Transcription
Plato, Aristotle, Genghis Khan, and Alexander the Great. You know, they all lived more than 2,000 years ago, and we're still talking about them as if they're godlike, mythical creatures. And that's because the things they did shaped the trajectory of humankind. It affected how you live millennia later.
The question that we have is, are we living legends right now? In 2500 years, will they be talking about the people who made space travel, electric cars, and global communications possible? Or will they talk about how they destroyed society and ruined the planet? Or their worst nightmare? Will everything they've done be considered so boring and pointless that they're not even remembered at all? What's the real impact that modern billionaires have on humankind?
So to measure the impact on humankind, we have to ask five key questions. One, how profoundly does it transform thought, behavior, or survival? Like when Hippocrates, the father of medicine, introduced the idea that illness wasn't caused by the gods, but by natural forces. Second, does it change the course or structure of human life? Like when Julius Caesar took power, ended the Roman Republic, and set the stage for the Roman Empire. Three, does it fulfill a human need? Four, does it move people, spark curiosity, or inspire action? And five, will it be remembered, taught, or built upon long after its creator has passed? Think Newton introducing the laws of motion and gravity or Plato laying the foundation for Western philosophy.
It's hard to imagine Jeff Bezos's Amazon fitting into any of those categories. And you know, maybe it's unfair to compare Jeff Bezos to Plato. Some might say it's like comparing apples and bears. But listen, okay, that's the world that we live in today. Influence comes from capital, technology, and platforms, and billionaires sit at the top of that chain.
Each era had a different currency of influence. In Plato's time in the ancient world, influence came from ideas, war, or religion. Power came from conquest, myth, and moral law. During the Renaissance, it came from creativity and invention. That's why we've got Da Vinci and Shakespeare. This era elevated human creativity and observation. And in the enlightenment and post-enlightenment era, it came from philosophy and music. And that gave us Immanuel Kant, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mozart, and Beethoven. The enlightenment prized reason, rights, and cultural refinement. Today, that currency is capital, data, and technological infrastructure.
So, as much as society criticizes modern billionaires, they're essentially the people who are carrying the legacy of our current times. Now, to be honest, today's currency of influence doesn't sound as exciting as the other eras, right? Capital and data versus conquest and myth or creativity and invention. It's the kind of thing you want to roll your eyes at. Like, come on. Is Amazon's reshaping of cloud computing and e-commerce really going to make it into history books that people read two millennia from now, if we're even still here? Are people going to ooh and awe at how companies like Square and Ripple gave millions of unbanked people access to digital payments? It just, you know, it doesn't roll off the tongue as nicely as conquering most of the known world by age 32 or painting the Mona Lisa or composing the ninth symphony.
Peter Thiel himself, a modern billionaire, co-founder of PayPal, major investor in OpenAI, Stripe, and LinkedIn, co-founder of Palantir, a company that provides software that, stay with us now, helps institutions and governments integrate, analyze, and understand complex data, well, he said, "We wanted flying cars and instead we got 140 characters," which is a seriously ironic thing to say when you read out his resume. But nonetheless, that quote really nails home the idea of how we've shifted from solving deep scientific problems like the space race, eradicating smallpox, or sequencing the entire human genome for the first time. Instead, some of the smartest minds and biggest funding now goes toward data harvesting and selling ads, optimizing online shopping behavior, or dopamine loops that keep you on an app.
The truth is, at this rate, with that focus, our era's lasting impact on the world will be, I mean, kind of embarrassing. We have more knowledge, resources, and computing power than any generation in history. And instead of doing something historic, we're using them to get people to scroll for five extra minutes.
Now, let's get the awkward part out of the way. Okay, based on those five questions, who are the billionaires that will leave no impact? First of all, the extractors. These are people who have made their money through things like hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, which is when you buy the debt of bankrupt companies, and even countries for super cheap and then sue for repayment. One example of this is Paul Singer of Elliott Management, who bought Argentina's debt for pennies on the dollar back in the 2000s. And when the country defaulted and tried to negotiate a partial repayment deal, Elliott Management refused to accept it and then sued them, or John Paulson who made $4 billion betting against the housing market. These people exploited a moment. They did not create something that people could use, love, or learn from.
But you know what? Not to toot our own horn too hard or anything. We did that. We built something that matters. Because look, when you're trying to claw your way out of poverty and a broke life, you'll start off by doing anything you can to give yourself some leverage. You just need a foot in the door to give yourself some breathing room before you try to change the world for the better. And it can be so hard to know where to start, which ideas can work or don't work, how to get funding, to communicate with people, and to stay motivated. We know it all because we've been there, okay? And on that journey, we wished there was a one-stop tool that could pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses we have and help us with how to elevate and fix them. Since it didn't exist before, we decided to create it. And that is how the Alux app was born. The app will help you with everything you need to build wealth in different areas of your life: your bank account, your mental and physical health, your relationships, and your emotional intelligence. Thousands of people have already benefited from it. And a few have even made their first million with our help. So now we're giving you the chance to do the same. We're throwing a discount in it for you. Go to the app store, download the app, and scan this QR code to get 25% off the annual membership. And we've also got a totally free offer, something else for you. So stay tuned until the end to get that. This is our impact, okay? Making something that you can use, love, and learn from.
