With Amazon on my mind now, I’m reminded of a discussion I had with my wife about the inhumanity of Jeff Bezos, currently the richest man in the world. He’s now valued at nearly $200 billion.
Two hundred billion dollars! He makes around $5,790 a second. More money than any person could ever spend in a lifetime.
Does he engage in philanthropic efforts? Yeah, and those are worthy of note and respect. Could he do a lot more with his gobsmacking, immense wealth? Of course. Does he also devalue the lives of his employees to the point where his philanthropic efforts lose a lot of their luster? Fuck yes.
To be worth that much money, and to hoard it as he does, in a time when so many people in the world are struggling daily in poverty, makes him a greedy dragon inside a gloomy mountain. Indeed, it makes him a villain.
Likewise, anyone worth over a billion dollars could easily be considered villainous.
Give this fascinating and horrifying data visualization a look to consider just how insane this sort of personal wealth really is. As your fingers tire of scrolling, understand that having this much money isn’t worthy of envy. It’s hostile. It’s hateful. That wealth is grown on the backs of all the people, like you and me, that Bezos, and others like him, gleefully stepped on to get to where he is now.