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The Problem with Billionaires — and the Debut of True Net Worth | Randall Lane | TED - Video học tiếng Anh
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The Problem with Billionaires — and the Debut of True Net Worth | Randall Lane | TED
The Problem with Billionaires — and the Debut of True Net Worth | Randall Lane | TED
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0:03
I am a journalist, trained as a journalist,
0:05
but I spent most of my last 35 years
0:08
as an anthropologist.
0:09
I've kind of been embedded with a very unique subspecies.
0:13
You might know them by their Latin name,
0:16
Billionaires Maximus.
0:19
And when I got to Forbes out of college in 1991,
0:23
there were all of 274 billionaires in the world.
0:26
It was a very aspirational little club.
0:29
You know, Bruno Mars in his song "Billionaire" sings of dreaming
0:32
of being on the cover of Forbes magazine,
0:35
standing next to Oprah and the Queen.
0:38
Well, you know, fast forward,
0:39
if we did that cover now, it would be very crowded.
0:42
Forbes tracks 3,428 people
0:47
we believe have a net worth right now of a billion dollars or more.
0:51
And they all have one thing in common.
0:52
Who wants to know the secret
0:55
of every billionaire right now in the world,
0:57
which is nobody likes them.
1:00
Forbes and HarrisX conducted a survey a couple of weeks ago
1:04
[of] 1,009 Americans.
1:05
The results are not good.
1:08
Trial lawyers are kicking billionaires' ass.
1:10
(Laughter)
1:12
They are tied with members of Congress.
1:15
They are barely beating TikTok influencers.
1:19
(Laughter)
1:21
But there's a disconnect going on right now
1:24
because the world needs billionaires.
1:27
The world desperately needs billionaires.
1:29
If you look at countries that have billionaires,
1:31
they tend to have all the things that we all love:
1:34
progress, jobs, growth.
1:37
Let's go to China.
1:39
At the beginning of this century,
1:40
there were no Chinese billionaires on the Forbes list,
1:44
and almost 500 million people lived in extreme poverty.
1:48
Fast forward 20 years, it's almost the opposite.
1:50
Almost 500 Chinese billionaires and no one living in extreme poverty.
1:56
That is not a coincidence.
1:58
If you go to Nigeria,
1:59
one of the largest countries in the world by population,
2:02
only four billionaires,
2:04
about 100 million people live in extreme poverty.
2:06
There are no billionaires in Cuba.
2:09
There are no billionaires in Iran.
2:11
There are no billionaires in Belarus.
2:15
History shows
2:18
that incentive creates personal wealth
2:22
and societal wealth.
2:24
When you cap earnings,
2:26
that correlates with repression and stagnation.
2:30
So why all the hate?
2:32
Why all the hate?
2:33
Wealth disparity is some of it.
2:36
In a few weeks,
2:37
if SpaceX goes public as scheduled,
2:42
Forbes believes that at that moment,
2:43
Elon Musk will become the world's first trillionaire.
2:49
That's a million million.
2:54
But here's the deal.
2:56
Elon is no richer, not much richer at least when you measure by GDP,
3:01
[than] John D. Rockefeller
3:03
when he became the world's first billionaire a hundred years ago.
3:06
John D. Rockefeller, he was an OG monopolist.
3:10
But by the end of his life,
3:11
doing lots of good works, he was highly respected.
3:13
Andrew Carnegie even more so.
3:15
People don't resent billionaires.
3:18
People want to become billionaires.
3:22
People resent billionaires
3:24
when they forget that the purpose of business is to create happiness,
3:29
not who dies with the most toys.
3:31
(Applause)
3:34
So here's the scorecard.
3:36
Right now, here are the five richest people in the world, all Americans,
3:39
all with a net worth north of 200 billion dollars.
3:42
Forbes tracks pretty much every billionaire
3:44
in terms of how much they give to charity -- how much winds up,
3:47
[and the] end result into charity.
