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But what’s the difference between $10M and $500M? In both cases, you can stop working for a living and do whatever you want with your life instead.

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Only if "whatever you want" means lounging on a beach or a yacht. Most of the people on that list had aspirations to impact the world as much as possible, and there isn't a limit to the wealth you can use to do that.

You couldn't start Social Capital on $10M, for example.

You can change the world on 10k, we believe otherwise because we're lazy, and to be fair, it's a lot more fun to have 10 million than 10 thousand.

Sure, if you have a bunch of money and throw that money at things, you'll "change the world", but that doesn't mean that's an effective way of making lasting or useful change.

Of course you CAN impact the world on $10k.

But the Gates Foundation doesn't run on $10k. You can found zero biotech companies on $10k. Money, alas, has value, believe it or not.

Well, the Gates Foundation is funded by a monopoly that intentionally restricted competition and progress in the computing industry for at least a decade, so maybe there's a better way of obtaining it.

I don’t much about Social Capital, but $10 million is plenty to start a fund. (plenty even if you only use a portion of it)

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