5/8/97

Pearly Gates

    With my most recent purchase, Bill Gates just got richer.
    (You're welcome, Bill.)
    Remember when Bill started making headlines? Back then, the term "Bigger Than IBM" was applicable to earners no smaller than a G7 country, but suddenly this scrawny geek started to get very, very rich. If you rooted for the little guy, you dared to imagine little Billy inching up on ineffable IBM. At least until his inevitable collapse to the humbled heap of brazen wannabes.
    And now IBM is the underdog. Heck, Big Blue doesn't even rate comparison anymore when you're sizing up Big Bill.
    It is not even worthy of humorous exaggeration to say that Bill is richer than a small country. By now, he really is. By now, he could earmark a couple of months' earnings to buy a small continent.
    Put it this way: according to a recent news report, by the time our friend Bill retires, his worth will be equal to what the entire American workforce makes in a year.
    Stop reading for a moment, and think about that.
    Can you understand this? I can't. A hundred million, half a billion, a billion -- they're all the same to me. I think in the hundreds and low thousands; I can up that a bit if we're talking about relative value in apartments. But beyond four or five zeroes, it's like ... like trying to comprehend the size of the universe.
    That news report says that by the time Bill is ready to start cashing in his pension, he'll be a multitrillionaire. Broken down into graspable parts, I think that means he'll have made $1,000,000,000,000.00, and then another $1,000,000,000,000.00, and then start working on his third, fourth and fifth 1,000,000,000,000.00, while I'm devoting my life to get my overdraft to $0.
    I'm not jealous, really. I'm awed. (If he were a known antisemite, I'd be miffed.)
    The perspectives are staggering. In the time it takes this man to complete a yawn, his earnings could fund the American health-care system for a century. (I'm only estimating here.)
    What does he pay in income tax?
    How much does he carry around in his wallet? Does this man have loose change jangling in his pocket?
    Does he have the same problem comprehending a nickel as I have a trillion?
    How will he teach his children the value of money -- will he give them a weekly allowance of $5 and explain the concepts of budgeting, or will he give 'em an allowance of $5 million and explain the concepts of budgeting?
    Does anyone ever say "no" to Bill Gates? Does he stand in line, get put on hold? Would his home computer dare to flash the command "Wait"?
    He could give a billion a year to charity out of petty cash: how much does he give, and to whom -- and who does he turn down, and why?
    What does he give for a bar mitzva gift? (The obvious answer is "a computer," but that would be like me giving "a newspaper.")
    Is he bored?
    I saw a photo of a new house he was building, a couple of years ago. Two details wowed me, and one of them was not the cost ($40 million): the house next door looks like a nice-sized villa, but by comparison to the neighborly Gates of Heaven, the villa appeared as big as a vestibule; and one of the features of the new house -- never mind a built-in pool, sauna, Jacuzzi, gym -- is a personal salmon run.
    A salmon run!
    Nova Scotia in a corner of his backyard. 
    If Bill wanted to, he could make all those nutty science fiction movies come true, taking over the world through thought-control elements planted in every home and office in the free world. Then one day he puts his master plan into effect, activates the Gates Mesmerism Effect, and he has humanity programmed to respond to his will. He could do it.
    Wait a minute.
    He has done it.