It's because the question isn't "how much money would Rockefeller have now if he'd time traveled while his investments sat there," it's "how much did he have re

It's because the question isn't "how much money would Rockefeller have now if he'd time traveled while his investments sat there," it's "how much did he have relative to today's wealthy" and the easiest comparison point we have there is to inflation-adjust and compare that to our existing mental feeling for "how rich is Bezos."