[Applause]
what would it look like if tomorrow
morning you check your bank account and
there was a one followed by nine zeros
after it what does it look like if
tomorrow morning you woke up and you
were a billionaire how would your life
be different
how would your problems be different how
would your relationships be different
what would you buy would you purchase a
nice car
invest some of it what would you do with
that money I know a lot of you would
probably say you know that’s a lot I
don’t need all of that so I probably
would give some of it away a billion
dollars is an unfathomable amount of
money it’s you could put it in a pile
you wouldn’t know if it’s a billion or a
trillion you just these numbers are too
big for us to grasp and so my job here
today is to help you understand how you
can wake up tomorrow morning like a
billionaire and in order to do that I
have to help you understand and grasp
the numbers of it so in order to do that
we’re gonna start with some smaller
numbers that you might be able to
understand a little bit better $59,000
this is the amount that the average
American household makes every year some
people make less some people make more
that’s what an average is this includes
people who are single mothers it
includes suburban i’ts urbanites the
wealthy the poor minimum-wage workers a
whole host of people but what about the
1% we heard about them a lot in this
past election cycle we were really angry
at them how much are they making in
America the top 1% make 1.2 million
dollars every year that’s new money
that’s money that’s coming into their
bank account year after year after year
and that doesn’t even include the money
that’s already stacked away in their
bank accounts it’s a lot if you compare
the two the average American makes fifty
nine thousand and the top one percenter
makes 19 times that if you’re an average
person in America you make a 19th of
what the top 1% is making what is going
on but you know what I’m so early in
this talk I have one more number I’d
like to present to you
621 what’s this number represent 621
dollars is this the average amount that
a CEO executive makes every second he
works is this the allowance the average
allowance of a kid in the top 1% what is
this number this number is even more
shocking than the two things I just
mentioned this is the amount of money
you have to make to be wealthier than
the bottom 50% of the world the bottom
half of the world in 2017 made either
$621 or less than that in the entire
year so if you earn six hundred and
twenty one dollars last year you were
wealthier than half of the planet
there’s seven billion people on the
planet and you were wealthier than three
and a half billion if you made that
amount this is hard to conceptualize
right just like a billion dollars people
living on $621 is almost just as hard to
conceptualize how can you even imagine
that the best way I know to explain this
phenomenon is called the Pareto
principle it was popularized by clinical
psychologist Jorden Pearson and it works
like this this is a linear digression so
what this means is if you earn thirty
four thousand dollars a year this is a
real statistic if you earn thirty four
thousand dollars last year then you are
in the global 1% you make more money
than 99% of the world so thirty four
thousand dollars and you’re wealthier
than almost seven billion people and you
would think that the way that the world
works that the way that wealth works is
if you is that there’s a linear
digression from the wealthiest to the
poorest that’s how you your mind would
tend to conceive of that so you would
think if the top percent makes thirty
four thousand dollars a year then
halfway down would be seventeen thousand
dollars a year that’s what you would
think right but that’s not how the world
works that’s not how wealth is
distributed wealth is distributed like
this the rich are really rich and the
poor are really poor and there’s a lot
more poor people than rich people and
here’s the thing this exponential
regression that you’re seeing on the
screen this is observable across a host
of domains so for example Twitter
followers a very small number of Twitter
users have the majority of the followers
and then there’s a whole host of Twitter
users who have a very small number of
followers the same thing with musical
artists a very small number of artists
have the most number of song downloads
they make the most money and then
there’s a whole host of artists who make
almost nothing who have almost no song
downloads and even it’s true of TED
Talks a very small number of TED Talks
have the majority of the views and then
there’s a bunch of people making TED
Talks that don’t get nearly as many
views and so I’ve got two more graphs to
help you grasp these numbers and again
this talk is to help you understand how
you can wake up tomorrow morning like a
billionaire so the first graph you’ve
already seen this is a graph that shows
that there’s a 19 X wealth discrepancy
between the average American and the top
one percenter this is how it look but
their world discrepancy between the
bottom 50% and the average American is
actually 95 X so what I’m saying is that
there is a even bigger wealth
discrepancy between the bottom 50% of
the world and you the average American
that wealth discrepancy is bigger than
the average American and the 1% these
are unfathomable numbers so if you
conceive of a billionaire’s lifestyle
