Forbes' rich list is out and the top three hasn't changed.
Just in case you were worried that all of Bill Gates philanthropic efforts were endangering his spot on top of America's rich list, we can assure you that they're not. While Gates may not be the richest man in the world, he is most definitely still the richest man in the United States of America. In fact, the top three on the list remained in the same spots they had last year, or, in Gates' case, the same spot he's had for the last 19 years running. Funnily enough, Bill Gates, aged 56, is also the youngest person in the top 10. He's outgunned, however, by 47-year-old Jeff Bezos, who placed number 11.
Forbes reports that Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison were up $7 billion, $7 billion and $8 billion, respectively. Bill Gates now has a net work of $66 billion, while the jump to second place is a $20 billion difference. Larry Eillison comes in just behind Warren Buffet's $46 billion net worth with a net worth of $41 billion. Rounding out the top five are the Koch brothers, Charles and David Koch, who are each worth $31 billion. Spots six, seven, eight, and nine are all occupied by members of the Walton family (Wal-Mart), while number ten on the list is Michael Bloomberg with his net worth of $25 billion.
The tech industry is very well represented on this year's list. Aside from Gates, Ellison, and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Google's Larry Page and Sergey Brin also appear in the top 20, along with Steve Ballmer and Paul Allen. The top 50 includes Michael Dell, Steve Jobs' wife Laurene and her family, Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar (eBay), and Eric Schmidt.
Interestingly, Gates and Buffett have managed to retain their titles as the first and second wealthiest people in America while also earning themselves the title of the most generous guys in the world. According to Forbes, the two have given away a combined $45 billion.
Hats off to them both. Everyone with a boat of money should act like that.
Thank you to everyone who has donated.
To me, these lists always pose the question, how much is enough? At what point do people say, "hey, monetary systems were a great way to get us away from bartering, but it shouldn't be a system that segregates wealth from the majority of the human beings on the planet" . . .
Hats off to them both. Everyone with a boat of money should act like that.
Thank you to everyone who has donated.
If you hate not having it so much, then either don't upgrade or do upgrade and put one in yourself with Classic Shell, ViStart, Start8, or any other such program. It's free.
amd should ask these guys for a bailout.
I'm sure you can find a plane ticket to head to over to socialist Europe or the People's Republic of China and meet plenty of people who agree with you.
Jason, I disagree with you on this. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett both earned their money, nobody can deny that. They're both geniuses and contributed fundamentally in their separate fields. I'd be more concerned about the society that decided to take the money that they rightfully earned. Just because "there's more of us than there are of them" doesn't entitle our government to take away what they have earned. When humans are no longer compensated for hard work and originality, we get lazy and unproductive, breaking the system for everyone.
Also, consider how incredibly generous these two men are. If they earned their money on the backs of slave labor and through oppression, we'd be having a different discussion. But I'd rather have them have the money than drug lords or arms dealers or slavers, etc. Gates and Buffett are making a substantial positive difference in the world through the blessings they have. So please don't equate "they have and I don't" with "I deserve and they don't".
I'm a long, long, long, long way from having that kind of money. But as long as we live in a society that rewards hard work and originality, I can dream of prosperity. And if our society remains capitalist, that dream can be realized someday. And I am so grateful for that.
Bail-outs tend to not work and AMD doesn't need one anyway.
No Mexico is not part of America, its on the same continent, north America, but this was the "richest people in America" the country, not the continent.
Additionally Slim has made at least part of his fortune in a questionable way. He own's virtually all mobile and land line phone companies in Mexico, and charges the highest rates of any country for phone usage in the world.
I don't want to achieve what he did, I want my fellow man to be able to live and no longer struggle. There for I am not biased to be controlled by this fiat "cash" imaginary land. Keep reaching for that brass ring..pfft.
Bill gates was an expert programmer in a time where there were far fewer expert programmers. He could be said to have gotten lucky in that he bought the origins of DOS for a thousand bucks from some guy and sold it to IBM for millions or something like that (kinda a dick move), but he still did a lot. He wasn't just some average guy.
Warren Buffett makes his money by buying dying companies and bringing them back to life. They got their money by being smart and they shouldn't have it taken away unless they broke laws that say otherwise. Whether or not other people deserve to have issues that these people don't have isn't what's being questioned. Besides, that Warren and Bill have put in over $45B in charity would imply that they're trying to help the common person.
Technically, America refers to the Americas (North, Central, and South). The proper name for the US is the United States of America. Any other country in the Americas could technically refer to themselves the same way. Brazil of America. Peru of America. Canada of America. Mexico of America.
True, but when we say American, it's almost always referring to the USA as far as I'm aware.