The World's Richest Man

[Comments have been added.]

Roald Dahl earned half a billion dollars in 2021,
despite being fairly severely incapacitated (he's deceased).

You've probably heard by now that Elon Musk has taken the title of richest rich guy, showing up those washed-up poor-ass no-money-having former holders of the championship belt such as Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. Losers!

Ahem. Excuse me. Mustn't get carried away. I don't really have an opinion on Elon Musk. I'm not really entirely sure who he is. Something about space?

More recent news is that Apple, the little startup founded in a garage (or a basement, I'm not really up on the origin story), recently poked its nose past the landmark of three trillion dollars in market capitalization. Market cap, as you might know, means the dollar value of all of its shares. It's not a made-up number, but it's sort of a theoretical one. Nobody actually has the three trillion dollars. Anyway, it's doing well.

Meanwhile, back down here in the land of guys who never balanced their checkbooks, it seems to me that what I'm hearing and reading is that the Apple M1 iMacs work nicely for photography.

On the button
For photographers, it makes little actual sense to pursue ultimates and extremes. With enough money it's possible to buy the best, of course, but even if you do, "the best" is a very time-bound concept; soon enough it will be yesterday's news. Bragging rights have an expiration date. Does anyone really care, now, if you're using a computer that was the best money could buy in 2016, 2010, or 2004?

So it might be optimal (I almost slipped and wrote best) to use stuff that's merely very good but still practical. Sort of the upper-middle-tier class of product. The M1 iMacs seem to hit that goal on the button. We photographers don't really need cutting-edge capabilities in our computers, but it's nice not to have to sit around and wait for processor-intensive tasks to run.

As for the screen size—currently there are only 24-inch M1 iMacs—I have both a 27-inch monitor and a 24-inch one. I like to believe that I could be happy with just a 24-inch screen, but I also admit that it would probably feel like a step back to give up the larger one. You'll have to decide for yourself on that question. It's why I switched to a Mac Mini and an NEC monitor a while back...the idea is to keep the monitor through several lifecycles of computer. (The kind of plan I usually don't have the discipline to carry out.)

All things considered, though, the M1 iMac feels like it might be the ideal middle-of-the-pack sensible solution for Apple-using photographers, a fully matured embodiment of the graphics workstation. At least for people who are happy with compact APS-C or Micro 4/3 cameras, which are positioned similarly in the great scheme of things—"very good but still practical."

Doing well but not here
And by the way, one other thing Apple's three trillion market cap means is that actually, Steve Jobs is the world's richest person. Well, except for two inconvenient little details. First, he sold all his Apple stock (except for one share, which allowed him to access Apple investor reports) in 1985 when he got ousted as head honcho. And, he passed away. So he's no longer, you know, a flesh-and-blood person. Details, details.

It has hardly impacted his success or fame; Bing Crosby, Arnold Palmer, and Elvis Presley go on racking up profits and adding to their wealth year after year, and they are also—there's no polite way to put it—dead. Roald Dahl (Roald Dahl?!), the author of James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, whose stock seems to keep rising and rising in the world, earned $510 million in 2021 (Netflix splurged on the rights to all his work). Michael Jackson had the best earnings year of any celebrity in all of history in 2016, which was fantastic for him except that...oh yeah, right. He was pushing daisies, then and still. Bereft of life. Bought the farm. Bucket kicked. My point is that in a world where dead people go right on making money and being admired for it, it seems a smaller leap to pretend that Steve had kept his Apple stock and to admire him for how rich he would have been if he had.

He managed to get by anyway—I'm not saying he wasn't rich. Did you know Forbes publishes an annual list of the most successful dead people? Bizarre but true. I can't quite wrap my head around the concept. But then, I don't understand Bitcoin either.

So how does Mr. Jobs feel about all his recent theoretical success? The amazing on-paper value of all the shares he wouldn't own any more if he wasn't dead? I for one would love to know. However, he can't be reached for comment.

Mike

Book o' the Week

American Geography by Matt Black, a great name for a photographer but a terrible internet name, impossible to search. Stan Banos calls American Geography a "handsome, well thought out and put together book." Matt's work is outstanding.