As for the extractors we're talking about, well, their money and impact reaches them and the people who work for them, but there's no wide-reaching impact beyond the walls of their offices. A whopping 9.4% of the richest people on Forbes' top 500 fall into one of these categories. And as far as we know, none of them are pulling a Warren Buffett "donate 90% of his fortune to charities once he dies" move. So their impact will pass right along with them. So Ray Dalio and Ken Griffin might be all the rage right now, but it won't be long before they're forgotten. Now, George Soros could have fallen into this category, but he's done something to change that, and you'll see why a little bit later. But first, another group who won't make any impact are the copycats.
So these people, they just built clones of existing platforms. They scaled fast and they cashed out early. Think ride-sharing, delivery apps, or e-commerce platforms. Now listen, okay, a lot of these apps have changed the day-to-day routines of how we operate. We used to have to call a hotline for taxis, direct them to where you want to go, and make sure you've got cash to pay them. Calling a taxi now might be easier. The ability to do it reaches a lot of people, but it makes your life slightly better by like 0.2 points. Like Travis Kalanick, the co-founder of Uber, which by the way wasn't even the first ride-sharing app. Well, he'll fade into obscurity. On the scale of convenience, it's pretty low. And with Uber, the model is replaceable. And we've seen just how easy it is to copy that technology. Deliveroo, Shein, Bitcoin, they all fall into this category, too. This might sound kind of harsh, but there's no deep insight, emotional legacy, or philosophy for people to build on here. And we're not trying to dunk on these people personally or minimize their job creation, ambition, or drive, okay? This is strictly about their impact. And so far it's so incremental that when people look back on this time period, they're not going to see anything significant there.
But then there's the ghost billionaires. That's another group that falls under this category. These are people who inherited their fortune. Think an heir in fashion, luxury, or oil empires who are rich, but don't really leave any actual legacy behind. There's not really much to say about them because their wealth was a continuation, not a contribution. And the crypto one-hit wonders are also sitting here. So are the niche tycoons. These are people who made their money in logistics or chemical plants.
All right. Now let's talk about the billionaires who will leave a bad impact. So the richest 1% of humanity is responsible for more carbon emissions than the poorest 66%. The industries that have the worst impact cause climate harm, human rights issues, and divisiveness and anger. Think fossil fuels, fast fashion, mining, meat, agriculture, social media, and big tech. If the earth crumbles due to climate change, that is what these companies are going to be remembered for. A bad or negative legacy still affects more people than no legacy at all. And actually, the resistance and discourse that rises up to challenge these people, that creates generational ripples that carry on.
Social media is the sneaky ninja of this group because it had the power to mobilize people to help fix all of these issues, but it went in a different direction. There was a moment once where Meta and Facebook had the ability to be the one carrying this era's legacy in the best way. But somewhere along the line, that mission crumbled. Zuckerberg's words might sound like he's leading humanity to the water of discovery, but in reality, the impact is incremental in our current time and actually kind of bad for the future. Like when he said Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission to make the world more open and connected. And like, okay, that might have been true at some point, but optimizing for engagement instead of letting it happen naturally, well, that opened up a gateway for people to lie and argue and then to spread false information and even interfere with elections. The company would probably be worthless if they hadn't done this, but its impact would have been a lot stronger.
Twitter also had this power, especially as a tool for journalists to do live reporting, for politicians to speak directly to constituents, and for real-time info on things like natural disasters. Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and Fox News also fall under this category. It had such a strong, far-reaching voice, but it didn't teach people in a way that pushed for lasting positive changes. And you know, we can actually say this about a lot of the current era of traditional media. It's just that Murdoch's fortune here is legendary.
Now, let's put all of this on the table, shall we? Fossil fuels powered the industrial revolution, global transport, electricity, and the internet. So, at one point, it did have a good impact. But now, it's the main driver of climate change, and it is way too involved with wars and corruption to ever be considered good again. Big tech also started off making a good impact because it gives us access to knowledge, communication, and medical AI. But once power moved to just a handful of companies, we lost that.
Some billionaires have managed to offset this because they're doing things that will push humanity forward. So, let's see who that is. Who is going to leave a good lasting impact? Let's hope the billionaires who are more likely to genuinely leave a good impact on humankind are those who use their wealth to find solutions to problems that threaten our survival, created tools that improve survival, access or understanding, built systems that outlast them and empower others, and made choices that served more than just their own wealth or ego. And look, okay, say whatever you want about the guy, but Bill Gates, through his Gates Foundation, he does all of these things. He funds efforts to eradicate disease, improve education, and even prevent pandemics. He's been criticized for testing vaccines or health programs in poorer countries before rolling them out widely. But if you look into it, the foundation runs these trials around the world, and they partner with local governments, NGOs, and the World Health Organization.
