What Would you do with $49 Billion?

What would you do with $49 Billion?

21 Feb, 2008 Miscellaneous

Wow. So, this dude has more money than he knows what to do with. His name is Mukesh Ambani and he is one of the richest men in India, and the 14^th richest man in the world. He became this wealthy by inheriting Reliance Industries from his father. Reliance Industries has a wide range of products, but deals mostly in petroleum. Ambani’s wealth is now valued at an estimated $49 BILLION, and he’s obviously making too much money.

Why not build a BILLION dollar house?

That’s right, he’s building a house worth one…billion…dollars, according to an article by the Huffington Post. What could he possibly find to put in a house with that much money, you ask? Well, let’s take a look, shall we? Billion Dollar House

It will be 27 stories, which is almost 600 feet tall.
It will have 3 helipads and 168 parking spaces. My house can fit 2 cars and no helicopters.
The 7^th floor of his house will be for the maintenance of his family’s cars.
The 8^th floor will be the entertainment floor, with a movie theater.
The 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th floors will be “health floors.”The 9^th will be for emergency rescues, and the other two will have athletics and a swimming pool on one floor, and a health club on the other.
The top 4 floors will be where the family lives.
There will be multiple terrace gardens, and the house will need 600 servants to maintain.

I don’t know if you can call it a house, it’s more like a small city. See, when I was growing up, houses consisted of rooms, like the entertainment ROOM or the bath-ROOM. This house has the entertainment FLOOR and 3 health FLOORS. Am I jealous?…..Yes. Do I think Mr. Ambani is over doing it? Absolutely. Would I do that if I were him? Nope.

What would I do?

See, the thing is, I really think that if Mr. Ambani grew up in my situation, instead of growing up with a father who is a mogul in the petroleum industry, I don’t think he would build that house. That’s just my feeling. I haven’t had a bad life, by any stretch of the imagination. I grew up in suburban, middle-class America. But, my family never had enough money that things were just given to me, and I was brought up to respect the value of a dollar. Now, I want to be clear…I’m talking about me now, and none of this has anything to do with Mr. Ambani. I don’t know enough about his life to assume anything. For all I know, he worked for what he’s achieved and I respect that. Anything I say means no disrespect to him.

But if I had billions of dollars, I can’t see myself spending like that. I was taught to spend on what I need and save the rest, because what I have might not always be there, and people can lose a lot of money very quickly. And if I grew up and had a huge fortune, I should give it to people who need it, and to the people I love. So, if I had that kind of money, I think I would buy nice things, like a nice house and a nice car, and actually buy top-of-the-line stuff, which I’ve never been able to do my whole life. Then, put the rest of it away. Also, I would definitely find a few organizations that I want to help. I love history, so I would donate to some restoration projects like We Are Ellis Island.

By the way, please click on that link and go there and donate even a little bit. No, I don’t get any referral money if you do that, either, so don’t worry about that.

But anyway, I would also donate to some research organizations of diseases that have affected me and my family, and to relief efforts across the world. I really believe that the reason I would do that, instead of building a house like Mr. Ambani’s, is because of the way that I was raised. I know that other people need money more than me, even now when I don’t make much.

What would you do?

So, if you made billions of dollars, what do you think you would do? Don’t be shy. If you would spend like Mr. Ambani, that’s cool. It’s your hard-earned money, and you do what you want with it. I’m just interested to see what people think. Do you think his spending is excessive? Do you think it doesn’t matter what he does? What are your dreams? You could accomplish anything with that amount of money. Let us know.