Without a lot of money, they don’t generate much interest.
The battle of the 0.01%
On Friday afternoon, Jeff Bezos became the 3rd richest person in the world with a net worth of $65B, overtaking Warren Buffett by a cool $300m and putting himself behind only Bill Gates ($78B) and Zara founder, Amancio Ortega ($73.1B). A few hours later Amazon’s stock dropped by 1% down to $744.86, “costing” Bezos $400m and dropping him back down below the Oracle of Omaha. It’s a nail biter folks...
Something to keep in mind when talking about net worth
It’s not always as much as it appears and these billionaires don’t have a vault full of money in their basement. For example, Carlos Slim was sitting pretty at #2 last year with $77.1B in the bank, but then the peso took a siesta while the Mexican government decided to increase regulations around his telecom company. $21.9B dollars later, Slim is down to #5. So Bezos and Buffett jockeying for #3 represents an 8% rise in Amazon’s stock last week, while Berkshire Hathaway remained relatively flat. Each person’s worth is almost entirely dependent on their company’s performance and right now Amazon’s trending pretty hard.
But this is all going according to Buffett’s plan
Warren isn’t trying to go to the moon and his stocks reflect it. Did you know a SINGLE share of Berkshire Hathaway Class A costs over $216k? In 1980, one share cost $300 and each subsequent decade grew to $7k in 1990, $50k in 2000, $100k in 2010, and $216k today. Turns out the stock has never been split and this was on purpose. Warren wants long-term partners rather than people day-trading his stuff trying to get rich because, frankly, those types of investors will be disappointed in lackluster day-to-day results. Buy a house or a single share of Berkshire Hathaway. Pick your poison.