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April 11, 2006
Charles Simonyi Goes to Space
I saw last week that Charles Simonyi is spending $20 million to go to outer space. I met Simonyi years ago when I was promoting semantic object modeling. He wasn’t too excited about my technology – as a code generator, it was a bit like pitching a player piano to Horowitz.
Anyway, I was told at the time that he was worth $3 billion. Considering that he’s credited with being the prime developer of both Word and Excel, that net worth is probably deserved. Friends I know who aren’t easily impressed say he was truly an amazing developer.
All of this got me to thinking, what would life be like if I had that much money? Seems like it would take away some of the simple pleasures – like finding the big sack of carrots on sale at Trader Joes. Or would it?
Let’s say you wanted to spend a million dollars a day. Could you do it on $3 billion? Well, with that much money, you probably have investment counseling that enables you to make, say, ten percent a year. That’s $300 million in income. So, that won’t quite make up the $365 million you’d need to spend a million a day. Plus, you’d have taxes. So, let’s say that at a million a day, you’re taking $100 million out of your capital per year. So, you’d only be able to spend a million a day for 30 years. OK, let’s try it.
Posted by DavidK at April 11, 2006 08:09 AM | Permalink