you look up at him or her and you say
they have a private jet they have
amazing security guards around them all
the time they live this lifestyle I
can’t even conceive of I own the yacht I
don’t know what that would be like but
think of a girl in rural Malawi a
twelve-year-old girl her village doesn’t
have clean water she doesn’t know what
the internet is she’s never driven on a
highway before and in two years she’ll
be married off to a man who’s 30 years
old she looks at the average American
and she says I can’t imagine that type
of lifestyle I can’t conceive of it it’s
unfathomable I know what you’re thinking
cost of living you’re thinking surely
grant you must know this you must know
that just because we make more money
here in America that doesn’t mean we’re
wealthier this our stuff costs more in
America our cost of living is higher so
we’re not actually wealthier right and I
I appreciate the critical thinking it
takes to bring up that kind of rebuttal
but I actually have something else to
say that but first let me introduce
myself I’m Brett I spent three years
living in Malawi Africa and I want to
tell you about Malawi Malawi is a
beautiful country full of beautiful
people they’re good people they’re
warm-hearted they’re generous
they’re kind they’re amazing people but
they live in destitute poverty not
across the board there’s a 1% in Malawi
2 there there are grocery stores in
Malawi but the majority of people living
in Malawi they have very different
lifestyles a lot of people don’t have
clean water they don’t have the internet
and unlike in America where we have a
magical three-digit number we can press
on their phone 9-1-1 and summon armed
men they come and rescue us when we’re
when a crime is being committed against
us they don’t have that in Malawi by
comparison we live in a technological
paradise and so while I appreciate the
sentiment behind the cost of living
argument what I’d like to say that is
the reason that things cost more in
certain parts of the world is because
certain parts of the world are nicer
places to live
think about a bottle of wine that you
might buy from a really nice restaurant
it would cost maybe $50 but you could go
to Trader Joe’s and get that same exact
bottle of wine for $10 it’s the same
thing but it’s nicer to enjoy that
bottle of wine in one location than it
is the other and so you really are 95
times wealthier than the bottom 50% and
so my hope and my dream is that we can
spread this message so that as many
people as possible can understand their
place in the world because when you
understand your place in the world you
realize that there are billions of
people out there who look up at you just
like you’re a billionaire thank you so much
what would it look like if tomorrow
morning you check your bank account and
there was a one followed by nine zeros
after it what does it look like if
tomorrow morning you woke up and you
were a billionaire how would your life
be different
how would your problems be different how
would your relationships be different
what would you buy would you purchase a
nice car
invest some of it what would you do with
that money I know a lot of you would
probably say you know that’s a lot I
don’t need all of that so I probably
would give some of it away a billion
dollars is an unfathomable amount of
money it’s you could put it in a pile
you wouldn’t know if it’s a billion or a
trillion you just these numbers are too
big for us to grasp and so my job here
today is to help you understand how you
can wake up tomorrow morning like a
billionaire and in order to do that I
have to help you understand and grasp
the numbers of it so in order to do that
we’re gonna start with some smaller
numbers that you might be able to
understand a little bit better $59,000
this is the amount that the average
American household makes every year some
people make less some people make more
that’s what an average is this includes
people who are single mothers it
includes suburban i’ts urbanites the
wealthy the poor minimum-wage workers a
whole host of people but what about the
1% we heard about them a lot in this
past election cycle we were really angry
at them how much are they making in
America the top 1% make 1.2 million
dollars every year that’s new money
that’s money that’s coming into their
bank account year after year after year
and that doesn’t even include the money
that’s already stacked away in their
bank accounts it’s a lot if you compare
the two the average American makes fifty
nine thousand and the top one percenter
makes 19 times that if you’re an average
person in America you make a 19th of
what the top 1% is making what is going
on but you know what I’m so early in
this talk I have one more number I’d
like to present to you
621 what’s this number represent 621
dollars is this the average amount that
a CEO executive makes every second he
works is this the allowance the average
allowance of a kid in the top 1% what is
this number this number is even more
shocking than the two things I just
mentioned this is the amount of money
you have to make to be wealthier than
the bottom 50% of the world the bottom
half of the world in 2017 made either
$621 or less than that in the entire
year so if you earn six hundred and
twenty one dollars last year you were
wealthier than half of the planet
there’s seven billion people on the
planet and you were wealthier than three
and a half billion if you made that
amount this is hard to conceptualize
