Is Bill Gates Already a Trillionaire?

how much richer could bill gates really be welcome to rich people and today we'll be covering how bill gates one of the richest men in the world could actually be way richer in 2020 forbes released the 34th annual edition of the world's richest billionaires list and bill gates ranked number two with a net worth total of 98 billion dollars what's crazier is bill gates should really be worth way way way more than that which is hard to believe considering if you wrote down the names of the richest 500 public companies in the u.s put them in a hat and put one out at random bill gates would be wealthier than those companies 85 of the time that includes companies like starbucks goldman sachs and american express to name a few not only does gates have a lot of money but he's also able to earn a lot of money assuming a conservative interest rate of three percent bill gates could be making about three billion dollars a year that's also eight million dollars a day three hundred thirty thousand dollars an hour five thousand six hundred dollars a minute or ninety three dollars a second that means bill gates makes enough money a day to buy 100 elephants 10 ferraris and a 15-acre vineyard located in napa valley with just enough space to store all of his elephants and ferraris while this amount of money is more than any of us can ever dream of it's only a fraction of what bill gates should really be worth but before we get into that be sure to smash that like button and subscribe to see more videos about your favorite rich people also feel free to comment below and let us know who you want to see in our next video anyway let's get into it in case you've been living under a rock bill gates is the founder and former ceo of the microsoft corporation they pretty much invented this thing called the computer in case you haven't heard of it today the founders of startups quickly sell off their ownership in order to raise more money while starting up their business however gates did not do this back when microsoft was starting up in the 1970s when microsoft went public in 1986 gates still had a 49 stake of the entire company at that time gates sold four percent of his shares and in an instant earned over 20 million dollars in cash now that's a lot of dollars little did he know that four percent of microsoft would go on to be worth at least 60 billion dollars today had he not sold even while gates have to stake over the 1990s he became both the richest and youngest man in the world with over 20 billion dollars by 1995 and he could have been even wealthier at this point gates sold another 20 of microsoft for roughly 10 billion dollars but today that would have been worth another 300 billion dollars man does bill gates love losing money due to the success of windows 95 gates net worth ballooned and by the late 90s he was worth more than 100 billion dollars this was the peak of bill gates net worth in 2000 gates stepped down from his role as ceo to focus on the bill and melinda gates foundation over the next 17 years gates would donate significant amounts of microsoft to various charities as of today gates owns only 1.3 percent of tech supergiant microsoft that comes out to 19.5 billion dollars worth of stock the rest of his 98 billion net worth is diversified amongst other assets and investments so back to the question at hand exactly how rich should bill gates really be bill gates did the safe thing by liquidating many of his shares throughout the 1990s he couldn't predict the future because if he did gates could have been a trillionaire over the years microsoft maintained its operating systems monopoly and became a leader in other technological growth areas like cloud and advertising today microsoft is valued at over 1.5 trillion dollars gates owned 49 of microsoft before ipo now let's assume he never sold any shares up until now that microsoft stake would be worth 735 billion dollars alone based off of its market cap today but bill gates could be even richer than that just by reinvesting dividends which is a cash payout paid to shareholders every year gates could have easily owned over 70 percent of microsoft today that would make bill's net worth one trillion dollars with 50 billion dollars left on the side that means his investments generate for him 31 billion dollars in a year or 86.3 million dollars a day three million five hundred ninety five thousand dollars an hour fifty nine thousand dollars a minute or 998 dollars a second if bill gates hadn't sold his shares in microsoft only three u.s companies would be worth more than bill gates today not including microsoft that is in fact you would have to add up the value of more than 100 of the largest 500 public companies to reach gates trillion dollar net worth at this point it makes more sense comparing bill gates to countries instead as the world's first trillionaire bill gates would be the 33rd richest country sitting in between countries ireland and luxembourg think we're being aggressive with our estimate think again bill gates decided to leave tech for the life of luxury to enjoy the fruits of his labor retiring at the ripe old age of 44. but what if he had it bill gates was paid an annual salary largely in stock options which would have added to his percentage of holdings in the microsoft corporation all that taken together had bill gates not sold his stock and stayed at microsoft it's very likely he could be on his way to the world's first double trillionaire but unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the timeline we're living in that said bill gates is still richer than all of us could ever imagine and to his credit he and melinda have pledged to give away more than 500 billion dollars over their lifetime they actually created something called the giving pledge where billionaires pledged to give away the majority of their net worth over their lifetimes ironically while bill and melinda have donated 45.5 billion dollars so far they could have donated more than two times their pledge if they had only held onto their stock poor gates family so sad hopefully these charities never sold the stock anyway that's it for this time if you enjoyed this video please be sure to hit that like button and hit that notification bell to make sure you stay up to date on all our latest content until then we'll see you next time here on rich people

Channel: Rich People

Views: 4,225

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Keywords: trillionaire, first trillionaire, richest person in the world 2020, how much money does bill gates have, wealthiest person in the world, how does bill gates make money, first trillionaire in the world, jeff bezos net worth explained, who will be the first trillionaire in the world, who is the richest person in the world, bill gates microsoft history, trillionaire future, jeff bezos vs elon musk, wealthiest person in the world 2020, top 10 richest person in the world 2020 forbes

Id: HzUK3ejcJVI

Length: 6min 34sec (394 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 09 2021