This is super wrong! Honestly they should probably take this down because of how wrong it is.
Where is Norman Borlaug?
Looking only at stocks is spitting in the face of every economist in the history of humanity. And they didn't even do that right. A company is not one person for starters! And what about if your company causes another company's stock to decrease in value, thereby destroying wealth? This is embarrassing.
I commented elsewhere that I think that arguing over the definition of "wealth creation" is pointless - obviously there are a million different subjective interpretations of that, and I at least give credit to the author to fully specifying his (admittedly very narrow) methodology.
That said, I think your point about "And what about if your company causes another company's stock to decrease in value" is an interesting and valid one even under the author's very narrow definition. Just take the current (at least very recent) phenomenon where tons of SaaS companies completely tanked due to AI fears. How does Jensen Huang get allocated some of that "wealth destruction"?
Sure, we can argue about whether it is measuring that correctly, but my point is trying to look at how well billionaires have done at creating wealth for others.
All these commenters listing people for inclusion who created a great deal of wealth but aren't/weren't billionaires (many of them not even wealthy) are missing the point of the list.
No, that's not my point, as a commented elsewhere. Even restricting it to "outside investor returns generated by billionaires", this list is only looking at outside investor returns since the IPO and in excess of T-bill returns.
Drew Houston generated tons of wealth for outside investors, but only for pre-IPO investors, hence he's on the list with a -3B number, because post-IPO investors have done so poorly.
Comments here are all arguing over the list without reading or understanding the methodology.
My biggest issue with the methodology is that it really only counts stock returns of people not including founder in excess of the T-Bill rate since the IPO. So companies, like Dropbox, that are less than where they were on IPO date give their founders huge negative value created for others, despite the fact that lots of people besides Drew Houston got rich as pre-IPO investors.
I still think the methodology is useful - collectively, every investor since the IPO into Dropbox has done pretty horribly. But that's also pretty obvious just looking at the stock price.
Obviously there are a billion different possible interpretations of what "wealth" could mean, but even if you only take the very narrow definition of "outside investor returns", this is only looking at post-IPO returns.
Read the article. It calculates wealth creation in a very specific way, looking at public company value minus what the founder/largest shareholder holds. Obviously that doesn't apply to Linus Torvalds.
Obviously this is only a very small slice of what "wealth" means, but it's easy to calculate and objective.
Yes I was seeing it as a list of people. Even if you ignore Linux and focus only on the amount of wealth Git has created... ...I still think he'd be at the top.
This seems very lazily/sloppily put together. I think it would have been far more useful if a more involved and holistic approach to measure/estimate the proposed idea was taken.
Yeah, it only pays pensions, retirement accounts, provides liquidity for new industries, which then grow and provide jobs, and has been demonstrably one of the best inventions for pulling billions out of poverty and increasing standard of living generation after generation for hundreds of years over hundreds of countries on the planet.
What is concerning to me is how many people in this comment section have little to no reading comprehension if they even read the site at all. The site is clear of what exactly they are calculating and how (in a specific and narrow way - whether you agree with it or not).
There should be some kind filter/litmus test to prevent people commenting here if they didn't view/read the site first [1]. It will save the rest of us some time reading alot of these garbage comments[2].
[1]: yes I know this is hard problem to solve (if solvable at all), but my general point stands. HN comment quality is steadily degrading because people cant be bothered to RTFA
[2]: Probably should just stop coming here in the first place
Warren Buffet is number one. He has shown generations how to invest and think about investing (not only using Bershite Hathaway). He would have been a perfect president of the Unitef States!
Not talking about Eric Schmidt specifically, but this list seems to irrationally over allocate value creation to founders rather than the team that supports them?
The point is that it's a direct response to Forbes list of richest individuals. It's the same format, but arguing that measuring how much someone earned is a bad metric
At a glance, this seems heavily recency-biased and not adjusted for inflation. I would expect a lot of other names that predate the 21st century to be on the list. The methodology page doesn't even contain the word 'inflation'.
> Each figure is the shareholder wealth a founder’s company created, now held by index funds, pensions, employees and co-founders, minus what the founder kept.
How is the "Multiple" column calculated? Is it wealth created "For Others" / "Self"? I can't get to that number for anyone if this is the formula. And Elon Musk's mutliple looks downright wrong if he created $357B for others and $917B for himself with a multiple of 1.4×
Personally, I thought the list was about the criteria for wealth creation—like a standard for discovering the most valuable knowledge, technologies, or research papers. But it turns out it's just a slightly different rich list. So what value did Buffett actually create?
I was expecting to see a list of technologies like Linus's Linux or the transistor, but it's just a list of rich people.
The strangeness of capitalism seems to be that it misjudges value that hasn't been financialized.
I think the title is misleading—I should probably correct it to something like:
'A list of donors who contributed a lot of dividends and capital gains to Wall Street pension funds and index funds.'
Elon musk is among the top of the list. He is also the founder of companies that created and advanced a lot of technological wealth in the world. A huge contribution.
But it's far from certain that the recent SpaceX stock will create a lot of wealth for retail owners. Maybe even the opposite.
SpaceX is the only one I know that he founded and which, through their satellite network advanced "technological wealth".
Also this lists definition is:
> "Each figure is the shareholder wealth a founder’s company created, now held by index funds, pensions, employees and co-founders, minus what the founder kept."
I'm no economist but I'm having a hard time grokking any meaning out of this metric.
