In a capitalist society, time is money, and its financial worth varies from person to person. In terms of financial gain, a minute spent by a child cannot be worth the same amount as that spent by a globally successful businessman.

Time runs differently for the superrich compared to ordinary people. According to China’s Hurun Report, the three richest men in the world ― Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Carlos Slim ― earned a total of $52 billion in 2014, meaning that they earned an average of $100,000 per minute.

According to the International Labor Organization, the average Korean salaryman made $32,412 in 2012. The amount of money that the three richest individuals made in a single minute is equal to the combined annual earnings of three average Korean employees. In some ways, when businesses hire employees to work for them, they are buying time from others in order to meet their goals with their own limited time.

In 2014, the international organization Oxfam analyzed how much time it would take in order to completely use up the assets of the world’s billionaires if one were to spend $1 million per day.

Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, is currently worth about $78.6 billion. If he were to start spending $1 million a day, it would take him about 215.6 years before he went broke.

If one were to divide his total assets by his age (59 years, or 31 million minutes), Bill Gates has earned an average of $2,535 every minute of his life, similar to what an average Korean salaryman makes in a month, which is $2,701 (based on 2012 ILO data.

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has assets worth $73.2 billion, and it would take 200.5 years to use up his wealth. It would take 194.2 years for Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, chairman and chief executive of Telmex Telecommunications, to use up his total assets of $70.9 billion.

Meanwhile, the Walton family (Christy, Jim, Alice and Rob Walton), which inherited Wal-Mart and owns over half of the company, has a collective wealth of $159.5 billion. It would take them about 436.9 years spending $1 million a day to use up their fortune.

In comparison, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and South Korea’s Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung Group, almost seem modest with how long it would take them to use up their fortune. Zuckerberg’s assets, around $33.4 billion, would take 90 years to spend, and Lee’s total wealth, $11.7 billion, would take 32 years to use up completely.

The time value of superrich individuals can also be measured in terms of how many people’s workloads it is worth. Carlos Slim, whose assets are worth $70.9 billion, is from Mexico, where the GDP per individual in 2014 was $10,836, according to the IMF. This means Slim’s assets are worth a year of work for 6.54 million Mexicans.

In the same vein, the wealth of India’s Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani, chairman of Reliance Industries, is worth a year’s work of 12.7 million Indians ($20.7 billion), while China’s Wang Jianlin, chairman of Dalian Wanda Group, has assets of $22.2 billion, worth a year’s work of 2.93 million Chinese.

Li Ka-shing, chairman of Cheung Kong Holdings, is one of Asia’s richest men and has $35.6 billion in assets, which translates to about a year’s work for 900,000 Hong Kong citizens. Lee Kun-hee’s total assets ($11.7 billion) are worth the work of 450,000 Korean workers.

It’s hard for an average person to relate to the wealth of the superrich, since they earn in minutes what takes decades for others to earn.

However, not all billionaires inherited family fortunes. Several billionaires earned their fortunes by starting their own business.

It is also worth noting that billionaires are earning their fortunes at faster rates. According to Business Insider, it took about 27 years and 11 months for Warren Buffett to earn $20 billion, but it took eight years and one month for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to earn the same amount.

This trend is apparent in the IT industry, in which ideas and innovation are prized. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin took about eight years and 10 months to amass a fortune of $20 billion. Meanwhile, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, amassed $20 billion in 15 years and seven months, a shorter time than Buffett.

Incidentally, IT billionaires have earned their riches by providing services that allow people to save time through technology, showing that time is a valuable resource not just for the superrich, but for everyone. 

By The Korea Herald Superrich Team (sangyj@heraldcorp.com)

Kwon Nam-keun, Hong Seung-wan, Sung Yeon-jin, Bae Ji-sook, Yoon Hyun-jong, Min Sang-seek, Kim Hyun-il, Sang Youn-joo