The link is a portal to Amazon. Thank you kindly for helping support The Online Photographer!

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Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

hugh crawford: "Well, compare to Ronald Wayne who sold his 10% of Apple for $2,300. If that wasn’t enough, to quote Wikipedia, 'In the early 1990s, Wayne sold the original Apple partnership contract paper, signed in 1976 by Jobs, Wozniak, and himself, for US$500. In 2011, the contract was sold at auction for $1.6 million. Wayne has stated that he regrets that sale. Wayne retired to a mobile home park in Pahrump, Nevada, where he sells stamps and rare coins, and plays penny slots at a casino. Wayne never owned an Apple product until 2011, when he was given an iPad 2 at the Update Conference in Brighton, England. He holds a dozen patents.' Also, Jobs’ real fortune was from being the largest shareholder of Disney stock which he got for Pixar. He sold all but one share of Apple when he got fired and never again had that big a stake in the company."

Mike replies: Ronald Wayne, Pete Best, and the '62 Mets are among history's biggest losers. Fortunately the Cubs are finally off the list.

Ilkka replies: "If I buy shares at $10 a piece and sell them at $30, I made $20 per share. So I won (?). If that share price then goes on up to $200, what did I lose? I still made a $20 profit. How is that losing? If I take part in a marathon run and do not win, does it mean that I lost? I don’t think so. Football game and boxing match has two sides, one wins and the other one loses, unless it’s a draw. In most other things in life there are no losers even when you don’t 'win.'"

Mike replies: Ronald Wayne sold an asset for $2,300 that is now worth ~$300,000,000. And is living in a mobile home park in Parhump. How would you feel? I really doubt he looks back on that and thinks "no loss."

Ken Brayton replies: "An engineer I used to work with quit and got a job at a new startup. Not much of a pay raise, but very nice stock options. He loved flying planes, so when the company went public and he became quite rich he bought his own plane. Flew down to Vegas and ended up landing nose first into the desert. His startup was Apple. I would much rather he was retired in a mobile home in Parhump."

Paul White: The Jobs Trust controlled 38.5 million shares of Apple after his death. It also owns 12.5% of Disney. Jobs was granted shares after he came back to run Apple in 1997.

Mike replies: I haven't been able to determine what percentage of Apple those shares represented, but most sources seem to agree that it was nothing close to 11%, the stake Jobs sold off in 1985.

Phil Stiles: "The classic comment on Elvis' demise was that 'it was a good career move.'"

Mike replies: Yes, and although I appreciate it as a joke, I still kind of can't quite get my mind around the concept. It implies that the important thing about such celebrities is the enduring persona rather than the personhood of the actual person. It sounds like the basis of a Monty Python skit. And probably was. Didn't the family in The World According to Garp have a stuffed dog, Sorrow? And I recall that the original "Saturday Night Live," long ago, had a recurring joke on the "Weekend Update" fake news segment, repeatedly announcing that Generalissimo Francisco Franco was still dead.

Robert Pillow replies: "Sorrow was the family pet in The Hotel New Hampshire whose remains were stuffed following his euthanasia, which I believe was implemented because of his blindness and constant flatulence. Of course, it's been a while since I read the book."

Richard Tugwell: "I have an M1 Mini, which I use exclusively for photo processing, paired with a nice, mid-price monitor. Very, very pleased with performance. So I guess the M1 iMacs will be similarly suitable."

Mike replies: Finally, a comment about the M1 Macs! My purpose in this post was to elicit opinions about them, but apparently I so thoroughly buried the lede that that purpose was lost. Maybe I should try again....

Stephen Cowdery: "I got an M1 iMac as soon as it was released. It is wonderful, especially for image processing. Use your old monitor for displaying files and folders and the Photoshop windows."

Bill Tyler: "I'm reminded of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in which Hotblack Desiato, an incredibly rich musician, spent a year dead for tax purposes."

Phil Stiles: "A year ago, I upgraded my Mac Mini to an M1 model. The difference is profound, especially in how fast Photoshop and Lightroom load and perform. I use solid state drives for storage. My monitor is an aging 30" Cinema Display, but it still works for me. The Mini is the most cost effective way to upgrade. I also recommend an additional OWC Thunderbolt Dock for a plethora of ports."

