#80

Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family

Source of wealth: Google

70 years Male Technology 🇩🇪 DE

Net Worth

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Earnings per second

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Biography

Andreas "Andy" von Bechtolsheim is cofounder and chief architect of network switching company Arista Networks.

Born in Germany, Bechtolsheim studied computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and dropped out of a Stanford Ph.D. program in 1982 to cofound Sun Microsystems with Bill Joy, Scott McNealy and Vinod Khosla.

Much of his fortune stems from an early $100,000 investment in Google.

He cofounded Arista in 2004 and owns a nearly 17% stake in the business, which he has earmarked for his heirs.

Following SEC insider trading charges, Bechtolsheim agreed in 2024, without admitting guilt, to a five-year ban on serving as an director or officer of Arista or any public company.

Perspective on their fortune

Gold

Everyday luxury

A Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family's fortune is equivalent to 201 of gold, but this may be difficult to value, as we don't usually have a handful of gold bars in our piggy bank.

A standard gold ring typically weighs between 4 and 7 grams. Let's say this one weighs 5 grams. It's usually 18k gold.

Based on today's gold price (not taking into account the jeweler's fee, shipping, or anything else), that gold ring would be worth $556.3

Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could buy 53,520,959 gold rings. That's a lot of fingers and a lot of gifts!!

And if the number of rings is difficult to visualize, all these rings would need 10 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.

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While billions of people struggle to access basic healthcare, education, and research, a single individual could fund entire national systems for centuries.

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Health

The price of life

Let's compare Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country

Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 13.4 years.

But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country

At the other extreme, Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 5.9 years

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Education

Buying the future

Lowest education spending

Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could assume the entire cost of the education system of Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with more than 243,000,000 inhabitants for 8.8 years.

Highest education spending

But not only could he assume the cost of a poor country, Luxembourg is considered the country with the highest per capita investment in education in the world, Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could pay for it in full for 11.9 years.

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Research

The monopoly of progress

Lowest research spending

Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family could fully fund the state research budget of Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world with more than 260,000,000 of inhabitants, for 50.1 years.

Highest research spending

But even if we compare the total wealth of Andreas von Bechtolsheim & family with Israel, the country that currently invests the most per capita in research in the world, it could assume the total cost of the system for 1.1 years.