Comment by jayalpha | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jayalpha | Hacker News Reader

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Are Apple Google and Facebook so rich? And how do you measure it? (Have not read the link).

t the time of his death in 1937, John D. Rockefeller was worth an estimated $1.4 billion. Rockefeller was the first man in history to ever accumulate more than $1 billion (nominal dollars) in total wealth.

Rockefeller's $1.4 billion net worth in 1937 was 1/65th of the total GDP of the United States. In 2011, the total GDP of the United States was $15.09 trillion. If somebody currently had 1/65th of the total GDP of the United States, they would have a fortune of over $232 billion.

It's also important to note that Rockefeller gave away over $500 million (nominal dollars) over his lifetime, which helped to significantly shrink his net worth.

> Rockefeller was the first man in history to ever accumulate more than $1 billion (nominal dollars) in total wealth.

The first person to reach $1 billion USD isn't that impressive, since USD has only been around for a short period of time.

Other people before Rockefeller were richer, including a large number of monarchs, emperors, etc.

Augustus Caesar, for instance, was once estimated to have a personal net worth of $4.7 trillion, substantially more than Rockefeller.

When comparing people like that, there's an important differentiation - was it Augustus' personal wealth, or was his wealth and the country's wealth considered the same? A lot of monarchs from the times before the monarchy and state were separate entities like they usually are nowadays have a whole country's wealth.

But I hope an economist or historian can answer that.

> 232 billion

I mean, there's a guy coming pretty close to that right now.

He just lost 25% of his money.

How was it "his" money?

To explain: My wife founded a startup and owns it. But we both worked really hard in the beginning, and I've lost quite some income as an opportunity. So the value of Amazon if this is the same rightfully to some part belongs to his wife and that part not "his" to lose.

Nowadays wealth is no longer really hoarded by individuals, but shared with employees and shareholders in the form of stocks and whatnot.

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