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?
the real reason this is not good is because it doesnt and cant easily capture what value flows to the customers and if the market is competitive all the value will eventually flow to the customer since pricing aboce marginal cost will get competed away and moat innovation is essentially making marginal cost lower
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.