Steve Rosenblum: "I sold my maxed-out Intel i7 Mac Mini and my 2018 Macbook Pro and bought an M1 Max Macbook Pro to use as my only computer. When photo editing I connect it to my existing NEC 27-inch MultiSync monitor. It's a major leap forward for photo editing compared to my previous computers which were pretty good."

Richard Tugwell: "I have an M1 Mac Mini, which I use exclusively for photo processing, paired with a nice, mid-price monitor. Very, very pleased with performance. So I guess the M1 iMacs will be similarly suitable."

Will: "For one, Roald Dahl’s children’s books are essential read-tos for a certain type of kid. My son was captivated by many of those books, and I expect my daughter to be as well.

"For two, your surprise at his work being well-regarded suggests you’re unfamiliar with his adult work. His short stories are brilliant. And if you’re familiar with any individual episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," it is extremely likely they were Dahl adaptations. Many rely on a sort of characteristic 'dark twist,' like the probably best-known 'A Lamb to the Slaughter,' which sees a housewife murder her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then serve the evidence to the investigating officers. Many follow this pattern, but the 'dark twist' in 'Genesis and Catastrophe' is more subversive.

"Regardless, it is worth grabbing a Roald Dahl adult short story collection. Loads of good stuff."

Mike asks: Like this one?

 

Comments

[Dennis Ng]

Actually jobs succeeded by getting many firms (apple then the one made the even www - next computer then Apple again then Disney …) and that Elon guy helps to revolutionize space and then …

Sorry but ma I say this should be awarded instead those just …

And better to have a market based economy than the communist china which is successfully…

I am all for basic income for all and heavy tax those just sit on lands and stocks. But rewards steve and Elon is a must.

[James H.]

I am very happy with my M1 iMac. I've noticed, though, that the performance bottleneck is now my old Drobo. Processing times are fast but the whole thing bogs down a bit when it has to save something to a file. Something to keep in mind for those thinking of upgrading.

[James]

World's richest man?
!'d bet at the moment that picture was taken, Roald Dahl looked at those kids and truly believed he was.

[Rob de Loe]

He can't be reached by YOU for comment. The truly faithful have their ways. ;)

[Jeff Markus]

Mike,

He's pining for the fjords.

Jeff

[Tom Burke]

M1 Macs…. oh, how I want one! The trouble is, I don’t actually need one. I have a mid-2017 24” iMac bought (in 2018) as a refurbished computer from Apple, which I found to have been significantly spec’d up by its first owner - i7 processor, 32 Gbytes (!) of memory, and a decent size SSD. The new M1 iMac gets better scores on the various benchmarks, but not by that much. So no new iMac. And I also have a 13” MacBook Pro, bought just 18 months ago, for travelling. You know, the thing we haven’t done any of since I got it. So I can’t justify even a refurbished M1 MacBook Air (£849), let alone one of the new 14” M1 Pro MacBook Pro’s - they start at £1899.

Of course that hasn’t stopped me devouring every YouTube unboxing and comparative review that ever been made about the M1 machines; and that in turn has not been good for my mental state. In all of this I’ve hardly touched my camera for months, nor have I written anything in my blogs. Not good. Must do better!

[Stan B.]

Sorry, no time for this pie in the sky nonsense- I got NFT's that need tending...

[Albert Smith]

"For photographers, it makes little actual sense to pursue ultimates... but even if you do, "the best" is a very time-bound concept; soon enough it will be yesterday's news."

Yup. I wonder what the ratio of serious photographers are that started on film versus those that have only shot digital. I'm often surprised on YouTube with the number of videos asking, "Is (fill in the blank camera) still valid in 2021?", where the camera being referenced is all of 5 years old. I was shooting with a Nikon F in 2000, 40 years after it was released.

Who would tolerate the horror of having to use a 5 year old camera today?

[Bear.]

