Show HN: Richest people in the world by wealth creation instead of ownership

A new Show HN project takes a swing at one of the internet’s favorite fantasies: what if billionaires were ranked not by what they hoard, but by how much wealth they created for everyone else? The idea riffs on a Jeff Bezos line from December 2024 and tries to measure how much company value ended up with workers, pension funds, index funds, co-founders, and ordinary investors rather than the founder’s own pocket. In plain English, it’s a “who made other people richer” scoreboard.

And wow, the comment section was not prepared to nod politely. The biggest fight was over whether this ranking makes any sense at all. One commenter basically asked, if a founder sells everything and tanks the company, do they suddenly become a saint of wealth creation? Another immediately poked at the whole premise with, “Are these all one person shops?” Translation: can we please stop acting like giant companies were built by one superhero in a garage?

Then came the omissions drama. People wanted to know why non-founders like Eric Schmidt don’t count, and one of the funniest curveballs was the demand for Linus Torvalds to be on the list, as if the comments were staging a surprise write-in campaign. Elon Musk, of course, turned into the thread’s instant lightning rod: praised by some for massive technological impact, doubted by others who warned that private company stock hype may not help regular people at all. In other words, the site tried to rank generosity-by-capitalism, and the crowd responded with skepticism, side-eyes, and a few excellent drive-by dunks.