There's also Elon Musk, probably the most divisive person on this list. Okay, some will say he belongs solely in the bad category, but Tesla, SpaceX, and even Neuralink, which sounds crazy, but has the core goal of helping people control devices with their minds, has an incredibly far-reaching impact. Other billion-dollar donating philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott, Jeff Bezos's ex-wife, George Soros, Ratan Tata, and Warren Buffett, people who funded education, healthcare, scientific research, and global health. They'll be remembered. Their impact is pretty profound, and they'll be spoken about in a similar way that we speak about the Medici family.
The Medici family were a wealthy banking dynasty in Florence, Italy. They rose to power around the 15th century, and their power and money pushed cultural and scientific progress. They produced four popes, two queens of France, and they ruled Florence for nearly 300 years. You know how the word iconic is so overused these days? Well, forget that adjective for everyone else because nobody embodies it better than this family, okay? They funded the Renaissance and bankrolled the people who changed the world: Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Botticelli, and Galileo could only do what they did because of this family. Modern philanthropists are doing the same thing by funding access to knowledge, health, and equity. These are the people that history will remember because they helped so many other people create, heal, educate, and inspire.
So laying everything on the table, you can see that the people and companies in this category will have a mostly positive and profound impact on humankind. The things they do now are going to ripple through generations for hundreds of years because their work will keep the people who spread the message alive. Their contributions compound. The value of what they do will grow over time and it'll be bigger than their original effort. Like by building clean energy infrastructure, you reduce the risk of mass displacement, wars over resources, and food systems that could collapse. Giving rural communities access to education allows them to change their entire population's future. The best way to shape the direction of humankind is by making sure that more people survive, think clearly, and live long enough to pass the message on. So it's not even like a good impact is more powerful than a bad impact just because it's good. It's more powerful because it builds momentum.
Aluxer, 2500 years from now, someone might be watching this video directly extracted from their Neuralink mind device. They'll read about the people who made education and healthy food possible for them. Or, you know, maybe they'll be living in some kind of dystopian reality where they have to fight over resources. Or maybe there won't even be anything to watch or read or anyone left to read or watch. At this point, it's looking more like which group of billionaires will win the race.
Modern billionaires have a deep but conflicted impact on humankind. Some will go down in history books. Others don't seem to care and just want the money. And a few seem confused about what actually does change the world. The world might not always agree with these billionaires, but they're solving root problems and thinking about their long-term impact on the world. Their foundations, work, and organizations will outlive them. And although their depth can be disruptive, it does make people admire their ambition and drive. If multiplanetary survival becomes a thing in our lifetime, good or bad, people are going to feel that change.
And you know, you can be influential even if you're not a tech billionaire. Like Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the brand Patagonia. He gives away 100% of their profits, about $100 million a year, to fight climate change and protect the environment. They fund small organizations that defend land, water, and wildlife and environmental policies. And now others are copying their business model because doing something that changes the world for the better, it makes customers like you more. And if they like you, well, they're a lot more likely to be loyal.
Right now, because these billionaires hold so much of the wealth, it's unevenly distributed. And because their work fuels harmful industries and they have so much influence over laws and politics, the impact right now seems mostly negative. But as the world feels the impact of good billionaires more and more, that tide will shift away from businesses that exist only for profit and toward companies that people admire and respect. So, you know, there is hope for us yet.
Okay. The billionaires who think beyond their own lifetimes, build solutions to global problems, and inspire others, those are the ones that are going to have a lasting impact on humankind. The rest of them, well, they'll just vanish from memory eventually. But those who fund the thinkers, scientists, and builders will be remembered like the inventors, philosophers, and patrons of the past. The average billionaire won't have any real impact. Many of them will make things more unstable, but a few of them will change the trajectory of human life for the better. Seeing wealth as a tool instead of a trophy, that is where the real flex lies.
Now, Alexa, we're sure you've got a lot of opinions on this one, right? And we welcome your input. It's a fine line to tread, but what kind of billionaire will you be? Do you believe that since you're the one who worked hard for your money that only you and your family should benefit from it? Or do you believe that once you reach a certain level, you've got a responsibility to do whatever you can to help the world? Let's talk about it in the comments section.
And don't forget the Alux app and the 25% discount is exclusively yours. So, go to the app store, download the app, scan that QR code, and you'll get in on the offer. And remember that freebie we promised you? Well, this is an Alux exclusive. Now, throughout our journey, we've read many, many books. So, we put together our top 100 reading list. To get the list, go to alux.com/100books. This collection has been the cornerstone of all the wealth that we've built. So, we know it's going to be a game-changer for you. Once you're done with that, if you like this content and want to dive deeper into similar topics, go watch our video on why 90% of family fortunes vanish by the third generation. We think you'll love it. We'll see you down in the comments section. Until next time, my friend. Take care.