I moved from a maxed out 2014 iMac to a M1 Mac mini (very pleased) on the theory that good monitors last a lot longer than computers - I have a bunch of iMacs extending back to the early g4 models sitting around. They all work fine but since they have no security and can’t cope with the size of files today, they are just large paperweights….

[MichaelT]

While Steve Jobs may be gone his widow Laurene Powell Jobs is using her wealth well: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3135289/how-does-laurene-powell-jobs-spend-her-us217-billion-fortune

[Karel Kravik]

It's market capitalization, not market capitation :)

[Thanks! Fixed now. --Mike]

[Mark]

And you think SJ did not get stock when he returned to Apple? I’ve got a small piece of real estate called the Brooklyn Bridge for sale if you are interested. Interest free payments just for you.

[Millions of shares, but nothing like 11%, is what Wikipedia says. --Mike]

[psu]

[Reads comments ... ]

I have not personally used the M1 Macs yet, but everyone I know who has says they are crazy fast at standard Mac things. A generational jump in performance.

[JimK]

Mike,

I got an M1 Macbook Air last year (to do taxes, since my 2009 27" iMac would not run an OS that is compatible with Turbotax/Taxcut etc). I love it, although I wouldn't want to do photography on only 'it'--because you need more screen real estate. One issue with the Air is that it really will only support one additional monitor--and I'd like either one big screen or preferably two.

The new Macbook Pros (M1 Pro/Max chip sets) are awesome--and I'm tempted (expensive tho they might be). One issue with those is that there really aren't great (semi-affordable) 4K/5K monitors to go with them. The Apple Pro HDR monitor is awesome, but eye-watering at $7K (including stand and anti-glare coating). I'd love to see a more affordable Apple monitor (say at a $1K-2K price point) to go along with either my MacBook Air or a new MacBook Pro.

And then, I'm still waiting to see what the 'big' iMac will look like. Or a bigger Mac Mini with the ability to drive a couple nice monitors.

And then finally, I really haven't done much photography in the last few years, so I wonder why I have such lust over these things... :D

So I hear you. For me, I'm going to wait until the bigger iMac is released before I make a decision.

[Thomas Walsh]

Just musing, but how much of that fortune did Steve Jobs take with him when he died?

[-et-]

I do not have a Mac, let alone a M1, but I regularly watch the photo editing tutorial sessions of the English photographer, Paul Reiffer. (An excellent teacher, IMO.)

When the first M1 Mac appeared, he commented that the performance was comparable to his extremely maxed-out previous generation Mac Pro. For his own work he shoots with a 150 megapixel Phase One camera, so his comments are based upon a demanding usage scenario. Since that time Apple has released higher performance models using the M1 chip.

- Tom -

[KeithB]

I have a 24" iMac M1, and it works really well. I can't tell the difference between Intel applications that use Rosetta, and M1 native apps. One caveat: Adobe seems to have issues with Photoshop Elements working an *any* Mac with Monterey, though I have not experienced that.

[Rick Denney]

The old aphorism goes "the great is the enemy of the good." I bought an old Xeon-powered workstation-class computer that was half a dozen years old, filled it with 128 MB of its (still expensive) error-correcting RAM and an 8-TB hard disk. The even older Benq monitor I was already using stayed on until last week when a power outage took out three-quarters of the panel's backlight. I've just purchased an old low-hours 27" Eizo monitor--just new enough to supported by their current (and free) calibration software--for less than the price of a new monitor with limited gamut. The total of all this stuff doesn't approach the cost of a new Apple anything, but it chews through Photoshop pretty well. We'll see if the monitor choice turned out to be a bust.

Instead of today's mid-grade stuff, I'm trying out yesterday's pro-grade stuff for less money. I don't think my standards have increased since that stuff was new.

What do I know? I still think my Pentax 645z is the state of the art.

(Now, I just need to remember to turn that monitor off when not in use.)

[Steve Biro]

My 2019 27-inch iMac with an i5 9600K processor is still working nicely. But, after three iMacs, I have decided Apple's pricing structure will force me to a Mac Mini with a third-party monitor the next time around.

