“Somebody needs to make a list where they rank people by how much wealth they’ve created for other people,” said Jeff Bezos at the DealBook Summit a few years ago, as opposed to “the Forbes list, which ranks you by your own wealth.” Bezos went on to note that he’s generated, by his own estimate, $2.1 trillion for others via Amazon equity.

Bezos’s proposed method of ranking the world’s greatest modern founders — by how much value their companies have generated for others in the form of index funds, pension funds, and stock options for employees — is particularly relevant in an age of wealth taxes, Luigi Mangione apologism, and insurgent socialism.

Because, as it turns out, founders who build enduring public companies generate an inordinate amount of wealth for the masses, and keep a relatively small slice for themselves.

We made the Bezos List to prove it.

Here’s our methodology:

• We’re measuring shareholder wealth within public companies.

• Eligible companies must have been established after 1959 and still under the founder’s leadership — with a business that’s essentially the same today as at its founding.¹

• We’ve ranked founders by their companies’ market cap minus the founders’ stake and any outside equity capital raised.²

The result: The first comprehensive list of modern founders ranked by how much wealth they’ve generated for other people.

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