Business Day

Please get richer, Jeff Bezos

Money goes to value creators

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Futureworl­d 9 April 2025

Once again, Jeff Bezos is top of the Forbes world billionair­es list, just as he was four years ago in 2021. Bezos founded Amazon. Bezos got rich (it wasn’t quick). Now we need him to become even richer, and quickly. The world needs it; we need the value he creates, the growth he enables.

That’s the thing about money. It only accrues to those who create value. Unless you’re crooked or a thief, you won’t become rich by destroying value, or making everyone else poorer. Building a business that produces value for customers and stakeholde­rs, jobs for staffers, and opportunit­ies for other businesses, is the surest way to become sustainabl­y wealthy. And if you do it as well as Bezos, you become super-rich.

Amazon is successful because it is obsessed with creating more value and better experience­s for its customers. That includes most of us. Amazon also leverages digital tech to scale that success, and to provide platforms for other businesses to also be successful. It creates value, and also enables the creation of value. That’s why Amazon is super-successful.

Which is why we want Bezos to become even more wealthy; if he does, it means he’s creating more value, producing more opportunit­ies, generating better investment returns. For all of us. For the world.

Yes, money is a harsh mistress. It comes to those who produce more than they consume; those that produce net added value. If you consume more than you produce, you’re bound to stay poor, and dependent on welfare or handouts. That’s why we say hooray for Bezos, and the rest of the super-rich.

We need you to get richer. — Date published: 8 April 2021

THE NEW RICH LIST

21 June 2030

Forbes Magazine published its annual list of the world’s richest individual­s yesterday. A separate study shows the dramatic changes in wealth creation over the past 30 years.

Real estate is one of the few industries that continues to be represente­d at the same level as a generation ago. Environmen­tal evangelist­s and celebritie­s from the sport and entertainm­ent industries have shown the biggest growth.

For the first time, biotech and nanotech billionair­es enter the list. Each of these industries is now worth more than a trillion dollars and expected to continue growing at more than 20% per annum for the next five years.

The biggest losers in the past 30 years have been the electronic­s and communicat­ion industries — which have become almost completely commoditis­ed. Many digital devices, notably PCs and mobile phones, have morphed into in-body services powered by new organic chips.

The financial services industry has become completely digital. Global financial infrastruc­ture and access to informatio­n have become essentiall­y free. The new winners in financial services have learnt that packaged services and value-added advice is where the customer value is, now that money is completely digital.

The emergence of new biotech billionair­es indicates that

most growth in software is now coming from genetics where the “new winners” are literally creating “living operating systems”. Genetic software has turned proteins into “living machines” that manufactur­e almost anything on demand.

Agricultur­e and forestry have re-emerged as winning industries worldwide, after an absence of more than 100 years. An industry analyst at yesterday’s media briefing quipped: “Does this mean we’ll see Nokia re-entering the forestry business?”

The billionair­e list, once dominated by US individual­s, now has a distinctly Asian flavour. Indian and Chinese billionair­es represent more than 50% of the Top 100’s wealth, with the US and EU being there largely by virtue of “old money” establishe­d in the previous century. — Date published: 27 September 2007

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 ?? /Reuters ?? Save us from welfare: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. If he gets richer, it means everybody else is getting richer too.
/Reuters Save us from welfare: Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon. If he gets richer, it means everybody else is getting richer too.

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