Wild Bill, is, by most accounts, the wealthiest man on the planet with a net worth valued somewhere between $50 - $100 Billion. IMHO, Bill’s just wasting that money of his (Yes, I know, its HIS and he can do with it whatever he wants.) because he’s not really doing anything with it, other than trying to make more. He’s kicked a billion or two here and there for charitable programs, but let’s face it, if Bill wanted to change the world tomorrow, he’s got enough dough to do it and STILL have billions left over. So here’s what I’ve been thinking about. If I had Bill’s money, what would I do with it? I put two conditions on how I’d spend it. The first is that I had to spend at least a billion at a time (makes the math much easier) and the second is that anything I spent the money on had to be an area that currently ISN’T seeing a large influx of capital. Setting aside a billion so I can maintain “my” current standard of living and taking the average of his worth, I have tried to figure out how to spend $74 Billion. No matter how much time I spend thinking about this, I always run out of ideas before I run out of money. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
$1 Billion to find out if there really are the following creatures in the world: Big Foot, Yeti, and the Loch Ness Monster. If you can’t find any of these guys after blowing a billion on the effort, then odds are, they don’t exist.
$1 Billion for development of the “anti-gravity” drive developed by NASA researchers at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. See the Oct. 2000 issue of “Popular Mechanics” pgs. 40-43 for more info.
$1 Billion for a Lunar orbiter to take high resolution photos of the areas where Richard Hoagland says there’s alien artifacts, so he’ll shut the hell up about them!
$10 Billion to investigate guys who claim to have developed “free energy” devices.
$10 Billion to convert one square mile of Arizona desert to solar panels so that my buddies in Silicon Valley don’t have to worry about the lights going out on them, with enough juice left over to help power the rest of the US as well.
$1 Billion to guys like the Electronic Frontier Foundation to help keep me honest.
And that’s pretty much it. I blow $24 Billion and can’t figure out what to do with the rest. Anybody got any ideas? Using the two conditions I list above, what would you do if you had $74 Billion collecting dust in your wallet?
Mind you, this doesn’t mean that afterwards you’re going to end up broke, you can set up any kind of financial arrangements you want with the folks involved (after all, you are handing them a CHECK for more money than they’ve ever had before) so you could, in theory, make back MORE than you spent by doing such things as selling the broadcast rights for some of the projects to the highest bidder. (And there’d be PLENTY. If you’re Bill Gates and you’ve just plunked down a Billion on finding out about Big Foot/Yeti/Loch Ness Monsters EVERYONE is going to want to get in on the action!)
I know that folks’ll say Bill Gates is contributing to improving the world with his investments and charitable contributions, but that’s not really the issue. The things he’s spending his money on will change the world GRADUALLY if at all. I say he should be trying to change the world NOW and spend his money on things that AREN’T being given large influxes of cash. Remember, NOBODY was shelling out big bucks for personal computers until AFTER Jobs and Woznak (sic?) slapped together the first Apple in their garage. So come on SDMBers, open your wallets and start spending Bill’s money!!!
Well, assuming I had $50 billion of actual money, I would do the following.
Set aside ten billion for the construction and continual maintenence of the World’s Largest Library, in New York City.
Set aside another ten billion to send poor kids with good grades to college and/or grad school.
Hire some mercenary forces to assassinate the following evil dictators:
Saddam Hussein
Fidel Castro
Osama bin Laden
Slobodon Milosovic
Pat Robertson
Hillary Clinton
The Teletubbies
Spend ten billion on a trans-continental, jet-powered maglev train, just because it would be cool.
Start an airline whose planes had comfy seats for everyone, and stewardesses that show lots of cleavage
Start the Friedo School of Computer Science, which has the unique distinction of being the only school in the world that actually teaches computer science the correct way. (Logic gates, circuit design, ASM, and then programming!)
Build myself a bigass house with my own small militia.
Yeah, but its not like Bill couldn’t liquify what assets he’s got very quickly. After all, Microsoft (strange name that, it means “small and not hard” is Gates trying to tell us something?) supposedly has enough cash reserves on hand that they could maintain their current levels of spending for TWO YEARS without seeing a dime come in! Besides, this is all hypothetical and its not like Bill will ever see any of this and actually DO any of the things we’re suggesting. Where’s your sense of fun, man?
Well, these two have to be thrown out on a technicality as NEITHER of them have anything to do with changing the world, but otherwise the list’s pretty cool.
I’d build 3 monuments – one in San Franscisco, one in New York, and a third in either Austin or Colorado Springs or some other good city (New Orleans?).
I’d build them to last, be virtually indestructable without destroying the contents, and perhaps figure out a way to escape the property taxes in perpetuum.
Each would have a button on it that when pressed would dispense enough money to buy a buttered croissant and a cappuccino, say $6, and which resets every three minutes.
It would take twenty three thousand four hundred and forty nine and one quarter years for the a full 74 billion dollars to be exhausted if all three buttons were pressed every three minutes continuously.
There are some practical problems, like inflation or whether the scrip would still be worth anything at some point in the future. But I like the artistic statement of it.
well i’d buy myself a beautiful tropical island paradise and stock it with naked bikini babez…wooohoooo!!!
Every doper iz invited to share my island and the babez!!! oh and for female doperz…sorry no shirtless hunks allowed…well doper babes can enjoy all the male doperz who are on my island 'cos of the naked bikini babez
I would invest it all in research for space travel.
Perhaps build a space station (or part of one with only 74 billion). Or just spend it on finding a more efficent way of getting into space and back. (people at least)
And if I am really lucky. I’ll get both, then I can start my own money making buisness to get people in space and enjoy the luxaries of being tourists in my space station.
Shortly after than I would spend all available funds into funding research into space mining. If that turns out well, then I can sell minerals and products to other companies who wish in on my sucess. (would be cheaper to buy them from me than to rocket them into space from earth)
Would definatly attempt to keep laws from being passed outlawing monopolies in space.
Then to the moon. A colony of people, tourism, wierd and twisted amusment parks planned by people I’ll hire. And if I am the first on the moon, and wish to claim it, (assuming my success is good enough) I’ll claim it for the myself, and arm mercanaries or such to defend it.
Oh, to change the EARTH…ok, uhm, I wouldn’t be on the planet, thats changing it for the better.
Apparently, there’s a British researcher who’s undertaken the task of finding out if there really are Yeti! In fact, to prove my point that Bill COULD make money doing this, the guy’s being sponsored by a British TV network. See, Bill, you could plunk down a couple of billion and somebody’d buy the rights to cover the expedition and you could make money back off the merchandising, especially if you hired someone like Steve Irwin to lead the thing! Here’s a link to the site detailing the story:
