If you’re a crypto bro who loves AI and sitting in boardrooms full of old white men, you can rejoice! Quote 500 has announced that the Netherlands’ billionaires are richer than ever, and they’re about as diverse as a Minerva frat house.
The Netherlands also has crowned its new richest white man: Jean-Louis van der Velde, who amassed his €26 billion fortune with cryptocurrencies (high five bro!).
So, who are the latest billionaires?
According to Quote 500, the Netherlands’ five richest people are now:
- Jean-Louis van der Velde (€26 billion from crypto)
- Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken (€13 billion, Director of Heineken Holding)
- Ralph Sonnenberg: (€6.9 billion, entrepreneur and former CEO of Hunter Douglas)
- Gérita and Inge Wessels: (€6.9 billion, construction company VolkerWessels)
- Remon Vos (€6.4 billion, real estate entrepreneur)
Stick their posters up on your wall if you love capitalism and moral ambiguity!
Speaking of moral ambiguity, let’s also take a moment to acknowledge the fact that the total wealth of the 500 richest Dutch people amounts to about a quarter of the worth of the Dutch economy: €300 billion.
More AI billionaires
Of course, this wouldn’t be an article about the capitalist Olympics if we didn’t mention AI.
You may have multiple hack notifications and increasingly bad movie scripts to thank AI for, but for multiple entrepreneurs, AI has landed them among the ranks of the 500 richest Dutchies.
For example, 31-year-old Pim de Witte has found himself among their ranks, marking him as the youngest billionaire in the Netherlands — and no doubt, every frat boy’s latest idol.
“If the Quote 500 is the annual X-ray of the economy, then AI is the most discussed break with the past,” Quote 500 writes.
And not enough women
However, if there’s one tale as old as time, it’s that women are yet again underrepresented.
“You quickly get the impression that such a list is actually just a list of rich, older white men. For the most part, that is true,” Jeroen Molenaar, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Quote tells NOS. Yep, you heard it straight from the horse’s mouth.
Just 44 of the 500 are women, with the number stagnating for the past 40 years. While Molenaar does point out that there are indeed more female entrepreneurs sprouting in the Netherlands, it’s going to take a while before we start seeing more of their names reflected in the list.
For now, the Netherlands’ richest club is also a gentleman’s club for the most part.
Do you think the Netherlands needs so many billionaires? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.