So if Elon decided to sell all his shares today (and likely destroy his companies in the process), he'd shoot to the top of the list? What's the point in that?
My 401k has benefitted from the growth of e.g. Amazon for sure, but the main 'wealth' I get from them is my ability to buy anything and get it delivered in a day. That is, I benefit from their infrastructure existing, regardless of who the shareholders are.
> So if Elon decided to sell all his shares today (and likely destroy his companies in the process), he'd shoot to the top of the list? What's the point in that
It looks like the methodology involves subtracting the founder's entire net worth, so selling the shares would leave him in the same place.
Hmm you are right. But looking closer at the methodology, I find myself even more confused.
It seems the metric is something like "most successful stewards of shareholders' investments" which I guess is interesting. But now I'm tripped up on why the metric would only consider founders rather than CEOs more generally. Imagine Gates didn't start Microsoft, but instead became its CEO a month after some other founder started it and that founder sat on the beach in Hawaii while Gates did well, what he did. The founder would appear on this list but not Gates.
Edit: basically, all my intuitive "this doesn't make any sense" alarm bells are going off, but I think I need someone who really knows what they're talking about to help me understand exactly why, or what would be a more sensical version of this
Where is Norman Borlaug?
Looking only at stocks is spitting in the face of every economist in the history of humanity. And they didn't even do that right. A company is not one person for starters! And what about if your company causes another company's stock to decrease in value, thereby destroying wealth? This is embarrassing.
That said, I think your point about "And what about if your company causes another company's stock to decrease in value" is an interesting and valid one even under the author's very narrow definition. Just take the current (at least very recent) phenomenon where tons of SaaS companies completely tanked due to AI fears. How does Jensen Huang get allocated some of that "wealth destruction"?
You could even add politicians. How much wealth did FDR create?
Norman Borlaug was not wealthy.
Except it's not even that, even if you still only look at outside investor returns.
All these commenters listing people for inclusion who created a great deal of wealth but aren't/weren't billionaires (many of them not even wealthy) are missing the point of the list.
Drew Houston generated tons of wealth for outside investors, but only for pre-IPO investors, hence he's on the list with a -3B number, because post-IPO investors have done so poorly.
My biggest issue with the methodology is that it really only counts stock returns of people not including founder in excess of the T-Bill rate since the IPO. So companies, like Dropbox, that are less than where they were on IPO date give their founders huge negative value created for others, despite the fact that lots of people besides Drew Houston got rich as pre-IPO investors.
I still think the methodology is useful - collectively, every investor since the IPO into Dropbox has done pretty horribly. But that's also pretty obvious just looking at the stock price.
Obviously there are a billion different possible interpretations of what "wealth" could mean, but even if you only take the very narrow definition of "outside investor returns", this is only looking at post-IPO returns.
I would expect him to be in one of the top spots.
Obviously this is only a very small slice of what "wealth" means, but it's easy to calculate and objective.
We should outlaw all markets, right?
Other possible titles:
Logic fully breaks down when looking at ratios. If you have 1 cent, your ratio explodes.Reed Hastings may be the most regretful. He kept just 1.4% of the eventual value:
https://anti-forbes-list.vercel.app/founder/reed-hastings
There should be some kind filter/litmus test to prevent people commenting here if they didn't view/read the site first [1]. It will save the rest of us some time reading alot of these garbage comments[2].
[1]: yes I know this is hard problem to solve (if solvable at all), but my general point stands. HN comment quality is steadily degrading because people cant be bothered to RTFA
[2]: Probably should just stop coming here in the first place
> Each figure is the shareholder wealth a founder’s company created, now held by index funds, pensions, employees and co-founders, minus what the founder kept.
I was expecting to see a list of technologies like Linus's Linux or the transistor, but it's just a list of rich people.
The strangeness of capitalism seems to be that it misjudges value that hasn't been financialized.
I think the title is misleading—I should probably correct it to something like:
'A list of donors who contributed a lot of dividends and capital gains to Wall Street pension funds and index funds.'
That's news to me
It needs some improvement.
Elon musk is among the top of the list. He is also the founder of companies that created and advanced a lot of technological wealth in the world. A huge contribution.
But it's far from certain that the recent SpaceX stock will create a lot of wealth for retail owners. Maybe even the opposite.
SpaceX is the only one I know that he founded and which, through their satellite network advanced "technological wealth".
Also this lists definition is:
> "Each figure is the shareholder wealth a founder’s company created, now held by index funds, pensions, employees and co-founders, minus what the founder kept."
How should this even remotely apply to Elmo?
So if Elon decided to sell all his shares today (and likely destroy his companies in the process), he'd shoot to the top of the list? What's the point in that?
My 401k has benefitted from the growth of e.g. Amazon for sure, but the main 'wealth' I get from them is my ability to buy anything and get it delivered in a day. That is, I benefit from their infrastructure existing, regardless of who the shareholders are.
It looks like the methodology involves subtracting the founder's entire net worth, so selling the shares would leave him in the same place.
It seems the metric is something like "most successful stewards of shareholders' investments" which I guess is interesting. But now I'm tripped up on why the metric would only consider founders rather than CEOs more generally. Imagine Gates didn't start Microsoft, but instead became its CEO a month after some other founder started it and that founder sat on the beach in Hawaii while Gates did well, what he did. The founder would appear on this list but not Gates.
Edit: basically, all my intuitive "this doesn't make any sense" alarm bells are going off, but I think I need someone who really knows what they're talking about to help me understand exactly why, or what would be a more sensical version of this