I understand what a billionaire is, I just don't understand how they get there so quickly.
If you came over with the Norman invaders in 1066 and saved £1 million every year since then, you still wouldn't be a billionaire. I find it difficult to comprehend how someone can become a billionaire in a few short years.
Eddie
Whole chunks of my life come under the heading "it seemed like a good idea at the time".
Find a niche business, underpay your staff and don’t have shareholders.
Or
Be a member of the Governing Party when they decide to privatise their utilities, take over a local utility with your mates, strip it bare and leave the Country; better know as Oligarch style
It's often paper based valuations which take them to Billionaire status. As for actual liquid assets, usually far, far less.
Much like owning shares in companies with crazy valuations than then tumble and fall, eg Wework, Cazoo this week etc
I agree it’s mind-boggling Eddie. I believe that once you have one billion you shouldn’t be allowed to have any more. You can have a commemorative bench or plaque in a park or on a building but everything above £1bn goes to charity and projects that improve lives and the planet.
I think the most mind boggling concept is for many of these people, it still isn't enough.
It can also be that you have something that someone else eg Apple wants to buy. So obv Microsoft or Apple have their products that are in our lives. beats headphones come along and are desirable so Aplpe pay the owners (Dr. Dre/Jimmy Iovine) $billions because they can. Oil/gas, anything the world needs and you have the ability to own will make you a billionaire.
This helps to visualise it. But then you realise how ridiculous and obscene it is.
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
(Bezo's wealth has actually gone up since this was made. Add another $20bn or so to it).
I think they are using the American "Billion" and not the proper English one :)
Most people do these days. Particularly those who want to define a 'billionaire'. Including the OP.Originally Posted by Arcam
Some people think £1 million isnt that much nowadays , just to put £1 million into context .
If you gave away £1 every minute of every day for a year you would still have nearly half of it left after 1 year .
A million seconds is a little over 11 days.
A billion seconds is nearly 32 years.
A trillion seconds from now is past the year 33,700.
Last edited by DMC102; 23rd May 2024 at 12:14.
A million isn't much these days! Look at the price of houses!
Growing up in the 60s/70s, being a millionaire was something really special. Now even being a billionaire is far from a rarity.
Numbers on a screen, Just numbers on a screen.
Try walking into the bank and asking for your money :)
That’s it, I’m starting a worm hat business. Hats for worms. And I’ll pay my staff minimum wage.Find a niche business, underpay your staff and don’t have shareholders.
See you on the other side!
I really think they are quite rare still, rarer than millionaires in the 70’s.
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
- Bender Bending Rodríguez
Indeed.
Around my way many people are millionaires on paper when you consider the price of their properties.
An old friend of ours died recently and his house is up for just short of a million.
Cheers,
Neil.
A million sure ain´t what it used to be...some inflation huh.
Last edited by Passenger; 23rd May 2024 at 13:13.
True (in the grand scheme of things), it's just that in the 60s/70s the idea of an individual being a billionaire would be pretty much unimaginable. Yes, there were millionaires but it was still a dream financial position for most.
Some 50 plus years later and it's all changed, largely due to house prices I think. Many people are now paper millionaires - more by luck than judgement I would say.
Wealth (handled well) grows exponentially the wealthier you are. Beyond a certain point, it really does become easy to simply get richer and richer. The rich are accelerating away from the poor at warp speed.
Lotta sense, truth there M. IIRC all the billionaires under thirty inherited...launch altitude determines orbit...same at both ends of the wealth spectrum.
Last edited by Passenger; 23rd May 2024 at 13:22.
What interest would a billionaire be earning per day at the moment ?
The multi-Billionaires lifestyle is free,their interest funds there lavish living.
If Jeff Bezos had his total wealth (estimated at 200B give or take) invested at 5% - not a likely scenario, but theoretically possible - then he would earn almost 27.4M per day.
Frickin' mind boggling. I'd be more than happy with an hour of his time!
Last edited by Mouse; 23rd May 2024 at 15:32.
Took Paul McCartney 60 years to become a billionaire and he was a member of the biggest group ever. Ronaldo kicks a ball around in the desert with no one watching or giving a s**t and earns £250m in a year. It will take him 4 seasons to earn what Macca has earned in a lifetime.
Bonkers the money they throw at people these days.
I reckon if you had £1mn in gold coins in 1066, would easily worth a billion now without any additional investment
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Agreed. That is actually ridiculous.
