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Comment by ok_craig | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see these lists I always find it interesting to think about the fact that the only reason a Walton isn't in #1 is because Sam is long gone, and his value was split between his children, all 4 of whom have $30+ billion. Kinda crazy.

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Once you start to play that game, doesn't the conversation begin and end with John D. Rockefeller?

According to Wikipedia, Rockefeller is widely considered to be the richest person ever, but I guess this is interesting to me because the Walton heirs themselves are still making billionaire lists. But that's a good point. I wonder what the total Rockefeller net worth is among all heirs today.

"Rockefeller is widely considered to be the richest person ever"

But back in a time when life was not as good, for even rich people, as it is today. Not to mention medical care or even pain medication or air conditioning or any creature comforts (I'm remembering when cars didn't have even electric windows when I was really young).

Would you rather have 10 times the money you have and be back in the 1930's?

Similar also to computers. As anyone who has worked with a teletype, floppy drives, punch tape, or green ascii terminal can attest to vs. being able to ssh into your server from an ipad mini.

> Would you rather have 10 times the money you have and be back in the 1930's?

If I could keep my current knowledge, yes I think so. "Hey, guys, here's some capital; look into these 'semiconductor' things..."

I recognize that this is deliberately missing your point, however.

You are extremely too optimistic about your personal ability to move technical progress forward.

The amount of technological knowledge our civilization carries is enormous, and even if you are extremely knowledgeable, you are unlikely to know even 1% of it.

So yes, you would be able to move civilization forward in the magnitude of a few months. But that's about it.

Obviously, it's not something we can really test...

However, I do think you are severely underestimating the benefits, for technological progress, of:

1) Knowing that things are possible, 2) knowing approximately where to look, and 3) having a large (and growing) pile of resources to put behind these things.

Well, since I grew up on a reservation, I'll take now, but I don't think the health care has improved much (given the stats).

The Rockefeller claim is always dubious to me. I've read a lot of books on the man, and by every account I've seen his wealth peaked at between $1 and $2 billion before the great depression. Even a generous multiplier based on dollar devaluation, of say 30 fold, only gets you into Gates territory.

The only way you get to the notion that he was the richest ever, would be to speculate on what his empire would be worth today rather than just the dollar figure inflation adjusted.

Most likely, Bill Gates had the greatest private fortune in history at the peak of the Nasdaq bubble. Inflation adjusted it would be worth upwards of $150 +/- billion today.

The New York Times pegs Rockefeller at $192 billion, in real 2007 terms. Adjusting for inflation is an imperfect measure, and how the NY Times adjusts wealth is by adjusting it according to Rockefeller's relative share of GDP.

http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/20070715_GILDED_GRAPHIC....

That's almost silly as there where fewer people back then and a much smaller government as a share of GDP. I mean what %GDP did rich people have back in 1790 when there where 3,893,635 people 694,280 of them slaves and almost zero government spending.

I noticed this too - his four heirs listed are worth > $120 billion between them. Absolutely nuts.

Wikipedia puts him at $230 billion in 1992, crazy indeed.

EDIT: Wikipedia meme, move along.

Don't believe everything you read on Wikipedia. A week ago that was edited from $23 billion to $230,000 billion (i.e. $230 trillion), which is obviously preposterously wrong:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sam_Walton&dif...

A rather redundant comment, we wouldn't need to mention it as a source if at least the citation link worked, would we?

There is though still $120+ billion on his children in that list.

Yeah, but the Walmart stock price didn't start to really take off until the late 90's.

Oh Wikipedia.

Sam Walton was listed as being worth $7.3 billion in 1990: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1990/...

Pointing out the fact that the most successful store in history by a huge margin is one that neither you nor anyone you know shops at is a great way to illustrate the importance of market validation for startups.

Sorry, are you saying no one on HN shops at Walmart or that there is a more successful store?

It's a broad stroke for sure, but, yes, no one on HN shops at Walmart.

I hope you're joking. Shopped there tonight. It was there or a poorly stocked K-Mart. I find the local grocery store less ethical than the Walmart.

I'm not joking, but my point is lost in some confusion, so I'll add this caveat:

If your audience does shop at Walmart, or knows people who do, then pointing out Walmart's jaw dropping numbers will not be a good device for illuminating the importance of market validation. In fact it could encourage them carry on with the potentially mistaken assumption that the entire planet's needs/problems are the same as their own.

Silly comment. I don't especially like shopping at Walmart but there is one 5 minutes from me--in a fairly rural locale where there aren't a lot of especially close stores--so, yes, I shop there for a lot of items.

It depends on your audience of course. I probably wouldn't point that out in rural areas, where Walmart has more penetration.

That's the nature of all great fortunes. Generations pass, and over time they're dispersed and taxed away.

the cargill-macmillan family is probably the wealthiest in America, but they have a privately-held company and maintain their privacy well. ignore the net income numbers. ;)

the waltons are definitely number two, if not number one.

There are a lot more Cargill-MacMillians then Walton heirs and the Waltons are more recent so that makes a difference. These lists never really do well measuring private companies.

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