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I Am Bezos
- arn 6y agoThis is confusing. I couldn't tell what it was counting. "Change in Net Worth" or something would make it clearer. But it's still not great.
- wa1987 6y ago"Money earned"
- kleiba 6y ago"earned" is tricky, though.
- scatters 6y agoThat doesn't make any sense. It's not like he could offload all his shares at the market price.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Qwertious 6y agoExcept both "money" and "earned" are debatable. Net worth isn't all liquid, and whether it's "earned" seems to be the entire point of the website.
- keskadale 6y agoThe amount of time it takes to reach the final number is infuriating
- sagolikasoppor 6y agoGreat visualization on how crazy reality can be.
- progx 6y agoAnd? Open your own business and make money.
- nly 6y ago"You'll never get rich working for someone else" may be true, but it doesn't mean working for yourself is a ticket to riches
- iso1210 6y agoThousands of people (many on HN) have got rich working for FAANG over the last 10 years.
- ant6n 6y ago....I should've just invested my College tuition in AAPL, would be a millionaire now. It's a wierd world.
- sto_hristo 6y agoSo the ones that became successful should be made to suffer to make your feel better?
- aloisdg 6y agoseems easy. why nobody thinks about it?
- superbcarrot 6y ago- Some people do think about it. - Some people aren't interested in that kind of life. - Some of the people who are interested don't have the aptitude for it. - Some of the people who are interested and have the aptitude, don't get lucky enough to make it. - Even if everyone was interested, capable and lucky, you can't have an economy where everyone is an entrepeneur.
- technologia 6y agoThis is fun to watch, in the time it took to look at another article, the number that appeared was double what I make in a year.
- ilkkao 6y agoIf I had to bet, I'd say Bezos's wealth won't increase today. Amazon is -2.35% in pre-market right now. He will instead probably lose more than any of us has ever made. I get the idea of the counter but it gives a little too simplified view. There's still risk involved even with Amazon.
- iso1210 6y agoRisk of not being able to afford food, rent, or (in the US) healthcare, for the average person: High Risk for Bezos: None
- perryizgr8 6y ago> There's still risk involved even with Amazon. I'd be willing to take way bigger risks with $100B to my name.
- nickpp 6y agoBezos did not have $100B in his name when he took the risk of founding Amazon.
- technologia 6y agoOh I agree, the counter is a nice novelty toy but I know its not realistic. I'm comfortable with what I make and what I invest in, at some point there is such a thing as too much money for a single person (not a social statement, just a statement about my situation).
- lostlogin 6y agoI think your talking about his share holding. His compensation when that is excluded is still fairly high, (when all the perks are included). https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-has-made-the-same-salary-for-decades-a-little-more-than-double-the-median-us-employees-pay-2020-04-16 https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-...
- dangwu 6y agoWhat’s the formula here?
- technologia 6y agohttps://github.com/sthouvenot/iambezos/blob/9d2c40a364585a659790d20223a6ef2950d02254/js/money.js#L18 https://github.com/sthouvenot/iambezos/blob/9d2c40a364585a65...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jansan 6y agoINSANE_WAGE_PER_HOUR / 3600 * (Data.now() - starttime) / 1000
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dangwu 6y agoWell obviously I'm more interested in the INSANE_WAGE_PER_HOUR formula
- killtimeatwork 6y agoThey should have used fixed-width font to avoid the annoying fidgeting of the number as it changes.
- tuyiown 6y agoactually, there's also `font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums;` if you want to keep the same font (if that feature is supported)
- robin_reala 6y agoNot in Exo, unfortunately.
- bttrfl 6y ago...and align the number to the right.
- NikhilVerma 6y agoThere is also font-variant-numeric - https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-variant-numeric https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/font-varian...
- rob74 6y agoYeah, that's one of my pet peeves too for anything displaying columns of numbers, or a changing number. I heard of "font-variant-numeric: tabular-nums", but is there actually any reason for font designers to not make all numbers the same width by default? For me it's clearly a case of "aesthetics over functionality"...
- oarsinsync 6y agoNot all functions require fixed-width. E.g, I had the page open for a very little bit and it reached a point where the net worth was around $32,674. The function of showing numbers in this comment does not require fixed width. Aesthetics and readability are more important. Both of those are subjective traits. You can optimise for a particular group's aesthetic tastes, or a particular group's readability. Whether or not that requires fixed-width or not is not something I'm able to comment on, however.
