Creatix / November 19, 2025
Wealth Cuts Both Ways
We tend to assume that the wealthy are insulated from loss. We take them as the "winners" who never lose. Reality shows a different picture. Billions are a cushion, but a loss is a loss. They are big losers just as they are winners.
In modern days, where wealth is mostly in "paper" (stocks), the more you have, the easier and faster you can lose it. Over the last two weeks, in about 15 days, three of the richest tech leaders on Earth — Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and Jensen Huang — each lost roughly $10–$20 billion as their companies’ share prices wobbled. Yes, over $1B gone daily for each one of them. This is a paradox of extreme wealth: your upside is massive, but so is your downside. And in a world ruled by market sentiment, AI-driven volatility, and algorithmic selling, even the titans of tech feel the tremors.
For the average person, the lesson can be surprisingly empowering.
Case Study #1: Mark Zuckerberg — ~$18B evaporated
Meta’s stock pulled back sharply after investors questioned rising AI-related spending and slowed ad momentum. The general fear is that Mark repeated his metaverse mistake, overspending his way trying to have it all. The amount of money you can spend trying to rule the tech world is unlimited, but does not guarantees success in the marketplace. Spending doesn't mean earning much less making profits, and can mean losing and even wasting. In less than 15 days:
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Zuckerberg’s net worth dropped roughly $15–20 billion
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Meta’s share-price swings turned into multi-billion-dollar personal losses overnight
Make no mistake, Zuckerberg is still massively wealthy, but the point is scale plus understanding the reality that even the biggest winners can be, and are frequently, the biggest losers.
Case Study #2: Larry Ellison — ~$18B gone
Oracle's softer outlook and profit concerns shaved off tens of billions in market value. Ellison — with his vast equity stake — lost about $15–20 billion in under two weeks.
His case shows something crucial:
When you’re heavily concentrated in one stock (even if it’s your own company), you live and die by its volatility. The richer you are, the bigger target you become for massive swings. Of course, Ellison is massively wealthy, but yet again a big loser in the last two weeks.
Case Study #3: Jensen Huang — ~$15B wiped away
NVIDIA’s founder rode one of the greatest wealth explosions in history during the AI boom. But when NVIDIA cooled off, so did Huang’s net worth:
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Roughly $10–15 billion gone recently
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Driven almost entirely by stock-price tremors
When a company can gain or lose $200B of market value in a single session, founders with huge equity stakes can see their fortune swing by $1B per hour.
Other Examples:
This phenomenon is universal among the ultra-rich:
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Elon Musk has had years where his net worth dropped $100–$200 billion, the largest wealth loss ever recorded.
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Jeff Bezos has seen $20–40 billion wiped out multiple times during Amazon corrections.
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Bernard Arnault often gains or loses $5–10 billion in a day based on luxury demand cycles.
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Crypto billionaires routinely lose half their net worth in a single major downturn.
For the richest people in the world, a “bad week” can mean losing more money than most nations spend on healthcare annually.
The Hidden Advantage of “Having Less”
Here’s the "empowering" twist: the less you have, the less you stand to lose.
When you have less money tied to volatile assets, you lose less during downturns.
This isn’t just consolation; it's truth regardless of what we may want to make from it.
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Where a person with $100,000 invested loses $10,000 in a correction, a billionaire with $200 billion might lose $20 billion. The billionaire is the biggest loser.
The proportional percentage may be similar. The psychological burden isn’t. It just depends on what meaning we apply. The billionaire with $180B is far better off financially than the person with $90,000. That begins to tell us that being a big loser is not necessarily a bad thing.
In any event, if you’re building wealth, don't forget about:
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Diversification
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Dollar-cost averaging
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Low-cost ETFs
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A patient, long-term focus
Remember also that the the wealthier you become, the more you will have to lose. So if you want to be rich, start by losing the fear of losing. Even the biggest winners are big losers every now and then, depending on how we look at things. Conversely, losers can be winners depending on what we lose (e.g. ignorance, bad habits, impatience, bias, etc.)
www.creatix.one (creating meaning...)
ForLosers.com (losing ignorance...)
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