Most seem to be stocks and shares or property, shorr we ing that if you already have it, money makes money
A more relevant comparison would be Taylor Swift, Beyonce or Jay Z
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This is really useful to appreciate the scale of a billion
Proper bonkers
Once you get over a few million it’s not that easy to spend it. It’ll give you more happiness if you give it away
The real scandal is that the rich don’t’actually’ own anything - all their properties areowned by companies/trusts and all their expensive travel/hotels are business expenses
Once you’ve bought the houses & cars, then with the interest earned in a high yield off shore fund that sees no tax, then it rises rapidly despite living off some of the interest.
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It's sort of shocking when you think how many folk are in houses now that are worth a million+ (particularly down south to be fair) that would have been bought for tens of thousands originally. Bizarre that buying a house at the right time has probably generated a lot of folk more money (on paper) than their entire working career.
I think I could manage. I'm happy to give anyone a hand if they're stuck spending their millions
I've dealt with a few millionaires & 1 billionaire at my previous HiFi business..... despite their wealth, they are not always the happiest of people.
It's all relative.
They have more power at the expense of others.
This staggering statistic rather puts the absurdity of extreme wealth in context (it dates from 2017, so has almost certainly become even more extreme now):
https://www.forbes.com/sites/noahkir...y-study-finds/
The three richest people in the United States hold more wealth than the bottom fifty percent of the populations (160 million people).
So clever my foot fell off.
It's hard to get wealthy working for someone else (pop and sports stars excepted). Owning the business that creates the wealth is the fastest route. An acquaintance in my class at university set up an online business (you'll have heard of it) in 2005. He sold it in 2008. For $850 million. A decent return.
Although perhaps not for the buyer. They sold it on in 2010. For $10 million.
Timing matters too
Ouch!!!It's hard to get wealthy working for someone else (pop and sports stars excepted). Owning the business that creates the wealth is the fastest route. An acquaintance in my class at university set up an online business (you'll have heard of it) in 2005. He sold it in 2008. For $850 million. A decent return.
Although perhaps not for the buyer. They sold it on in 2010. For $10 million.
Timing matters too
Yes, it frazzles my mind, and I can’t quite grasp the difference between a million and a billion. I remember the Irish fella of the chase,Dara Ennis (so) saying something like a million minutes ago is middle of January , 2022, but a billion minutes puts us in 121 AD…Marcus Aurelius just become leader of Roman Empire…勞
I found this podcast series quite interesting, gives some good insight into how people became billionaires and what they’re doing with it.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p...n=share-mobile
I remember a lad a few years above me at school, so nerdy he was scared of kids 5 years younger than him, glasses and back teeth, briefcase - the lot. I read a few years ago that he’s doing rather well now having invented and patented the facial recognition software used by most governments. I suppose that’s 1 way of doing it!
Ahhh got his revenge against the normies, the bullies, pay back for his many years of fear by getting wealthy empowering authoritarian states, nice one, kind of twisted poetic.
Perhaps - I suspect many nerdy founding members of 1980’s computer clubs are today’s hackers or billionaires!
When Sir John Ellerman ("The richest man in England") died in 1933, he left the equivalent of £3bn after death duties. Howard Hughes' net worth at death was the equivalent of $60bn. So while extreme wealth isn't new, its scale and distribution is much bigger. I wonder how many billionaires actually have £1bn in liquid assets, rather than as magic money fairy money?
I'd never heard of Sir John Ellerman, so thx for that. He was a clever, astute, and industrious bloke for sure. Amazing life story. A British Warren Buffet.
My parents lived next to a family that's on the Dutch Top500 list. He made a fortune in print and later digital storage of data. According to the Top500 list, his 'amount' was 290 million euros when he sold the company when he was 50 y/o. He drove a rickety Mitsubishi Pajero and she a secondhand Renault Twingo. When he was in his mid 50s, he was diagnosed with rheumatism. My mother told me that he said to her: "I would gladly give away all my money for the life without pain!"
I used to know one 'certified'(...) billionaire. He had a collection of old Jaguars and came to the workshop from time to time. For coffee, for help. He'd made his money in real estate. When he passed away, literally, a few thousand people attended the funeral. The local government had to use traffic controllers for the traffic in the village. What was not known to many, including me, was that he helped a lot of people in the area financially. He even had a special charity office with employees for that.
In many cases, we (the consumers) are responsible for the billionaire's wealth. We fork out 1000 euros for a new phone or 2000 for a MacBook. We are too lazy to go to a shop and order on Amazon. The 'unhealthy wealth' is not because they stole it, we gave it to them. The wealth of a throwaway guy like Andrew Tate only exists because we (or better: a certain audience) watch his s**t.
(Okay, some stole it, like Russia oligarchs).
Last edited by thieuster; 25th May 2024 at 05:59.
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