Larry Page: Now World's #2 Richest: His Net Worth, His (Dis)Appearance, and The Tech Oligarchs
Title: Larry Page Just Became World's #2 Richest? Yeah, and I'm the Queen of England
Alright, so Larry Page is now supposedly the second-richest dude on the planet, according to Forbes and everyone else breathlessly reporting it. Cool. Another billionaire hoarding more wealth than entire countries. What am I supposed to do, throw a parade?
Shares of Alphabet, Google's parent company, are up like 70% this year, fueled by AI hype. Surprise, surprise. They're practically tripping over themselves to hit that $4 trillion valuation. And offcourse, this translates directly into Page's net worth ballooning to something like $272 billion. He leapfrogged Larry Ellison of Oracle, who's probably not losing any sleep over it, let's be real. Sergey Brin even passed Bezos, because apparently there's no limit to this madness.
AI: The New Tulip Mania?
This whole thing is built on… AI? Give me a break. We’re talking about the same AI that still can’t reliably tell the difference between a cat and a dog without screwing up half the time. But hey, the markets are buying it. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, is out there tweeting about how great Google's Gemini is. When even rival CEOs are cheerleading, you know something's fishy.
Meta's supposedly in talks to use Google's AI chips. Meta! The same Meta that's been hemorrhaging money on the metaverse? What's that saying... "fool me once..." Nah, I can't even finish that one. It's too depressing.
And let's talk about Larry Page himself for a second.
The "Visionary" Who Cashed Out
Who is Larry Page, anyway? Besides being filthy rich, I mean. He co-founded Google with Sergey Brin back in '98. Now he just chills and watches his net worth climb higher than Everest. He stepped down as CEO of Alphabet in 2019, but still gets to rake in the dough. Some visionary. More like a really lucky dude who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
I mean, good for him, I guess. But is this really progress? Is this what we should be celebrating? One guy getting richer while the world burns? His net worth went from $50.9 billion in 2020 to a quarter of a trillion dollars now. During a pandemic. While people were losing their jobs and homes. I am not sure if I should laugh or cry.
Then again, maybe I'm just jealous.
So What?
So Larry Page's net worth is astronomical. So Alphabet's stock is soaring. So what? What does any of this actually mean for the average person? It means absolutely nothing. It's just another data point in the ongoing saga of wealth inequality. Another reminder that the system is rigged.
Another Day, Another Billionaire
Look, I’m not saying Larry Page is a bad guy. I don’t know the guy. Maybe he donates to charity, maybe he rescues puppies from burning buildings in his spare time. But the fact remains that his obscene wealth is a symptom of a much larger problem. A problem that ain’t going away anytime soon. So yeah, congrats, Larry. You won capitalism. Now what?
Give Me a Break...
It's all just a big game, and we're all just pawns in it. Don't tell me this whole AI boom is anything other than a way for the rich to get richer. And honestly, I'm starting to think that maybe we deserve it.