The World's Richest Man

Bill gates
This is Bill Gates.
He is the world's richest man.

But just how rich is Mr. Gates?

Based on Microsoft's current stock price, Bill is worth: $41.21 Billion.

Read on for the details.


  • Imagine an endless line of $1 bills laid end to end. If you began traveling along this line picking up dollar bills March 13, 1986 (the day Microsoft listed on the stock market), and you wished to earn money at the same rate Bill has since that date, you would need to travel that line of bills picking them up at 50.02 Kilometres per hour.

  • In 1996, Bill Clinton won the US Presidental Election with a total of 47,401,185 votes. If Bill wanted to be President, he could buy 47,401,186 votes (one more than Pres. Clinton got), and pay each voter $869.46.

  • Let's take a look at the 3 branches of the US Government, and their 1998 salaries.
    President of the United States $200,000
    Vice President of the United States $171,500
    Chief Justice of the United States (Supreme Court) $171,500
    Associate Justices of the Supreme Court (8) $164,100
    United States Senators (100) $136,700
    United States Representatives (435) $136,700
    Total Salary for all these people (546) $74,990,300
    Number of Times Bill could buy these people's salaries 549.58

  • According to the Internet Death Clock, Bill will die on Thursday, August 9, 2029 at age 73. (That is 28.85 years from now.) If Bill continues to make money at the same rate of 42.57% per year, he will have $1,145,514,170,904,266.25 or $1.15 Quadrillion!

  • Incredible Wealth Around the World If Microsoft was an Italian company, then Bill's net worth would be expressed in Italian Lira.
    On 10/8/2000 , the exchange rate was 2226.00 Italian Lira for every US dollar.
    That means he's worth 91,741,129,641,262.5 Italian Lira. (That's 91.74 Trillion Lira.)

    If Microsoft were a Turkish company, then Bill's Net Worth would be expressed in Turkish Lira.
    On 10/8/2000 , the exchange rate was 671,060.00 Turkish Lira to the US Dollar. That means that Bill is worth 27,656,694,724,647,624.00 or 27.66 Quadrillion Turkish Lira!

  • According to the US Census Bureau, the population of the World on 10/8/00 was: 6,101,149,752 (That's 6.1 Billion). This means that Bill could give $6.75 to every person on the entire planet! And he'd still have $30,684,655 left over for incidentals.

  • The US Census Bureau also says the population of the US on 10/8/2000 was: 275,892,555 (That's 275.89 Million). This means that Bill could give $149.38 to every person in the United States.

  • The Sporting Life

    It cost Mike Tyson $3 million (he forfeited 10% of the fight purse) when he bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear in a boxing match. Assuming that piece of ear weighed about 1/2 an ounce, Bill could afford to eat 429.30 pounds of Evander Holyfield if he were so inclined.
    According to Forbes Magazine the total value of all the Major League teams in all four major US Sports (in 1997) was $22.17 billion. That's only 53.7% of Bill's fortune.

  • What if Bill were a Country?
    Let's compare Bill's Net Worth with the Gross Domestic Products of the nations of the world.
    GDP Data is current through 1998,and comes courtesy of The World Bank
    Ranking Country 1998 Gross Domestic Product
    1 United States $7,690,100,000,000 ($7.69 Trillion)
    2 Japan $4,772,300,000,000 ($4.77 Trillion)
    3 Germany $2,319,500,000,000 ($2.32 Trillion)
    48 Hungary $45,000,000,000 ($45 Billion)
    49 Algeria $43,800,000,000 ($43.8 Billion)
    50 United Arab Emirates $42,700,000,000 ($42.7 Billion)
    Bill Gates $41,213,445,481 ($41.21 Billion)
    51 Morocco $34,400,000,000 ($34.4 Billion)
    52 Bangladesh $33,200,000,000 ($33.2 Billion)
    53 Romania $32,100,000,000 ($32.1 Billion)

  • According to the people at Save the Children it costs $240 to sponsor one child for a year. This means that Bill could save 171,722,689 (171.72 Million) of the children. Of course, there are only 58.5 million people (adults included) in all of Ethiopia.

  • Laying Dollar Bills End to End
    NOTE: The next sections discuss the conversion of Bill's wealth to $1 bills. Of course, according to the US Treasury Learning Center, since 1986, when Microsoft was founded (and through 1997), only 44,045,600,000 $1 bills have been printed. Bill's $41,213,445,481.25 comprise 93.56% of that total.
    If you had 41,213,445,481 one dollar bills, and laid them end to end, you would have a line of bills that runs 3,993,848.1 miles.
    Rand McNally says that it's 2912 miles from New York City to Seattle. Laying bills end to end, you could make that round trip 685.7 times.
    The average distance to the moon is 238,855 miles. You could make that round trip 8.3 times.
    If you spent 24 hours a day laying these bills end to end, and were able to sustain a rate of 2 bills per second, it would take you 653.43 years to complete the job.

  • Stacking Bills
    If you took 41,213,445,481 one dollar bills, and could actually balance them in a stack, that stack would be 14,740,145.0 feet or 2,791 miles high.
    By comparison, it's 200 miles from New York to Baltimore. If you took that stack and lay it down on the ground, it could make that trip between New York and Baltimore 13.9 times.
    It's 2565 miles from New York to San Francisco. The stack of bills would cover 108.83% of the trip.
    The stack of 41,213,445,481 one dollar bills would weigh 84,109,072.4 pounds or 42,054.5 tons.
    By comparison, a Boeing 747-400 weighs 800,000 pounds, or 400 tons. The money weighs 105.13 times more.

  • What if you earned the US Minimum Wage? How long would it take you to earn Bill's fortune?
    As of September 1, 1997, the US Minimum Wage was $5.15 per hour. If you worked continuously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and saved every bit of your earnings (disregarding taxes), you would need to work for 912,914.75 Years to earn Bill's money.

  • Buying Power
    So with all this money, what can Bill buy? Let's look around...
    Item to purchase Cost Number Bill can afford
    Cream Pies $7.95 5,184,081,192 (5.18 Billion)
    Copy of Microsoft Windows 98 $89.95 458,181,717 (458.18 Million)
    750ml bottle of 1995 Testarossa Vineyards Michaud Vineyard Chardonnay $38 1,084,564,354.76 (1.08 Billion)
    NASA's Space Shuttle $1.7 Billion 24.24
    Pfizer's Viagra tablets $10 4,121,344,548
    (At one per day, that'll last him 11,283,626.41 years.)
    The 1997 movie "Titanic" $200 Million 206
    Boeing 747-400 Commercial Airplane $156 million 264.18
    Michael Jordan's 1997-98 Bulls Salary (not counting endorsements and movies) $31.3 million 1,316.72
    1998 Bentley Continental $343,900 119,841 (119.8 Thousand)
    1997 Geo Metro $8605 4,789,476 (4.79 Million)
    Four Years' tuition, room & board at Harvard University (at 1999-2000 rate: $34,350/year) $137,400 299,952.29 (300 Thousand)

  • Spending it all
    Let's say you wanted to spend every dime of Bill's money, and you set a time limit of 21 years to do it. Assuming you worked 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, you would have to spend it at the following rates:
    Per year $1,962,545,022.91 $1.96 Billion
    Per month $163,545,418.57 $163.55 Million
    Per week $37,611,058.31 $37.61 Million
    Per day $5,373,155.43 $5.37 Million
    Per hour $223,881.47 $223.9 Thousand
    Per minute $3,731.35 $3.7 Thousand
    Per second $62.18 $62