I think we’re severely undercounting billionaires

[Anonymous]

What difference does it make when all of those are a tiny fraction of the population?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope that one day my family will be undercounted in that category.

Billionaires should not exist.

[Anonymous]

My old boss Nik Storonsky is worth 8 billion. He is not in the USA. But most people never heard of him which shows how many billionaires there are in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The billionaire lists are based on available information only so they definitely undercount. I know a billionaire who made his riches in private equity. He's not on any lists. His net worth is supposedly around $1.3 billion.

As far as I know, it's just the Forbes 400...and you need at least $3.8BN to make the list. I am sure this person would make the list if $1.3BN was enough to make it.

[Anonymous]

I think you are probably right. My spouse knows 3 billionaires through his job and he isn't at a prestigious firm, particularly social, or top of his field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 2012 there were officially ~425 US billionaires, in 2025 there are officially around ~850. In this time the S&P 500 has done a 5-6x including dividend reinvestment.

So, either most people with 100-250M a decade ago are terrible at investing, or we just aren’t counting billionaires properly. I know someone who is the child of a billionaire and nothing comes up when searching their name.

I think the real number of billionaires in the US is at least 5000 maybe 10,000

I'd seriously doubt that.

The only part of government that ever seems to work diligently at their jobs is the IRS. They would know if there are new billionaires, unless they are here illegally and under the radar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope that one day my family will be undercounted in that category.

I don't.

Billionaires = sociopaths, zero exceptions. Every single billionaire is a person who could have helped millions upon millions of people while not reducing their own quality of life at all yet chose not to because the number in their bank account is more important than real people's lives. There is virtually nothing you can do with a billion but can't with hundreds of millions so the only reason for the excess is greed so extreme it should be classified as severe mental illness.

I don't begrudge people for being ultra wealthy. If you want a superyacht and a private jet and need tens or even hundreds of millions to do it then great, but if you reach the point where additional money does absolutely nothing and keep going you have something so wrong with you that you don't deserve to be a part of society. If you aspire to be a billionaire you're scum, end of story.

This is such a childish view of billionaires. Just listen to the richest man in the world talk about money. For these people their wealth is a byproduct of their achievements and not the end goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I certainly hope that one day my family will be undercounted in that category.

I don't.

Billionaires = sociopaths, zero exceptions. Every single billionaire is a person who could have helped millions upon millions of people while not reducing their own quality of life at all yet chose not to because the number in their bank account is more important than real people's lives. There is virtually nothing you can do with a billion but can't with hundreds of millions so the only reason for the excess is greed so extreme it should be classified as severe mental illness.

I don't begrudge people for being ultra wealthy. If you want a superyacht and a private jet and need tens or even hundreds of millions to do it then great, but if you reach the point where additional money does absolutely nothing and keep going you have something so wrong with you that you don't deserve to be a part of society. If you aspire to be a billionaire you're scum, end of story.

This is such a childish view of billionaires. Just listen to the richest man in the world talk about money. For these people their wealth is a byproduct of their achievements and not the end goal.

It also ignores how much wealth many billionaires help others create for themselves through high salary, high equity roles. Bezos has created tens of thousands of millionaires (if not more). Similar for the Google, Facebook, etc founders. More recently, OpenAI, NVIDIA, I could go on and on.