10 Wealthiest Historical Figures That Ever Lived
They might be dead now... but they owned more money than you can imagine when they were alive.
In the immortal words of Chris Rock, who defined the difference between rich and wealthy better than anyone before; Shaq is rich, the white man who signs his checks is wealthy. Although most of us would do unspeakable things for a million dollars, the reality is that there are people out there who would literally jump out of the window of their penthouse suite if they glanced at their portfolio and only saw 7 figures. It really is all a matter of perspective in life, and the ultra wealthy - the 0.001%, if you will - might as well live in an entirely different universe compared to the average joe.
All the talk these days seems to be focused on income inequality. French economist Thomas Picketty has become a sensation thanks to his book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which examines the increasing gap in income inequality between the wealthy and the poor. Some experts have even postulated that we may be headed toward the largest gap in wealth between rich and poor that the world has ever experienced. While that might be true - Im certainly no economist and dont have the data to dispute it - the wealthy of today will have to kick their effort into overdrive if they want to match the wealth of some of historys richest figures.
When adjusted for inflation, the net worths of some famous industrialists, businessmen and kings of the recent past are absolutely staggering. While its certainly difficult to speculate on who's richer than whom, especially when some of these individuals are separated by hundreds of years, we have enough information to make rough estimates. So, without further ado, lets examine the 10 wealthiest historical figures.