right just like a billion dollars people
living on $621 is almost just as hard to
conceptualize how can you even imagine
that the best way I know to explain this
phenomenon is called the Pareto
principle it was popularized by clinical
psychologist Jorden Pearson and it works
like this this is a linear digression so
what this means is if you earn thirty
four thousand dollars a year this is a
real statistic if you earn thirty four
thousand dollars last year then you are
in the global 1% you make more money
than 99% of the world so thirty four
thousand dollars and you’re wealthier
than almost seven billion people and you
would think that the way that the world
works that the way that wealth works is
if you is that there’s a linear
digression from the wealthiest to the
poorest that’s how you your mind would
tend to conceive of that so you would
think if the top percent makes thirty
four thousand dollars a year then
halfway down would be seventeen thousand
dollars a year that’s what you would
think right but that’s not how the world
works that’s not how wealth is
distributed wealth is distributed like
this the rich are really rich and the
poor are really poor and there’s a lot
more poor people than rich people and
here’s the thing this exponential
regression that you’re seeing on the
screen this is observable across a host
of domains so for example Twitter
followers a very small number of Twitter
users have the majority of the followers
and then there’s a whole host of Twitter
users who have a very small number of
followers the same thing with musical
artists a very small number of artists
have the most number of song downloads
they make the most money and then
there’s a whole host of artists who make
almost nothing who have almost no song
downloads and even it’s true of TED
Talks a very small number of TED Talks
have the majority of the views and then
there’s a bunch of people making TED
Talks that don’t get nearly as many
views and so I’ve got two more graphs to
help you grasp these numbers and again
this talk is to help you understand how
you can wake up tomorrow morning like a
billionaire so the first graph you’ve
already seen this is a graph that shows
that there’s a 19 X wealth discrepancy
between the average American and the top
one percenter this is how it look but
their world discrepancy between the
bottom 50% and the average American is
actually 95 X so what I’m saying is that
there is a even bigger wealth
discrepancy between the bottom 50% of
the world and you the average American
that wealth discrepancy is bigger than
the average American and the 1% these
are unfathomable numbers so if you
conceive of a billionaire’s lifestyle
you look up at him or her and you say
they have a private jet they have
amazing security guards around them all
the time they live this lifestyle I
can’t even conceive of I own the yacht I
don’t know what that would be like but
think of a girl in rural Malawi a
twelve-year-old girl her village doesn’t
have clean water she doesn’t know what
the internet is she’s never driven on a
highway before and in two years she’ll
be married off to a man who’s 30 years
old she looks at the average American
and she says I can’t imagine that type
of lifestyle I can’t conceive of it it’s
unfathomable I know what you’re thinking
cost of living you’re thinking surely
grant you must know this you must know
that just because we make more money
here in America that doesn’t mean we’re
wealthier this our stuff costs more in
America our cost of living is higher so
we’re not actually wealthier right and I
I appreciate the critical thinking it
takes to bring up that kind of rebuttal
but I actually have something else to
say that but first let me introduce
myself I’m Brett I spent three years
living in Malawi Africa and I want to
tell you about Malawi Malawi is a
beautiful country full of beautiful
people they’re good people they’re
warm-hearted they’re generous
they’re kind they’re amazing people but
they live in destitute poverty not
across the board there’s a 1% in Malawi
2 there there are grocery stores in
Malawi but the majority of people living
in Malawi they have very different
lifestyles a lot of people don’t have
clean water they don’t have the internet
and unlike in America where we have a
magical three-digit number we can press
on their phone 9-1-1 and summon armed
men they come and rescue us when we’re
when a crime is being committed against
us they don’t have that in Malawi by
comparison we live in a technological
paradise and so while I appreciate the
sentiment behind the cost of living
argument what I’d like to say that is
the reason that things cost more in
certain parts of the world is because
certain parts of the world are nicer
places to live
think about a bottle of wine that you
might buy from a really nice restaurant
it would cost maybe $50 but you could go
to Trader Joe’s and get that same exact
bottle of wine for $10 it’s the same
thing but it’s nicer to enjoy that
bottle of wine in one location than it
is the other and so you really are 95
times wealthier than the bottom 50% and
so my hope and my dream is that we can
spread this message so that as many
people as possible can understand their
place in the world because when you
understand your place in the world you
realize that there are billions of
people out there who look up at you just
like you’re a billionaire thank you so much
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