Here’s a titbit to contemplate: with Microsoft stock up over $100 a share, chairman Bill Gates is worth over $4,000m, a personal fortune that, the San Jose Mercury News reflects, rivals the gross national product of Bolivia and Afghanistan: it also probably makes Bill the second richest man in America even though his salary is only $261,000 a year and the Merc notes that the average American would have to work 100,000 to 150,000 years to amass the kind of money Gates commands.
