. The "personal" property of dictators has the habit of becoming state property on their death or fall from power.
      - sytelus 9y ago
        Ummm... I think they sure can if public access to property is not allowed and if they wanted to. For example, why can't they lease out part of their property that only they have access for 1000 years lease which would be a "sell" for all intent and purposes.
        Noughmad 9y ago
        Because then they wouldn't be royalty for long.
      - 9y ago
coldcode 9y ago
His company's profits are minuscule by any historical valuation but Amazon stock is at an insane valuation. For this value to be justified he would have to become the world's only distributor of everything.
- adventured 9y ago
  That's an extreme exaggeration. Amazon's market cap at close today was $438 billion. To match Google's earnings multiple, Amazon would need something in the ballpark of $14 billion in net income. They're chugging toward $200 billion in sales. $14b in net income off of that is very reachable. Even if we apply a much more conservative premise to it, they're still growing above 20% - maybe it takes them $280b in sales to get to $14b in net income; they're going to get to that sales level within six or seven years plausibly. AWS alone is all but guaranteed to generate $5+ billion in operating income within a few years. The issue isn't whether Amazon will one day justify ~$400 billion, as that's very likely, it's how far from the future are the gains being pulled. 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?
  - appleiigs 9y ago
    Amazon has $136B in sales, which produces $2.4B in net income (1.7% margin). How do you get $14B in net income from $280B in sales? With a 1.7% net income margin, Amazon would need $824B in sales to get $14B, compared to the $135B now. As a reference, Walmart is largest company in the world by revenue at $438B. Apple $233B. The P/E ratio tells you how many years to recover the cost of your investment. Amazon is at 187 years.
    - nodesocket 9y ago
      Great analysis and breakdown.
    - vacri 9y ago
      > As a reference, Walmart is largest company in the world by revenue at $438B. Apple $233B. Weird that the catchcry for one is selling the cheapest crap possible, and the catchcry for the other is premium blend, no discounts. What about us poor folks in the middle? :)
Overtonwindow 9y ago
"Just"
- rubyfan 9y ago
  I'm just a billion dollars away from being a billionaire.
  - buryat 9y ago
    that's closer than some people
    - vacri 9y ago
      Louis CK has a great bit about going into negative dollars when his bank charged him a fee for not having enough money. "Now I have negative ten dollars. I gotta raise ten dollars just to be broke. If something's free, I can't afford it!"
      - dx034 9y ago
        That's why in some statistics, 10% of the US population counts as the poorest people in the world. Starving people in developing countries usually have exactly $0, in the US most students finishing college are technically poorer than most of the world's population. Doesn't reflect reality in any way though.
        dopamean 9y ago
        There's a story that Ivanka Trump told to a documentarian about how her father told her once that a homeless man they passed on the street was richer than them because of how much debt they were in. IIRC she told that story because it was supposed to demonstrate something about her family's humility. I always thought it was a pretty dumb thing to say.
amgin3 9y ago
Well, I'm just $1B away from being a billionaire.
- amorphid 9y ago
  You're closer than I am.
Chris2048 9y ago
To be clear, are these estimations of wealth "money in the bank" wealth (minus liabilities), or "worth of assets in the eyes of investors"? Things like stick price are, in my opinion, a fickle thing. Until you sell yours stocks/shares for money, their value is still shifting. In that sense "wealth" is similar to "perception"/"confidence" - it's not the same thing, because you have to figure in market/investor hype/rationality.
- earlyriser 9y ago
  What would you call "money in the bank"? I mean when you have this kind of money you cannot just put it in the bank... probably even at the kind of money a tech worker has. To my knowledge, these estimations are based on the worth of assets.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    "money in the bank" means assets that might only vary by inflation/FX etc, not dependent on a specific stock price.
- loeg 9y ago
  Based on value of assets, same as everyone else.
  - Chris2048 9y ago
    I'm questioning the nature of different 'value' across certain kinds of 'assets'.
eutropia 9y ago
Meanwhile, I'm "just" 5B away from becoming the word's 324th richest person.

69 points by huangc10 9y ago

1. Bill Gates divides his money, half into his personal bank account[1], half into a tax shelter. 2. Various other people hover around the value in Bill Gates' unsheltered personal account. 3. "Bill Gates is passed up as the richest person in the world!" Let me know when their net wealth exceeds the value of the wealth controlled by Bill Gates. [1] metaphorically

whack 9y ago
If only every billionaire had a "tax shelter" that saved millions of lives. http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-is-bill-gates-better-than-batman-2012-1 http://www.businessinsider.com/infographic-is-bill-gates-bet...
- tanderson92 9y ago
  thaumasiotes' point is not that Bill Gates is not a philanthropic individual, it is that most estimates of wealth are not accounting correctly for the total amount of wealth he has accumulated. He is simply using his wealth for more moral actions.
  - thaumasiotes 9y ago
    I'm not even talking about "the total amount of wealth he has accumulated". If he went spectacularly broke, that wouldn't take away from his lifetime earnings, but it would take away from his current wealth. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is under his direct control and the money goes where he thinks it should go. It's fundamentally identical to a personal entertainment fund. There is no reason to leave it out of estimates of his current worth.
- paganel 9y ago
  We will never know the true opportunity costs of Windows being a closed-platform throughout the '90s and early 2000s, when they also actively tried to kill one of the only open alternatives. This is especially true in this day and age when automation is about to kill a lot of jobs, and the people affected by this might have had a better chance at switching careers had they not seen computers mostly as black boxes when they were younger.
  - Scea91 9y ago
    Or possibly they wouldn't have seen computers at all, because they would have been too complicated for them.
    - paganel 9y ago
      Microsoft making computers not complicated (which is debatable) and them trying to kill off Linux in the aforementioned period are 2 different things, not sure when we stopped looking at how most of Gates' wealth was built. Yeah, good for him that he's saving children in Africa with a part of his huge wealth, but as recently as 2015 he was still actively investing his money in fossil fuels and was spreading FUD about solar energy (old habits die hard, I guess). Here's one of the related articles: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/bill-gates-calls-fossil-fuel-divestment-a-false-solution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/14/bill-gat... .

