Hacker News Reader

As a reference example, Rockefeller was worth over $300 billion in 2007 dollars:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Rockefeller&oq=Rockefeller&a...

The $300 billion was estimated by assuming that his assets expand with US economic output. That makes no sense because the US population grew substantially (and the US economy has diversified into many new fields).

One thing about Carnegie (as opposed to either Bezos or Gates) is that he came from very humble circumstances and in fact poverty.

Both Bezos and Gates had a bit of a leg up as they came from moderately well off families and were afforded expensive educations and opportunities. (Not attributing their wealth exclusively to this but think it was necessary in these cases).

Nope. Those guys managed to be quite a bit richer, by a substantial factor.