Ever met a billionaire?

Back in the days when he owned the Buffalo Sabres, I shook Tom Golisano’s hand and briefly chatted to him. The Sabres have had three straight billionaire owners–I haven’t met the other two, John Rigas (probably because he’s languishing in prison now), or current owner Terry Pegula.

I ran into Warren Buffet at an airport once. I stopped to shake his hand and told him I thought Berkshire’s policy of not doing share splits alienated smaller investors like me. He sort of nodded and said, “yeah, I hear that a lot.” I don’t think I persuaded him. :slight_smile: He was a nice guy and we chatted for a few minutes about the insurance market.

I also once met Michael Dell at a corporate function. He seemed kind of obnoxious.

I met Murray from the Wiggles one time, he’s the single richest person I’ve ever met…

When I was working for Forrester Research in Cambridge, I was a regular part of the tour they would give visiting corporate big-wigs “…and here is our geek gaffa”. So if that counts, I’ve met Larry Ellison, and probably a few more.

As far as actually spending any time … Don Hall of Hallmark Cards. Don’t know his net worth, but owner of a multi-billion dollar privately held company has to count for something. Same thing with Ron Gidwitz of Helene-Curtis - I’m sure he got some very serious money when they sold out to Unilever.

Oh, and Mark Cuban.

I met Mark Shuttleworth, who is a billionaire in rand terms but probably not in dollar terms. He came to a Linux User Group meeting at my university, which is also his alma mater.

I was at a party. Someone introduced me to Kevin McClatchy, who I did not know was then the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He asked me if I had any questions about the Pirates and I gave a very smart-assed answer. You coulda heard a pin drop. Someone explained to me who he was. I left the party.

Interesting tidbit: Prior to Berkshire’s inclusion in the S&P 500, they split the class B shares 50 for 1. Berkshire B shares currently trade ~$75/share.

Although I never met him, I did work in a billionaire’s house, putting a 1,300 sq. ft. addition on his weekend place out near the mountains. The family is extemely reclusive and kind of disappeared off the map after the Patty Hearst kidnapping, so they’re off most people’s radar. This weekend house we were renovating is somewhere in the ballpark of 17,000 sq. ft. overall, looks more like a high-end hotel than a single-family dwelling, and is hidden in the middle of nowhere to the point where you’d have to know what you’re looking for to even find the outer gate (which is a couple km away from the main gate).

Anyway, the place was insanely posh – one of the final touches near the end of the job was to run specially imported carpet down the new hallways. The carpet priced out at $1,000 per lineal foot. No, that’s not an exaggeration. The price, of course, was of no concern. That’s what they wanted, so that’s what they got.

Our site superintendent, who did meet the guy a couple times, said he was surprisingly down-to-earth for a person who was raised in complete and utter privilege. I would have liked the chance to shake his hand. Oh well…

Our parent company chief exec has been round the office a few times - he’s not a billionaire, but still earns between $30-40m a year, and I figure once you get to that point it’s pretty much academic in terms of your lifestyle.

He took about 30 mins to tour our part of the office - we reckoned he earned about $7000 just on that short walkaround.

If he went to take a leak for 3 mins he’d still earn nearly $700. :slight_smile:

Yeah, does that modesty extend to knowing those really rich people too??

Former Astros owner and Baylor alumnus Drayton McLane, Jr. Is a family friend. Wiki says 1.6 but he’s as personable, charitable and kind as imaginable. Truly a good person.

Probably. He bought a sport team, albeit only a soccer team, on a whim. He was having a beer in the parking lot with the supporters before the game.

I’ve shaken hands with the Sultan of Brunei’s wives and exchanged a few words, during their Hari Raya celebration, if you can count people married to a billionaire.

Someone my mother exchanges pheasants with (breeds some exotic species) appears to collect English and Scottish castles- I’ve said hi to him, but I can’t remember his name for the life of me, or check exactly how wealthy he is, but it’s got to be close.

I really have no way of knowing if he was a billionaire, but the richest person I ever knew was William T. Young; I was the writer on a documentary we produced about him.

Young owned, among other things, a jet (a large one, not a Learjet), a Park Avenue Apartment, homes in several states, and most significantly, the Thoroughbred Storm Cat, which commanded stud fees of up to $500,000. That is just to bring the lady in; it doesn’t (necessarily) guarantee a foal. That horse sired many racing champions (hence the high fee); just look for “Cat” in any Thoroughbred’s name and chances are it’s one of his.

Anyway, Mr. Young loaned the initial seed money to the founders of Humana Inc. and at one time was its largest single shareholder. He was a very nice man, fairly modest, and lived in the house he built decades previously (which, while comfortable was by no means palatial). He was very generous, too, giving large sums to universities and other worthwhile causes.

I’m not sure. The Founder of the company I currently work for is very wealthy and apparently owns a number of large houses. I was at one of them recently for the company holiday party.

From what I’ve been told he’s founded a number of large companies over the years and made lots of money.

Is he a billionaire? I have no idea. He’s certainly at least a millionaire.

I’ve met some famous people that I’m sure are very well off: Al Gore, Senator John Edwards, Penn & Teller, but I doubt that any of them are billionaires.

Just an example of how astonishingly wealthy billionaires are. The Richest among the named people is Penn Jillette at an estimated 175 million net worth, he’s less then a fifth of the way to being a billionaire.

All those people have wealth beyond most peoples wildest dreams and can easily have anything most would want but when it comes to a contest of the richest they can’t even compete.

As a developer for MS for 20 years I’ve met Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Nathan Myhrvold, Jon Shipley and Steve Jobs. More than a few times. :slight_smile:

I attended a meeting with Jobs about 20 years ago. Our agency had recently bought a whole bunch of those NeXT machines. Jobs had met with higher management, and on his way to the airport, he swung by our lab to answer questions about object-oriented programming. He seemed very down to earth and approachable. I never cared much for his NeXT machines though.

Met, as in shake hands, no.
But Herbby Kohler (we are so close, I call him Herbby) can be seen at the golf course, down the road from my house, during tournaments.

I’ve met Steve Case and a couple other AOL billionaires back when I worked in the network operations center for AOL. Used to deal with them on a weekly basis. Steve was a pretty cool guy.

The owners of the joint I work at now are billionaires, I fix their PCs from time to time. They are also pretty cool.

Met Bill Gates at some computer show along the way, Comdex I think.

Slee