亿万富翁疯狂烧钱新玩法

    赚更多更多的钱，似乎是一些亿万富翁生活的驱动力。换言之，他们想成为赢家。而其他亿万富翁生活的驱动力则是，好吧，其实我也说不上来。据说沃伦•巴菲特依然住的是他1957年在奥马哈购买的那栋有5间卧室的房子，这太让我不解了。他不是跟比尔•盖茨关系密切吗？难道盖茨就没让他瞧瞧1.5亿美元能够买一栋什么样的豪宅？

    现在让我们继续讨论高科技发烧友。在我看来，我上面提到的4位富豪似乎都是天真无邪的乐观主义者。这有什么不招人爱的？布兰森显然最有风格。特斯拉电动车公司（Tesla）创始人马一龙最有可能在实现梦想之际赚到真金白银。贝索斯很快就会成为整个地球的统治者，所以我们还不如让他做他想做的事情。至于艾伦嘛，我对任何一位用自己的钱建造起一座摇滚乐博物馆的人，或任何一位拥有世界上最丰富的吉米•亨德里克斯（美国吉他演奏家，歌手，和作曲人，被认为是流行音乐史中最重要的电吉他演奏者，1970年逝世——译者。）纪念品的人，都很有好感。

    当然，跟马一龙一起创建贝宝公司（PayPal）的皮特•泰尔也是一个不容忽视的人物。泰尔估计拥有150亿美元的财富，除了作为Facebook的早期投资人狠狠地赚了一笔之外，他还在纳米技术、太空探索和机器人研发等领域投入了一大笔钱。此外，他还参与建立了玛士撒拉基金会（Methuselah Foundation），该基金会的目标在于逆转人类的老化趋势（我要是个亿万富翁的话，我当然也想长生不老，至少要比我现在的愿望更迫切）。但泰尔的问题在于，他是一位自封的哲学家。在《纽约客》杂志（New Yorker）上月刊登的一篇让人读起来筋疲力竭的人物特写中，他清楚明白地表明，要想获得他的投资代价可不小：要想他掏腰包，就得聆听他没完没了地唠叨那些他所谓的那些“重大”的课题。

    与皮特•泰尔相比，我更欣赏理查德•布兰森——在亿万富翁当中，他最懂得“及时行乐”。但我也非常欣赏保罗•艾伦。我完全不知道保罗•艾伦对任何事物的看法——我反正也不在乎。虽然他的财富下降了260亿美元——这意味着他损失的钱比大多数亿万富翁（除了比尔•盖茨，沃伦•巴菲特和拉里•埃里森之外）挣的钱还要多——但我并不觉得他是有史以来最糟糕的投资者。我看到的是事情的另一面：他是史上最会花钱的亿万富翁之一。他带着孩童般的好奇心，以一种令人钦佩的方式把他的万贯家财挥霍了出去。

    译者：任文科

    Some billionaires seem driven to make more and more and more. In other words, they're playing to win. Other billionaires seem driven by, well, I have no idea. When they write about how Warren Buffett still lives in the same five-bedroom Omaha house he bought in 1957, I am reduced to a state of total perplexity. Doesn't he hang with Bill Gates? Hasn't Gates shown him the cool kind of house $150 million can buy?

    Back to the tech nerds, though. The four I mentioned above all seem like wide-eyed optimists to me. And what's not to love about that? Branson obviously has the most style. Musk is probably closest to actually making money off his dreaming, with Tesla (TSLA), his maker of electric cars. Bezos, well, he's going to be ruler of the entire planet pretty soon, so we might as well let him do what he wants. And Allen? Anyone who builds a rock-and-roll museum on their own dime—and who owns the world's largest collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia—is all right in my book.

    Of course, we also have Musk's co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. Thiel is worth an estimated $1.5 billion, and in addition to scoring big as an early investor in Facebook, he's thrown money at nanotechnology, space exploration, and robotics. He's also involved in the Methuselah Foundation, which has a goal of reversing human aging. (If I were a billionaire, I'm sure I'd want to live forever too—more so than I already do.) The problem with Thiel, though, is he's a self-styled philosopher, and in an exhausting profile in the New Yorker last month, he made it clear that his investments come with a high price tag: we have to listen to him go on-and-on about whatever "important" topic is on his mind in exchange for his opening his wallet.

    I'll take Richard Branson—who epitomizes carpe diem more than any of his peers—over Peter Thiel. But I'll take Paul Allen, too. I have absolutely no idea what Paul Allen's opinions are about anything—and I really don't care either way. And while he's down $26 billion—meaning he's lost more money than most billionaires have ever made, save Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison—I don't think that makes him the worst investor of all time. I call this glass half-full: he's one of the best spenders that ever lived. And he squandered it all in an admirable state of childlike wonder.