Has any one ever earned a billion dollars?

[Stryder]

Seriously.Earned?

[hamerfan]

1. Maybe

I think I've earned it. I've just never been paid it.

[MercutioATC]

2. Of course.

Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Larry Ellison are the top three.

There are plenty of billionaires who inherited their money, but there are also those who earned it.

[Warpy]

9. They all started on third base

brought up in families that could afford to pay for things like Ivy League educations.

There is an old saying that your first million is the hardest. After that, money begets money and it just continues to snowball.

[MercutioATC]

11. Not Larry Ellison...

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/ell0bio-1

[dkf]

3. If every person in China paid $1 to download one song that artist would be a billionaire plus.

Did that person earn that $1?

I would argue yes they did.

[Stryder]

4. I know people have MADE a bill and then some.

I was just wondering in these early hours of labor day.(hic)
At 45000 a year.I need to work 22,222 of those years to make that 1 followed 9.
Now I'm probably gonna make it 50 years of employment (Or 60 if we all share the sacrifice).
So my great grandson to the 441st will bring the family fortune to that magic number.
That seem right to you?

[dkf]

5. Well if that is what you teach your kids and what they teach their kids your line just may take that

long.

Are you planning for them to get college educations even?

[Stryder]

6. Teach them math?

My kid's a LPN close to her RN.Working her butt off.
Let's hope she makes 3 times what dear ole Dad makes.
22,222yrs/3.
Anyway... the question was, "That seem right to you?"

(hic)

[JDPriestly]

12. Lots of people with PhDs consider themselves lucky to get a part-time

job that pays $45,000 per year.

Wealth and education are not necessarily related.

In fact, I know some very, very wealthy people who inherited their money and have far, far less education than I do.

Family money, family influence, and family connections make a career with a lucrative salary more likely than does a good education.

[OnlinePoker]

7. If your intention is to stay a wage slave, you'll never make it to a billion.

The only people who have "earned" a billion as opposed to inheriting it, are those who have started small and, in most cases, risked everything they owned to succeed. They have the vision to see a market before others, the skill to martial a labor force to achieve their goals, and the ability to overcome the fear of failure. One of the more visionary billionaires right now is Elon Musk, co-founder of Paypal. After he sold the company for billions, he could have sat back counting his money. Instead, he put it into two extremely risky businesses, automobile manufacturing (Tesla motors) and rockets (SpaceX). A good line and the title of the following short piece on Musk says it all: Starting a Company is Like Staring Into the Face of Death.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/14/elon-musk-starting-a-company-is-like-staring-into-the-face-of-death/

[mbperrin]

10. Not to be too picky, but I think staring into a hostile location in Afghanistan by a 19

year old from Texas who joined the Army to be able to afford a new truck is staring into the face of death.

Musk is staring at huge government contracts, either here or abroad. Not quite the same.

Actually, I tire of all the war-like phrases "business" people use - kill this, make a killing, at war, blah blah blah.

Perhaps if they'd make something people want and sell it at a price they can afford, they wouldn't need all that violent imagery.

Time was, shopkeeper was a pretty prosaic title. My dad liked it that way, and he made enough to buy a home, take vacations, and put all 4 of us through school without staring once into the face of death.

[ArizonaLib]

19. He had government help

Without the government created internet, he could not have started Paypal. Without Kennedy's investment in the space program, he could not have even conceived of Falcon 9/Dragon. There were electrical cars on the road and on the market prior to the Tesla Roadster. He ditched the South African draft by moving to Canada where he never served military service despite not being opposed to serving in the military. He went to the University of Pennsylvania on a full scholarship, even though his father was an engineer and his mother a famous author and model, and could therefore afford tuition. His patents and copyrights are protected and enforced with government money and infrastructure. I don't think Musk would have a problem pointing this out. He seems to have noble aspirations. Elon Musk's idea of 'staring into the face of death' and the ramifications of failing are much different than someone else, possibly with a family to feed, and a minimum or middle class quality of life to maintain. Elon Musk would not be out on the street, but most others would be. Elon Musk has done well by every financial measure, and is inspiring, but it's not the same. God bless Elon Musk and his partners, I am entirely sincere.

[ElboRuum]

8. No.

I'm sure that a few have COLLECTED a billion, but earned? Sorry, earning money requires providing one's time in service to a vocation, and there is no job on earth worth a billion.

[Stryder]

14. That's all i was askin.

[Egalitarian Thug]

13. No and further, nobody ever received a billion without significant government largess.

This is the foundational corruption of the American system. Pick your billionaire, none of them made it without government contracts and protection from competition by that government. You can take this back to the 16th century here in the form of Royal land grants given by various Monarchs. Nobody ever in the history of the world ever got this scale of wealth on their own.

[Stryder]

15. Spot on.

And they are the first and most vociferous to decry the evils of big government
and the welfare state.Faithfully regurgitated by the asses.(Sorry the M key's sticky)

[jtuck004]

16. Sheldon Adelson. (His dad was a taxi driver), he is now the 8th richest in U.S.

You did not specify if they had to have any connection to actual humans, I don't think.

[sulphurdunn]

17. I suppose someone could earn

a billion dollars, but nobody's worth a billion dollars, and if I'm wrong and some people are worth it, they aren't be the ones with the billion dollars anyway.

[ArizonaLib]

18. Dick Cheney the war profiteer?

When he stole 2 presidential elections and awarded himself giant no bid government contracts. Do we subtract the billions Halliburton can't account for? How much do we deduct for electricuting American soldiers in showers because of faulty wiring constructed by Halliburton? Sorry Stryder, but I am still pissed about this stuff.

This is a great question. Too bad for the middle class that you are the only one asking about this.

I think it is impossible for any one person to earn a billion and bank it.