Microsoft's Bill Gates Is Richest Tech Billionaire With $78 Billion Fortune (gulfnews.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from GulfNews: The "100 Richest Tech Billionaires In The World 2016" list has been topped by Microsoft founder Bill Gates with an estimated fortune of $78 billion. The titans on Forbes' second annual list of the world's richest in technology are worth a combined $892 billion, six percent more than a year ago. Just over half of the 100 richest in tech are from the U.S., including eight of the top 10 richest on the list. Forbes said the second richest person in tech Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is also the biggest gainer on the list this year and has an estimated $66.2 billion fortune, an increase of $18.4 billion since this list was released last year. That puts him ahead of Oracle chairman Larry Ellison, who comes in on the fourth spot. Ellison was also beaten by Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who climbed from fourth to third place thanks to a 30 percent jump in the value of Facebook's stock; he is now also California's richest person, another title that previously belonged to Ellison.

Comments

Ups and Downs

[speedplane]

This list is interesting, but hardly anything new. I'd like to see a list of tech millionaires and billionaires that lost the most amount of money. That is, take their peak net worth and subtract their current net worth, and rank the decline. I'm sure Elizabeth Holmes would make that list.

So, who do they support for president?

[El Cubano]

Remember that the huge gains of these individuals have been made during the administration of a president who had as wealth redistribution, a la Robin Hood, as a stated goal of his presidency. Now, go look at who each of these billionaires, with a b, is supporting for president, and ask yourself if that candidate is really going to "stick it to the rich, and help the middle class" or if the rich will keep getting richer.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for people being compensated for their efforts and have nothing against people taking risk and profiting from the risk taking. But, if you happen to think that these folks got where they are by acting against their own interests, you are definitely kidding yourself.

Re:So, who do they support for president?

[Tom]

I am all for people being compensated for their efforts and have nothing against people taking risk and profiting from the risk taking.

Me neither. Sadly, this discussion is always brought to an end with the oldest strawman in the world. Because apparently if you point out that the differences are just crazy, it means you are against differences at all.

Where is the proper wording to say that "I want rich to be rich, I'm fine with that. I just want them to be rich, not super-crazy insanely-boggles-the-mind beyond-all-imagination hyper-rich." ?

There is no amount of personal effort or risk taking that justifies taking in billions. If you want to know how much personal risk is actually worth, look at what the hazard pay we give to people whose job includes risking their lives. There's no greater risk than that.

I'd be completely ok with someone having 78 million of personal fortune, or even of someone making 18.4 million profit in a good year. But we are talking about people who make a thousand times that. The only reason we are not on the street to hang them when thousands of people are actually in starvation poverty is that the mind boggles and we simply can't comprehend this amount of money.

The divide between the rich and the poor today is much bigger than it was at the time when the famous "if the people don't have bread, why don't they eat cake?" quote was allegedly made.

crazy

[Tom]

The fact that this article comes right above the "A Bit of Cash Can Keep Someone Off the Streets For 2 Years or More " one says a lot.

So from the gain of one year alone, one of these guys by himself could save 18.4 million people from being homeless for two years, meaning he could do that every other year and his net worth would still rise.

But the USA has less than 600,000 homeless. I understand the other article is about people who are on the edge of becoming homeless, so it's hard to apply it in general, but let's just do it anyway because everyone who is homeless at one point became homeless. Let's also imagine that on average, such a person would need 2-3 such cash infusions to permanently turn their life around and not end on the street at all. Meaning it takes around 900 million a year to end homelessness forever. Or in other words, with the money that one of these super-rich people make in two weeks, homelessness within the USA would be over.

Which begs only one question: Why is homelessness still a thing?