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Comment by soperj | Hacker News Reader

There's definitely another level of wealth there for the very few. Weird thought one day while dreaming, if I somehow managed to get a job where I cleared $1 million a week, it would still take me over 1500 years to attain the net worth of Warren Buffet. If I managed to up that and clear $1 million a day, I still wouldn't manage in my lifetime (224 years). That to me put in perspective the insanity of the wealth of the very rich.

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If you made $52M a year, with 5% growth per year in some super conservative investment, you'd have Warren Buffet's wealth in 87 years

If you got 10% it would be 50 years

Warren Buffet is definitely impressive, but compounding capital is a huge benefit

(Ok ok I ignored taxes, inflation blah blah)

Edit: just because this is fun: at $365M a year, you get WB wealth in 50 years at 5% and 32 years at 10%

Edit2: if you take Berkshire Hathaway's historical annualized return (20.8%), compounded quarterly, starting with $52M and no additional capital after that, you get WB wealth in 36 years.

To be fair that would get you WB's present wealth. If Warren Buffet was still alive and investing just like you did, you would never catch up. This is one of the reasons social stratification can increase over time.

He's still alive....

The wording is a bit confusing, but I believe they are saying that it would take that long to catch up to Buffett's current wealth. If you assume his assets continue to grow at the same pace as yours, you will never catch up.

Yeah sorry, I was assuming he will die sometime in the next 50-87 years being discussed and his money will be donated to charity. So Hypothetically if he became immortal or decided to give all the money to his children. Since historically the rate of return on capital is higher than the growth in income the gap between people who inherit a lot of capital and wage earners tends to increase over time.

A valid point, but missing the point of the question, which I take to mean "Warren Buffet's current level of wealth". I don't think the desire is to catch up to Mr. Buffet.

Yeah, goes to show, what you earn is really nothing.

Also proves out the opposite though too. Buffett, and his kids could spend $1 million a day and never run out.

Totally! This is actually how the rich lived back in the 1700-1800s in Europe. They had an inherited estate and just lived off of the interest earned on it. It's a big reason why it's a good idea to have a reasonably large "death tax" specifically to prevent the exponential buildup of unearned inter-generational wealth.

That being said, it's also very fragile in a way. Not having skills or a wage means your wellbeing is subject to the overall economy. A lot of multi-generational fortunes were wiped out in WW2 and the great depression and never recovered.

Obviously there is more wealth, the point was stated: "beyond a certain level of wealth it doesn’t make your life any better."

Another billion or even $100 billion isn't going to change Warren Buffet's life at all. In fact he'd probably trade it all just to be young again.

Warren Buffet is a funny example. He likely fails all three levels of wealth because he is infamously frugal [1]. This is probably a big part of what got him to where he is today. Your comment demonstrates that you think about money in terms of something you work for, which is why you value inflows more than what you have. When you value pennies, the compound interest on those pennies ends up making you invaluable.

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/articles/financialcareers/10/bu...

Are you including getting a return on your investments (with the assumption that Buffet wouldn't get a return on his investments)?

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