According to the 1999 Proxy statement, Gates made$400,213 in salary, plus a bonus of $223,160. He is also the sole shareholder of Corbis, Inc., to which Microsoft paid $276,000 in licensing fees. He does not get paid to be a Microsoft board member, though is he recompensed for expenses.
Bill also is an author, and his new book was the NYTimes bestseller list.
Just so you know, Gates owns 787,055,600 shares of MSFT, or 15.3%. Mrs. G owns 216,460 of her own.
There is one question I have for all these financial pundits. When they say so-and-sos worth has dropped $x,xxx,xxx,xxx, what are they comparing it to? The stock’s high price? Yesterday’s price? The price when Gates bought it? Somehow I doubt that Bill’s shares were all bought at the high price; after all, MSFT had a 2 for 1 spilt last March, and seven(!) splits since 1987.
According to the 1999 Proxy statement, Gates made$400,213 in salary, plus a bonus of $223,160. He is also the sole shareholder of Corbis, Inc., to which Microsoft paid $276,000 in licensing fees. He does not get paid to be a Microsoft board member, though is he recompensed for expenses.
Bill also is an author, and his new book was the NYTimes bestseller list.
Just so you know, Gates owns 787,055,600 shares of MSFT, or 15.3%. Mrs. G owns 216,460 of her own.
There is one question I have for all these financial pundits. When they say so-and-sos worth has dropped $x,xxx,xxx,xxx, what are they comparing it to? The stock’s high price? Yesterday’s price? The price when Gates bought it? Somehow I doubt that Bill’s shares were all bought at the high price; after all, MSFT had a 2 for 1 spilt last March, and seven(!) splits since 1987.
Big Bill brough home around $650K in salary and bonuses in 1999, plus another $279K in licensing fees from MSFT (too complicated to explain here).
He also wrote a best-selling book last year, “Business @ The Speed of Thought”, so he probably got a big chunk of change coming from that. I think we can assume he made a million bucks in 1999, and will do about the same this year.
What I wonder about these news items on business losses is, “what’s your benchmark?” In other words, Bill Gates lost umpty-ump dollars relative to when–yesterday? last year? from the original date of purchase? (the last is the only accurate one).
Umm, not acording to GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Your net worth at any time is the combined net value of your assets.
I’ll bet that you don’t even use your above logic (your net worth is only affected when you sell something) when you think in terms of your own assets.
For example, If I ask you what the house you purchased ten years ago is worth, do you think in terms of what you paid for it back when you purchased it, or do you think in terms of what you could get for it if you sold it today?
When you think of the value of your four-year-old car, do you think in terms of what you originally paid for it or what you could get for it if you sold it today?
The stocks in your portfolio are the same sort of animal - they’re worth what you can get for them today. No more, no less. And yes, that value will change by this time tomorrow.
[QUOTE}There is one question I have for all these financial pundits. When they say so-and-sos worth has dropped $x,xxx,xxx,xxx, what are they comparing it to? [/QUOTE]
Those article always have a time reference in them. I read one this morning that said that Gates lost $4 billion last week and Larry Ellison lost $7 billion. That would be comparing their respective net worths at the end of the week to their net worths at the beginning of the week.
Yeah, Gates made quite a bit of money in a year on his stock. So I wonder about his tax guy? ‘How much did you make this year?’ ‘$100B’ ‘okay, your tax is $65B’ ‘Is that cash or check?’
BTW, the market loss was about $1.9T [trillion] friday.