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoIn a way are all Jeff Bezos, because Jeff Bezos isn’t just a numerical figure on a web site, Jeff Bezos is there in your heart. And in your TV. And your phone. And your doorbell. And your kid’s classroom computer. And that Prime golf shirt. And...
- pii 6y agoBezos has earned this rate of increase in net worth. Further, he's so much more capable of happiness than the average person, and having a lot of money makes him happy. It would be unjust—nay, it would be abusive if we didn't let bezos make this much
- ben_w 6y agoTook me longer than it should’ve for me to recognise the Utility Monster under the bed.
- remontoire 6y agolet?
- pii 6y agoWe could elect people who choose to tax the rich
- rob74 6y agoThe page doesn't contain a lot of information, but still it manages to contradict itself: - upper left corner: "I am Jeff Bezos" - middle: "see how much $$$ I earn while you are looking at this page" - lower right corner: "buy me a coffee" [EDIT] Note to self: if I ever do something like this and want to collect donations for it, pick a project where I'm not pretending be one of the world's richest persons :)
- bryanrasmussen 6y agomy cheapskate brother in law would probably say you don't get rich by buying your own coffee.
- mvolfik 6y agoyou actually lose some because you pay taxes, don't you?
- me_me_me 6y agoIts a simple fun project someone did probably over a weekend. No need to shit on it.
- rob74 6y agoSorry if my comment sounds overly critical, I edited it now to try to tone it down...
- Longwelwind 6y agoI don't understand how the page contradicts itself?
- Talanes 6y agoClick on the upper left corner.
- diimdeep 6y agoBut imagine that it allows to buy Bezos a coffee, kind of postirony right there.
- jansan 6y agoWhat I actually have in common with Jeff Bezos is that I am driving a reasonably priced Japanese car, just like he did in 1999 whet he was already worth around 10 billion dollars. And I am perfectly happy with that.
- mjfl 6y agoHow about we stop coveting our neighbor's wealth?
- jonnypotty 6y agoMaybe if we focused on what you have to do to get this much money rather than who you have to be.
- thepete2 6y agoYes. Right after our neighbour starts paying taxes.
- mjfl 6y agoThe names listed here pay more taxes than anyone.
- viklove 6y agoAh yes, because any criticism on the current wealth distribution must be born out of jealousy. There are no other possibilities.
- mjfl 6y agodon't forget economic illiteracy, that has a component too
- iso1210 6y agoSo Jeff Bezos has made a site to show how rich he is, but then he wants us to "buy him a coffee"?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Traubenfuchs 6y agoThis is slower than I thought. I need to wait MINUTES to buy a top tier apartment in my city. /-:
- optimalsolver 6y agoI Am Weasel.
- Majestic121 6y agoI am torn on this kind of subject. On the one hand, this amount of money is ludicrous. However, he did put in both the work and the risks to get it. The real problem to me is the fact that this money will get down to his descendants, who will have done nothing more than be born. We all are born with our own stars, some better than other (and I definitely count myself among the lucky ones), but it's being born into this kind of wealth that is disturbing to me, making it for yourself not so much (depending on how you made it of course)
- A12-B 6y agoHe didn't put in work worth 100b dollars.
- sgt 6y agoC'mon, he put in at least 4 dollars worth of work.
- luminaobscura 6y agoIf I make an invention that provides $1000 value to 100 million people, the work i put in is worth $100B. It doesn't matter if i did that in a day or decade.
- pii 6y agoIt would be unjust—nay, it would be abusive if we didn't let bezos make this much
- p49k 6y agoSure. The point being that Bezos didn't do that. He did provide value and should be filthy rich, but not $200 billion rich. Much of his wealth is unfairly extracted from others he exploited. If he treated every employee humanely and gave them salaries roughly corresponding to the value they provided, he might only be worth $100 million instead of $200 billion.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
- me_me_me 6y agoWaited to earned 1c as minimum wage worker and then switched to bezos. Wow this is depressing.
- faebi 6y agoI love such websites. The inequality between the super rich and nearly all people is just enormous. It‘s not a critic on the inequality itself but one should understand what it really means. It‘s the difference between linear and exponential. He makes more than me in my whole life during my visit to the toilet.
