THE YOUNG AND THE RICHNESS

BY DAN MILLER
(posted September 13, 2004)

I guess by now you've seen the Forbes Magazine list of the 40 richest Americans under the age of 40.
Frankly, most are not household names.
Mostly, they're heads of giant internet corporations like Google and Yahoo and eBay.

For example, at #3 is a man named Jeff Skoll, the head of the Skoll Foundation.
He's worth $4.65 billion.... and he's only 39 years old.
My first reaction was.... wow, I had no idea there was so much money in snuff.

But I found out Skoll is a Silicon Valley philanthropic organization, dealing withe Social Entrepreneurship. So they're doing good, worthwhile work.
And the snuff is actually spelled Skoal.

There were some surprises on the list...... at least for me.
Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen, better known as the Olsen twins, are each worth $137 million, and tied for #31 on the list..... and they're only 18.
I had no idea!
I had actually been feeling sorry for them because I thought they weren't getting quality roles anymore.

Britney Spears, at 22, is #38.... worth $123 million. I'd been concerned about her career as well.

Jeff Gordon.... the race driver.... has amassed $155 million, to rank #29.

Shaquille O'Neal ranked #22, with $222 million. And he's still got game at 32 years old.

Jennifer Lopez, is worth $255 million.... she's 35 years old. And 36-year old Julia Roberts is only slightly less rich at $212 million.

The richest athlete on the list is Tiger Woods, ranked #13, with $295 million.

There's a person on the list I can't help but admire. His name is Paul Gauthier.... he's only 32 years old.... and they list his occupation as "retired". Why not? He's worth $129 million.
I 'Googled' his name to find out something about him and, oddly enough, he had something to do with Google, or Yahoo, or some sort of search engine development.

At the top of the list...... the richest person under the age of 40...... is Michael Dell, founder of Dell computers, who built plants here in Nashville and in Lebanon. He's worth $17.95 billion.
How'd you like to be just $.05 billion shy of $18 billion? You'd think they could've just rounded it off.
I hope someone will tell me how much .05 billion is..... I misplaced my calculator.

Of course, Michael Dell is 39 years old, so next year his age will force him off the "richest under 40" list.
Then he'll be up against the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and that'll bring him back to the real world, like the rest of us.

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