[cm2187]

I am not sure that's the case. I read that when you look at the top billionaire list through times (80s, 90s, 2000s, now), there is a lot of turnover. Over long economic cycles, the fate of the companies that made people rich can evolve in both directions.

[orthecreedence]

Let's say I'm a billionaire. There's a market crash. A lot of my money is tied up in the market, but luckily, a lot of it isn't. A lot of it will be safe investments or shares in profit-generating companies that issue dividends. So, while the commoner is destitute, while I may have lost 50% of my wealth, I have safe money (and passive income) I can use to pour into the market buying post-crash cheap investments. Also, because my cost of living is minuscule compared to my income, I don't have to panic-sell during the crash.

When the market bounces back four years later, I'm now 1.5x wealthier than I was before the crash (thanks to all the cheap investments), and all I had to do was move some money around.

[richardknop]

Don't forget that wealthy people also own a lot of real estate and are rentiers so they have plenty of passive income sources to easily cruise through a recession while buying up cheap stuff which will go up in price heavily once economy gets back on track.

[ceejayoz]

High turnover at the very top isn't shocking - there'll always be new ones like Zuckerberg and Bezos shooting up as new markets are found/created.

There's a big difference between "no longer richest person in the world" and "lost everything".