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Website lets users simulate spending Jeff Bezos' billions
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Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin speaks during the JFK Space Summit, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, the United States, on June 19, 2019. (REUTERS/Katherine Taylor)
W
ant to know how it feels to have so much money that you can randomly splurge on mansions, houses, tigers and even end world hunger – and still have some to spare?
A Reddit user named Paul McBurney Jr., has created a website where users can see how it feels to wake up one day as a billionaire. The game lets users pick who they want to be: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg or Donald Trump - and spend their wealth to their heart's content. The website provides a number of items to buy and sell - from a pizza dinner, a large burger meal, a McDonald’s franchise, a skyscraper, a passenger plane or a rocket ship. The website also presents more charitable options including ending world hunger, which will cost US$112 billion. Ending homelessness will cost $20 billion.
The website has estimated the net worth of the richest person in the world, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, at $124.7 billion. The website also estimates that with that fortune, Bezos could end world hunger and still be left with $12.7 million. It also estimates that Bezos could end the problem of homelessness six times over, and still pay for the college education of 47,000 people.
Although the accuracy of the figures may not be precise, the online game aims to provide users with a clear perspective on the gaping disparity between the haves and the have-nots.
On Tuesday, Bezos went on an 11-minute trip into space on board a rocket built by his company Blue Origin. After completing the trip, Bezos expressed his gratitude to the workers of Amazon for “paying” for his trip.
Read also: Jeff Bezos gains $24 billion while world’s rich reap bailout rewards
“I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this,” Bezos said. His expression of gratitude was immediately met with a backlash, with internet users accusing the richest person in the world of being tone deaf.
In contrast to Bezos’ incomparable wealth, reports have shown that Amazon workers often work under inhumane working conditions with a lack of break hours, with some reports even stating that drivers have had to relieve themselves into plastic bottles as they work around the clock delivering packages without bathroom breaks.