- kklisura 6y agoDoes anyone else feels like the hating on the rich is more rampant then ever?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- pii 6y agoThe french royal family would like to have a word
- stupidcar 6y agoI am consistently surprised at how anti-inequality activists return, again and again, to the same tactic of restating the numerical and relative degree of wealth inequality. Like how, every new year, the media publishes the same stories about how Bill Gates / Jeff Bezos / Elon Musk (or whoever the latest richest person is) has earned more than the average person's yearly salary in x number of minutes. This happens despite the repeated, abject failure of this tactic over the past decades to help their cause and create a mass consensus in favour of stronger redistributional measures. It seems to be a common anti-pattern of political activism across the spectrum: Things that are so intrinsically outrageous to activists that they assume their reaction is universal, and that simple exposure to the facts will be enough to convert others.
- superbcarrot 6y agoI think that I agree with the overall sentiment but this > abject failure of this tactic over the past decades to help their cause There isn't a consistent "they" that have a cause. It's a sentiment that moves through society. The people who are outraged about billionaires on the internet today weren't even born a couple of decades ago.
- jxramos 6y agoThe way I see it I'd rather live in the place where someone can be that wealthy than a place where it is not possible for someone to be that wealthy. Basically it's better that at least some one can and has made it that big than no one at all.
- pii 6y agoIs it the ability for the one person who makes it this big to buy their way out of following the law that's appealing? For me, I like that this amount of wealth depends on exploiting people who aren't as good as I am. It makes me feel like I am winning.
- hansbo 6y agoI find the public opinion has change drastically - nowadays pretty much everyone I socialize with agree the current and growing wealth inequality is absurd and unsustainable. Large numbers are very difficult to understand, which is why I think things like this website works.
- purplecats 6y agoHe's made millions in the week I spent studying for an Amazon interview. neat!
- qalmakka 6y agoCompletely frivolous (and OT) rant: am I the only one who is super bothered by the fact that the "money counter" isn't in a monospaced font? I hate how it bobbles around every time a number changes.
- mikkelam 6y agonope, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26222584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26222584
- superbcarrot 6y agoOne of the things that pushed me to cut down on my reddit consumption was how often you see people complaining about rich people or the "billionaires shouldn't exist" sentiment. I find it both concerning and not very well thought out.
- ElectricMind 6y agoPlease add one more counter : "How much money I lost by looking at other rich people's money go up!"
- sieste 6y agoIf Bezos gave all his net worth away by distributing it equally among the world population, everybody (except one) would be about 25$ richer. How many problems would that solve? (Genuine question)
- danlugo92 6y agoNone
- mclightning 6y agoYou can't refute one extreme with another. How about increased meritocracy across the board among those involved in creation of the value.
- upbeat_general 6y agoFor most developed countries not much but I suspect those living off of a couple dollars a day would very much appreciate it
- danieljacksonno 6y agoThis is sensationalist. It's based on net worth, not income. But net worth of billionaires is incredibly inflated by the way we measure it. Bezos' net worth is based on the stock value of Amazon, and is based on taking the _highest_ price someone is willing to buy 1, _one_, share of Amazon and multiplying it by the amount of shares Bezos has. No one is willing to pay 200 billion dollars for Bezos' shares, and saying they are worth 200 billion is simply false. His net worth is dependent entirely on other people being willing to give him money for his Amazon shares, and that is dependent entirely on the value Amazon brings to its customers, or how willing people are to give Amazon money for Amazons services. Now, if Bezos decided to sell all his shares for cash he could surely get billions for them, as Amazon is generating incredible value, but not 200 billion.
- ric2b 6y agoI agree with you that it's not accurate, but you're also missing the forest for the trees. Let's say no one is willing to buy all those shares for $200B, ok, but do you think he could find a buyer at $50B? Probably several. So just divide the number on the website by 4, does that really change anything?
- dethos 6y agoI think the first two statements would still stand: > This is sensationalist. > It's based on net worth, not income. But net worth of billionaires is incredibly inflated by the way we measure it. That being said, I also think that this inequality increase is a problem for the society as a whole. However I haven't heard yet about a concrete and satisfactory solution/measure to tackle it and that would be effective.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoI don't think there's a clearer case for a wealth tax than Jeff Bezos. Bezos successfully monetized the internet. Kudos for him, and it deserves great rewards, but enough rewards to become the richest man in the world? Shouldn't a large part of the rewards go to the people who invented and created the internet, in large part the DoD and other government funded institutions. How about that randum person in Nebraska? (https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/) How about all of those open source products Amazon depends on?