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> Bill Gates was last person to attain 12-figure fortune in 1999 $100B nearly 20 years ago, just before the federal antitrust case decision against Microsoft.
by tzm 9y ago
> Bill Gates was last person to attain 12-figure fortune in 1999
$100B nearly 20 years ago, just before the federal antitrust case decision against Microsoft. Makes me wonder how much concentration of wealth would occur if regulation was not in place.
- patrickaljord 9y agoGoogle and Apple and the inability of Microsoft to cash on both the web and mobile (where all the money was in computing in the 2000's and 2010's) is why Microsoft stock and Bill Gates net worth lost value. Not thanks to regulations but thanks to the market.
- keldaris 9y agoWell, to be fair, some of their inability to cash in on the web could be attributed to the regulatory hurdles (especially in Europe, but with global consequences) they faced in their attempts to push IE as part of the OS, etc. I do agree with you that market forces (courtesy of some wrong strategic decisions made early on and a willingness to stick to them for too long) were the predominant factor, though.
- maxxxxx 9y agoI definitely remember them being much tamer and less aggressive when they got into trouble. I think it also hurt their public image.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoMSFT Market Cap: $642.317B $20 Billion income a year Lots of dividends over the years. if this is lost value...I'd take it.
- afterburner 9y agoAll of history up until modern times is an example of unregulated wealth accumulation. It sucked.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- B1FF_PSUVM 9y agoWell, without wealth accumulation we'd still be hunting with sharp stones. But yeah. 'In medio virtus est', etc.
- afterburner 9y agoAre you talking about funding research, essentially? That's an example of wealth being spent on the common good. Problem is when it's accumulated without spending it on the common good, or even worse spent only on increasing the accumulator's power.
- skrause 9y agoI don't think this has a lot to do with the antitrust case. His wealth simply peaked at the height of the dotcom bubble and then went down again because of the stock market crash in 2000.
- IkmoIkmo 9y agoIt doesn't have to do with either. Microsoft stock is worth more now than it was in 1999, and that's without factoring in dividends. e.g. this year it paid out $12b in dividends. Today's dividends are part of its valuation today, but dividends paid out ten years ago is just cash that's gone out of the company to an owner, reducing the value of the company, and isn't really part of today's valuations. That is to say, he'd have received billions in dividend payments for two decades and he'd still own the same share of the company that's now worth more than it was in 1999. The reason he isn't as rich is because of charity.
- paulpauper 9y agoand Paul Allen got a huge chunk too, whereas Bezos is the only one
- adventured 9y agoThat's a flawed premise. Bezos owned less of Amazon at its IPO, than Bill Gates did at the Microsoft IPO. His parents became billionaires via their holdings in Amazon. 20 investors put in $50k each to start Amazon. Any of them that held up to this point, became billionaires. You're confusing concentrated wealth, versus total wealth created. Amazon has plausibly created wealth for more investors, precisely because it has had fewer very large owners; more of the company was distributed into more hands.
- protomok 9y agoBill Gates has also given a lot to charity, from the article - 'Gates, 62, who has a net worth of $86.8 billion according to the Bloomberg index, would be worth more than $150 billion if he hadn’t given away almost 700 million Microsoft Corp. shares and $2.9 billion of cash and other assets to charity, according to an analysis of his publicly disclosed giving since 1996.'
- thesagan 9y agoCharities that may not have been as necessary under a less concentrated wealth scenario. And he still gets to call the shots with a charity.
- jandrese 9y agoFor what it is worth, Bill spends a lot in the third world, where a more equitable US would have minimal impact on the standard of living.
- clubmg 9y agoMeanwhile America looks more and more like a third world country thanks to the billionairs like Besoz and Gates that hog much of the wealth and resources of our country. By hey Amazon Prime and Microsoft 10 are worth it right?
- comboy 9y agoIt would look more like a third world country without guys like Gates and Bezos. I'm really surprised by all the hate in this thread towards wealthy individuals who worked hard to attain it. Especially in this environment, where people try to figure out ways to be one of them. It's HN FFs. Also, maybe UBI just seems reasonable to Jeff, like it does to many people. He really doesn't need it for anything which he couldn't have many other simpler ways.
- joering2 9y ago
- heurist 9y agoRockafeller got up to around $340 billion in today's dollar. Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and a few others built huge fortunes before the trust busters and regulation came along.