Larry Page Just Hit #2 Richest Globally: What's His *Real* Net Worth, And What About Brin?
Larry Page, World's #2 Richest? Who Cares When the Planet's Burning?
So, Larry Page is now the second richest dude on the planet, huh? Beating out Oracle's Larry Ellison and even ol' Bezos. All thanks to Alphabet's stock going bonkers. Shares up almost 70% this year. Big freakin' deal. Larry Page becomes second richest person in the world after Alphabet share rally — What's his net worth?
I mean, seriously, are we supposed to be impressed by this? Another billionaire hoarding wealth while the rest of us are fighting over scraps? The planet's melting, inflation's eating our paychecks, and we're supposed to clap because some tech bro's stock portfolio is doing great? Give me a break.
The AI Hype Train: All Aboard for Obscurity
It's all thanks to the AI hype, offcourse. Google's Gemini 3 is apparently the "golden child" now. Edging past ChatGPT. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is cheerleading from the sidelines. And what does that even mean to normal people? We're all gonna be replaced by robots anyway, so who cares who has the "smartest chatbot"? It's like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
The article says Meta (aka Facebook) might use Google's AI chips. They're "in discussions" to spend billions on this stuff. Billions that could be used to, I don't know, maybe solve world hunger? Or at least pay their fair share of taxes? But no, let's build more AI to track our every move and sell us more crap we don't need.
And Page's net worth? It jumped almost $15 billion in one day. $15 billion. That's more than some countries' entire GDP. It's obscene. It's disgusting.
Is This Really "Progress?"
They call this "progress." I call it a symptom of a deeply broken system. A system where a handful of people control more wealth than billions combined. A system where innovation is measured by how much money it generates, not how much good it does.
Look, I get it. People are excited about AI. They think it's going to solve all our problems. But let's be real: it's just another tool for the rich to get richer and the powerful to get more powerful. And Larry Page is now sitting pretty at the top of that pile.
I saw another headline: "Larry Page’s flying car failure is a lesson for techno optimists." Yeah, a lesson that should've been learned a long time ago. Throwing money at a problem doesn't guarantee a solution. Sometimes, it just creates a bigger mess.
But hey, at least Alphabet's stock is doing well. Right?
The Real Cost of "Innovation"
The thing that really grinds my gears is the hero worship. These guys are not geniuses. They're just lucky. They were in the right place at the right time with the right connections. And they built a company that makes billions by selling our data and manipulating our behavior.
Sergey Brin and Larry Page founded Google back in 1998. Now they're worth hundreds of billions of dollars. What have they actually done to make the world a better place? Sure, they made it easier to find information (and misinformation). But at what cost? The erosion of privacy? The spread of fake news? The consolidation of power in the hands of a few tech giants?
Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe I'm just a bitter old cynic who doesn't understand the wonders of technology. Maybe AI really is going to save the world. But I doubt it. I really, really doubt it.