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I agree- I would estimate 95% or more of really rich people are mostly indistinguishable from an upper middle class person from the outside: Sure, they have mai
by drcode 9y ago
I agree- I would estimate 95% or more of really rich people are mostly indistinguishable from an upper middle class person from the outside: Sure, they have maids and maybe fly their own plane or have an expensive classic car but there are these 5% of rich people who somehow have a strange compulsion to advertise their wealth as widely as possible and they're the ones who have the 100 mil yachts and go to these sorts of auctions (the exception maybe being Bill Gates' Da Vinci notebook purchase... likely Bill just thought those were super cool)
- blunte 9y agoClearly Bill Gates doesn't need to flaunt his wealth. I'm sure he was just really excited by Da Vinci, and the opportunity to own a real piece of history was totally worth it. Despite Gates's (very) questionable method of rising to greatness, what he has attempted to do with his wealth is well above what most "rich" people do.
- vixen99 9y agoAnd he's done a brilliant PR job. https://www.liberationnews.org/real-agenda-gates-foundation/ https://www.liberationnews.org/real-agenda-gates-foundation/
- zxcmx 9y agoOddly enough I find it easier to believe that Bill Gates wants to change the world for the better than to believe that he is secretly pushing some neocapitalist agenda. Mainly because he personally has everything to gain from the former and practically nothing from the latter at the wealth level he operates at. Dude could get a better return on index funds than from his philanthropy. Cynically, plain investing is low status where he is at, less cynically he has a lot of time to think about things and a lot of resources and I believe many (most? hmm) humans would act the same way under those conditions. Maybe I'm just an optimist.