roryisok 9y ago

"just" $5B.

andrewstuart2 9y ago
It's closer to reality when you consider that this is a 6.3% increase over his current net worth. But yes. It's a ridiculous sum of money to be thrown around casually.
- roryisok 9y ago
  That little B makes it so easy. "Jeff Bezos Is Just $5,000,000,000 Away from Being the World's Richest Person" reads slightly differently
  - melling 9y ago
    Yes, it reads like a click-baity headline. Read the HN comments. It worked.
melling 9y ago
Yes, he's worth $80 billion. So, what percentage increase does Amazon's stock need to increase before he's worth $85 billion? Wow, that could easily happen this year. In fact, in could happen in a few days.

drenvuk 9y ago

Has there ever been speculation as to who the richest person in the world is when taking into account private funds instead of just public? Would the list be any different?

adventured 9y ago
Both Forbes and Bloomberg attempt to track private funds. If you look through their profiles for example, they list estimated private funds (non public stock holdings, such as cash, real estate, private business ownership, etc). They generally leave royalty, dictators, and similar abnormal situations off the lists.
- ido 9y ago
  Why are Gates, Bezos, et al less abnormal than royales and dictators?
  - pcrh 9y ago
    Heads of state often don't "own" their property the same way a private individual does in that they cannot liquidate their holdings. The Queen of England, for example, can't simply sell Windsor castle. The "personal" property of dictators has the habit of becoming state property on their death or fall from power.
    - sytelus 9y ago
      Ummm... I think they sure can if public access to property is not allowed and if they wanted to. For example, why can't they lease out part of their property that only they have access for 1000 years lease which would be a "sell" for all intent and purposes.
      - Noughmad 9y ago
        Because then they wouldn't be royalty for long.
    - 9y ago

coldcode 9y ago

His company's profits are minuscule by any historical valuation but Amazon stock is at an insane valuation. For this value to be justified he would have to become the world's only distributor of everything.

adventured 9y ago
That's an extreme exaggeration. Amazon's market cap at close today was $438 billion. To match Google's earnings multiple, Amazon would need something in the ballpark of $14 billion in net income. They're chugging toward $200 billion in sales. $14b in net income off of that is very reachable. Even if we apply a much more conservative premise to it, they're still growing above 20% - maybe it takes them $280b in sales to get to $14b in net income; they're going to get to that sales level within six or seven years plausibly. AWS alone is all but guaranteed to generate $5+ billion in operating income within a few years. The issue isn't whether Amazon will one day justify ~$400 billion, as that's very likely, it's how far from the future are the gains being pulled. 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?
- appleiigs 9y ago
  Amazon has $136B in sales, which produces $2.4B in net income (1.7% margin). How do you get $14B in net income from $280B in sales? With a 1.7% net income margin, Amazon would need $824B in sales to get $14B, compared to the $135B now. As a reference, Walmart is largest company in the world by revenue at $438B. Apple $233B. The P/E ratio tells you how many years to recover the cost of your investment. Amazon is at 187 years.
  - nodesocket 9y ago
    Great analysis and breakdown.
  - vacri 9y ago
    > As a reference, Walmart is largest company in the world by revenue at $438B. Apple $233B. Weird that the catchcry for one is selling the cheapest crap possible, and the catchcry for the other is premium blend, no discounts. What about us poor folks in the middle? :)

Overtonwindow 9y ago

"Just"

rubyfan 9y ago
I'm just a billion dollars away from being a billionaire.
- buryat 9y ago
  that's closer than some people
  - vacri 9y ago
    Louis CK has a great bit about going into negative dollars when his bank charged him a fee for not having enough money. "Now I have negative ten dollars. I gotta raise ten dollars just to be broke. If something's free, I can't afford it!"
    - dx034 9y ago
      That's why in some statistics, 10% of the US population counts as the poorest people in the world. Starving people in developing countries usually have exactly $0, in the US most students finishing college are technically poorer than most of the world's population. Doesn't reflect reality in any way though.
      - dopamean 9y ago
        There's a story that Ivanka Trump told to a documentarian about how her father told her once that a homeless man they passed on the street was richer than them because of how much debt they were in. IIRC she told that story because it was supposed to demonstrate something about her family's humility. I always thought it was a pretty dumb thing to say.

amgin3 9y ago

Well, I'm just $1B away from being a billionaire.

amorphid 9y ago
You're closer than I am.

Chris2048 9y ago

To be clear, are these estimations of wealth "money in the bank" wealth (minus liabilities), or "worth of assets in the eyes of investors"? Things like stick price are, in my opinion, a fickle thing. Until you sell yours stocks/shares for money, their value is still shifting. In that sense "wealth" is similar to "perception"/"confidence" - it's not the same thing, because you have to figure in market/investor hype/rationality.

earlyriser 9y ago
What would you call "money in the bank"? I mean when you have this kind of money you cannot just put it in the bank... probably even at the kind of money a tech worker has. To my knowledge, these estimations are based on the worth of assets.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  "money in the bank" means assets that might only vary by inflation/FX etc, not dependent on a specific stock price.
loeg 9y ago
Based on value of assets, same as everyone else.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  I'm questioning the nature of different 'value' across certain kinds of 'assets'.

eutropia 9y ago

Meanwhile, I'm "just" 5B away from becoming the word's 324th richest person.