Likewise, I will no longer be buying Apple's top-or-near-top-of-the-line iPhones. I currently have a very nice iPhone 13 Pro. But only because my carrier offered me a fabulous trade-in deal on my iPhone 11. I suspect a 5G iPhone SE will be next in a few years.

The point is, Apple's hardware is great and I still prefer it to Windows and Android alternatives. But the reality is the company is slowly pricing me out of the market. Maybe not even that slowly anymore.

[C.R. Marshall]

Mike,
I have an i7 MacBook Pro from 2015. I expect it to fall off of the supported list in a year or two. At that time, I will replace it with an M1 (M2, M3???). The old machine cost too much when I bought it. So will the new one.

I also have multiple Windows boxes, only one of which will run Windows 11. For those, I have been reading up on Linux.

[John Shriver]

Very happy with my M1 MacBook Air, although I don't do any photo work on it, other than bringing it along on trips to read SD cards. I enjoy the incredible responsiveness, light weight, very long battery life, decent keyboard, and no fan. All the software I use on it is native for Apple Silicon (Office, FileMaker, Zoom).

For photo work, I just bought the (presumably last) 2020 Intel 27" Retina iMac, because I need Windows 10 under a VM for Nikon Scan, Lime (music editing), and Quicken (Mac version remains a joke). It replaced a 2014 one. It's much perkier than the old one.

It's sad how little the old 27" iMac is worth wholesale, just over $300.

I also have setup one of my fleet of aged MacBooks running Snow Leopard, so I can run the last (PowerPC) version of Nikon Scan there under Rosetta. Just as an alternative.

[Chris Grover]

Hi Mike, I thought I'd share a test I did on 3 MacBook Pros a couple f weeks ago. My son was getting rid of his 1 year old M1 13" to replace it with a 16" M1X. I decided that it was time to replace my 2013 MacBook Pro as it struggles with Lightroom and can barely open Premiere Pro. I did a test import and 1:1 preview of 200 RAW images from a Fuji XH1 into Lightroom. The new M1X - 3mins 35 secs. The year old M1 - 5 mins 53 secs. My 2013 model (with 16GB of RAM and SSD) 35mins 30secs! It was definitely time for the upgrade.

[robert quiet photographer]

i switched from my Mac Pro(2013)nickname trash bin to a MacMini M1 16G connect3d to external HDs (one for the data and two which I alternate for backup) and Im very satisfied, using LRCC, PS and InDesign.

[Christopher Feola]

Mike,
Tech guy here. Our rule of thumb for maximum performance bang for the buck is to buy "last year's 2nd best tech." With all tech, you pay a hefty premium for the absolute fastest. You can get 90% or more of the performance by purchasing the 2nd best. Take a look at this: https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
B&H has the newest Apple 24" M1 iMac for $2,499 https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1636612-REG/apple_imac_24_m1_chip_8_core_16gb_2tb_purple.html; last year's 27" i7 iMac with Retina 5k Display is $2,299. (I didn't bother matching RAM or storage.) Now compare them on Geekbench. The M1 IS 37% faster on single-core tasks. But it is actually 8% SLOWER than the i7 on multi-core tasks, which is the benchmark we really care about for Photoshop and Lightroom and similar software.
So my advice to you is to buy last year's 2nd best...or wait until the M2 comes out, and THEN buy an M1 iMac.
Hope that's helpful!
Cjf
PS: I was a phojo before I was a tech guy; the same thing works for cameras, now that they are digital. When Sony announced the Sony a7riv, there were lots of sales on the a7riii. So I...bought an a7rii. For $1,399, new in box with a bunch of stuff thrown including a Seagate 5 terabyte portable hard drive.

[Ilkka]

You are right, I would be pissed off. But you are missing on the causality. Ronald Wayne did not end up in a trailer park because he sold Apple stock too early, but despite it. He lost an opportunity, but he did not lose money on that investment. (He probably lost on many others).

[Keep Passing The Open Windows]

If we're talking about real wealth controlled by members of the spectral realm, how about "ghost" wealth controlled by those still amongst the living?

By which I mean, maybe ask Bill Browder who the "richest man alive" is.

(His pick is also partly responsible for the early-years survival of Lomography, if you need a photographic connection!)