I No Longer Want to Be Richer Than Bill Gates

That is not a click bait. When I was in high school I somehow believed I could be richer than Bill Gates. Bill was the richest man in the world at the time.

And all my life I had known Bill as the richest man alive. And it seemed everyone knew that. I mean you could ask anyone and they could easily tell you who the richest man alive was.

But since then — 2016/17 — a lot more people have held that title: Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and now Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH as I type this. [edit: 2025 as I as I publish this, Elon Musk is the richest man alive] So the richest man is no longer easy to tell [edit: 2025: of course it is, if you know where to look], but I kid you not that others would still think it is Bill Gates.

Why did a Ghanaian teenager from the remotest part of the country think he could be richer than Bill Gates? I don't know for sure. Maybe blame it on The Power of the Subconscious Mind by Claude M. Bristol.

At the time people called me weird. I don't know why. I was sort of ousted. People wouldn't want to take me seriously or agree with what I said. To them, I said so many weird things that they concluded I was weird. I was considered different, and I embraced it. It's not like I had a choice. I still do so many things today because of that experience. When everyone is going left, it is sure that you will see me going right. I strive to not conform.

When I read the book mentioned above, it made a lot of sense to me. I could be anything I wanted. All I had to do was think it and believe it — believe it so much without having the lightest strand of a doubt. I don't know why, but I did believe I could be bigger than Bill Gates. But well, money is a great motivation — who wouldn't want to have it, and more and more of it?

And I had the strongest belief that it would happen. I used to fight with my friend Rafiu on that. He thought I was crazy, unrealistic, and dreaming. He asked me to wake up, and I thought he was a bad friend for not believing in me. To me, he was a bad influence.

As the years went by, I started relenting on my beliefs. Reality hit me, and I realised that being richer than Bill Gates was not going to be that easy — even though I can still see a scenario where that could happen.

Jim and Bill's childhood prepared them for that, while mine didn't. And my mom's dream (teacher/bank manager) — ironically — it prepared me entrepreneurship.

I move to the USA. Join a space asteroid mining company as a software engineer, work myself to the top. One day we mine a trillion-dollar asteroid. Easy peasy.

This is just to tell you that if I really wanted, I could still continue to believe with the strongest conviction that I could become richer than Bill Gates and worked incredibly hard towards making that happen and with a loooootttttaaaaa luck make it happen. It doesn't matter to me if you say that just because I believe I can make it happen, doesn't mean it will happen. I know if I do, it will happen. At least Elon Musk taught me that.

But I am choosing not to go that route any longer. I don't want to be richer than Bill Gates — I want to be happy.

If anything, I want to be like Jamie Dimon. I want to have a huge impact on the world. I was watching an interview of Jamie Dimon by Bloomberg, and he mentioned how his company moves 10 trillion dollars across the world daily. I quickly googled his net worth — and he was worth about 1.9 billion dollars. And I thought, he doesnt' have to be stupid rich, he is okay with the impact he is making. He is happy with his life. And I want to be like that. He is a family man. This is a great way to live.

Bill Gates talks bout the same thing on creating incredibly value in the world and capturing a tiny fraction of that value. When describing what a platform is. I think everyone's like is a platform.

A platform is when the economic value of everybody that uses it exceeds the value of the company that creates it.

Prior to this revelation, he talks about how he is a family man. And when I said I want to be happy — family is where I want to be happiest most. To quote Jamie Dimon:

“Obviously my family comes first.”

Second, have a huge impact on the world. I want to inspire, nurture people to build billion-dollar companies solving Africa's biggest problems. Making life better. If I can trade that with a billion dollars, a trillion dollars, I would.

I want to be like Jamie Dimon — have a happy family and have the biggest impact on the world that I can ever make.

So help me Allah.