Stephen Schwarzman
Source of wealth: Investments
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Biography
The son of a dry goods store owner, Stephen Schwarzman founded private equity firm Blackstone with fellow billionaire Peter Peterson in 1985.
Initially a boutique merger-and-acquisition advisory business, Blackstone has grown into the world's largest alternative asset manager, with more than $1 trillion in assets under management.
While Peter Peterson (d. 2018) retired shortly after Blackstone's 2007 IPO, Schwarzman still presides over the business as chairman and CEO.
Schwarzman got his start on Wall Street at Lehman Brothers; he wrote in his 2019 memoir about mistakes by management at that firm.
He started his first business, a lawn-mowing operation, at age 14, employing his younger twin brothers to mow while he brought in the clients.
Perspective on their fortune
Gold
Everyday luxury
A Stephen Schwarzman's fortune is equivalent to 275 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
Stephen Schwarzman could buy 73,257,181 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 13 trucks to transport them, But we can be almost certain that Stephen Schwarzman will have enough left over to pay for the gas for those trucks.
Health
The price of life
Let's compare Stephen Schwarzman's fortune with the healthcare spending of a huge country
Stephen Schwarzman could fund the entire healthcare system of DR Congo with a population of over 105,800,000 of inhabitants for approximately 18.3 years.
But even if we compare their fortune to that of a rich country
At the other extreme, Stephen Schwarzman could cover the health expenditure of Luxembourg, considered the world's most heavily invested health system, for 8.1 years
Education
Buying the future
Lowest education spending
Stephen Schwarzman 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 12.0 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, Stephen Schwarzman could pay for it in full for 16.3 years.
Research
The monopoly of progress
Lowest research spending
Stephen Schwarzman 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 68.6 years.
Highest research spending
But even if we compare the total wealth of Stephen Schwarzman 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 1.5 years.
Financial Assets
Monthly wealth history
Fortune comparison
Historical data not available for comparison