3:49
Right now, these five collectively, [their] competitive net worth,
3:52
less than one percent of their net worth, has been donated to charity:
3:57
0.9 percent.
3:58
Compare that with the average American --
4:03
teacher, fireman -- [who] gives two percent
4:08
of his or her income to charity.
4:11
That gap,
4:12
as somebody who loves entrepreneurial capitalism
4:15
and defends entrepreneurial capitalism,
4:18
bothers me.
4:20
That gap is why there are pitchforks.
4:26
But that gap is something we can address ...
4:29
by leaning into the final decision maker
4:35
that a lot of billionaires have
4:37
when they decide if they're going to be philanthropic or not,
4:40
which is their egos.
4:42
It turns out that a lot of people care about where they are
4:45
on various Forbes lists.
4:47
In fact, in 1982, the very first Forbes 400,
4:52
we had one tycoon who helped us create an immutable law
4:56
of wealth tracking: the Trump rule.
5:00
Take what the Donald tells you,
5:01
divide by three and refine from there.
5:06
Saudi Arabia's Prince Al Waleed created an entire public company,
5:11
basically to get higher on the Forbes list.
5:13
Every year before the Forbes issue came out,
5:15
the billionaires issue,
5:16
he would buy up his own stock, pump up his own stock,
5:19
and after it came out, he would sell it.
5:21
Look, it’s like a 10-digit cardiogram there.
5:24
(Laughter)
5:26
Kylie Jenner's team gave us
5:27
what we believe are bogus numbers about her company
5:31
to get onto the Forbes billionaires list,
5:33
and she's not even the thirstiest member of the Kardashian family.
5:37
(Laughter)
5:38
During COVID, Kanye West called me maybe every other day.
5:43
We talked about an hour at a time, mostly about how he thinks he was richer
5:47
than we said he was.
5:49
When we respectfully disagreed,
5:53
he respectfully responded by tweeting my cell phone
5:56
to 30 million followers on Twitter.
5:58
(Laughter)
6:00
That was a tough day.
6:01
(Laughter)
6:04
But Kanye inspired an idea.
6:07
Why can't we lean into this strange leverage we have over some people?
6:13
Why can't we create a list
6:15
that rewards people for donating to charity
6:18
versus penaliz[ing] them by taking them further down on the Forbes list?
6:22
(Applause)
6:26
So we've created something called True Net Worth,
6:28
and we're going to debut it right here.
6:30
(Cheers and applause)
6:33
True Net Worth is your regular net worth,
6:37
combined with the money you've donated
6:40
that we appreciate like you still own it.
6:43
(Applause)
6:46
Here is a refresher.
6:48
Here are the top five in the world.
6:51
Here are the top five by true net worth.
6:54
(Applause)
6:59
Look at my friend Warren Buffett.
7:01
He's already given more away, in today's dollars,
7:04
than he still has.
7:06
He's pledged 99 percent of what's left to charity,
7:10
and he stipulated that all that money has to be spent down
7:13
within 10 years of his death,
7:15
as opposed to just sitting in a foundation,
7:17
gathering interest for years.
7:19
(Applause)
7:21
That's true net worth.
7:23
Now let's look at the biggest movers on this list.
7:26
(Applause and cheers)
7:35
MacKenzie Scott is giving away money
7:38
faster, smarter, no-strings-attached than pretty much anyone in history.
7:42
She's the 84th richest person in the world by net worth.
7:46
She's 26th by true net worth.
7:48
(Cheers and applause)
7:52
People don't value what you can't measure.
7:55
True net worth offers role models for billionaires,
7:59
for millionaires, for thousandaires.
8:01
Give while you live.
8:04
Give faster and bigger maybe than you're comfortable with,
8:07
give your money or your time.
8:09
But what all of it does is support the system
8:12
that makes all of us prosperous.
8:14
Thank you.
8:15
(Cheers and applause)
