Why Jeff Bezos cannot end world hunger
Finance
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Ever read one of those posts about how you would not be able to make the same amount of money that Jeff Bezos has, even if you made a $1000 every day since the pyramids were built?
Yeah well, that’s not how this works.
Here’s what you need to understand– salary and net worth are two very different concepts. Salary refers to the cold hard cash your employer deposits to your bank account (minus taxes and statutory contributions).
Net Worth = Your assets – your liabilities
We often confuse the two.
Jeff Bezos’ Amazon stake is worth ~$190Bn at the time of writing. This doesn’t actually mean that he earned $190Bn/365 per day last year or that he has $190Bn currently in his bank account.
Also, the $190 Bn fluctuates each day with the stock price of Amazon moving around.
Think of it this way– if your family owns land worth Rs. 50L, your family did not earn Rs. 50L/365 per day last year. Nor does your family have Rs. 50L in free cash to buy you that motorcycle you’ve always wanted.
Jeff Bezos draws a salary of ~$81k* at Amazon. If you want to take a shot at calculating how much he made last year per day or per hour, use the $81k figure.
So he doesn’t have all that dough lying around to buy Lamborghinis or end world hunger by distributing cheques (which is a whole different argument due to the limitations on one-time stimuli).
*Plus 1.6M that includes perks such as security services . (SOURCE: AMAZON'S PROXY STATEMENT 2020)