33% of that $150B came to him in 2018 alone (he started the year around $100B) and some people still claim that "we're not in a bubble".
Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
21–30 of 399 posts
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#22Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop. Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control, although not all in his name. What is scary is t…
Putin's wealth can't be accurately measured by anyone except Putin himself and presumably his financial advisers. It's all just speculation.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#23Hardly. He’s a pauper compared to John D. Rockefeller who died in 1937. At the time of his death his assets equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output. With a $20T GDP that would be a $300B net worth in today’s dollars or around 200% what Bezos is worth. Don’t worry. This second gilded age that we are living in is on track to ensure we have a trillionaire in short order.
That is an interesting way to compare wealth between time periods but I'm not sure it's the most valid method.
You spoke my mind.
For one, Rockefeller grew rich quickly coz there wasn’t as much regulation as compared to what Bezos had to face.
On the other hand, Rockefeller wasn’t in the Internet age and Bezos banker on the exponential rise of internet.
I am sure there are many more variables.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#24I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard Oil, we have Amazon. Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware of was just how violent that time in US history was[1]. The US economy isn't just about how comforta…
The silver lining of this interpretation is that it implies our current trajectory to be cyclical, and not exponential. We may have to re-learn some lessons the hard way in the meantime, though.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#25This is kind of obscene. Even more so since Bezos shuns the kind of charity work through which other multibillionaires like Gates and Buffet shoulder their noblesse oblige.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#26Hardly. He’s a pauper compared to John D. Rockefeller who died in 1937. At the time of his death his assets equaled 1.5% of America’s total economic output. With a $20T GDP that would be a $300B net worth in today’s dollars or around 200% what Bezos is worth. Don’t worry. This second gilded age that we are living in is on track to ensure we have a trillionaire in short order.
That is an interesting way to compare wealth between time periods but I'm not sure it's the most valid method.
Agreed; it's the same GDP vs wealth comparison often railed against on here. Comparing a rate-of-gain with an amount-of-same-thing-already-gained is unsound at best, if not outright misleading. If we're going to use GDP on one side, we should measure how much Rockefeller/Bezos is gaining each year on the other. If we want to use their individual wealth, we should compare to total wealth of all US persons.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#27Putin tops him. At these levels the dollar value is not a good measure. Bezos owns shares. If he started selling them their value would quickly drop. Monarchs (Putin) are different. They own things outright, or have such influence that they effectively own things that are legally in other people's names. The Saudi royal house has more wealth under their king's control, although not all in his name. What is scary is t…
can you please cite putin's monarchic ascendancy? i'm having trouble sourcing even the premise of your claim...
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#28Reminds one of a couple of related posts:
> When I worked at Amazon we had to run around the warehouse, bc if our pick rate fell below a certain number we stopped getting paid. There were bottles & bins full of piss at odd points, bc you were penalised for toilet breaks. A co-worker attempted suicide on-site bc of the stress
Source: https://twitter.com/OwennnThomas/status/1007957414577090560
> Workers at Amazon warehouse in Minnesota say they've suffered exhaustion, dehydration, injuries while working without air conditioning.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#29I feel that America is in the midst of a new gilded age; instead of Standard Oil, we have Amazon. Like the late 1920s, we saw losses in purchasing power of the average American, the collection of wealth among the top 1%, and disruption of our civic spaces as a result. I think the thing that many Americans aren't aware of was just how violent that time in US history was[1]. The US economy isn't just about how comforta…
I think Bezos is a bad argument for us being in a new guilded age.
When you look at Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and perhaps even Gates, they had near total control over some aspect of the American Economy. And they used that control to make incredible profits.
Amazon is trying to do the same, but they haven't done so yet. Their retail business is not wildly profitable (if at all). They haven't monopolized online retail (and may never be able to do so).
Amazon may be the next Walmart, but they're not the next Standard Oil. And the market has priced in huge expectations that Amazon will eventually have to meet, or investor exuberance will wane.
Re: Jeff Bezos Becomes the Richest Man in Modern History, Topping $150B
#30> "Gates would have had a net worth of more than $150 billion if he’d held onto assets that he’s given away, largely to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation." Sorry Bezos, you've still got some catching up to do. Lifetime earnings are what really count, even if you give it all away to charity.
Gates does have an ~8 year lead
No shit. The comment you're responding to included the words "catching up"...