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French Count Louis de Causans Suing France For $401 Million Over The Throne Of Monaco

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The Count Louis Jean Raymond Marie de Vincens de Causans of France is no longer content with his own aristocratic title. According to a recently filed lawsuit reported on by Le Parisien, he is suing the French government over the succession of the throne of Monaco more than a hundred years ago. As he explains:

"I want the truth to come out and this injustice perpetrated by France on my family to be put right … In reality, my cousin Prince Albert acceded to the throne by a sleight of hand… France found a solution to get its hands on Monaco. Afterwards, they managed business on the Rock as they wished."

De Causans' case centers on his ancestor, Guillaume II de Wurtemberg-Urach, who he says should have been crowned the rightful Prince of Monaco after the reign of Louis II. But Guillaume II was German, and in 1911 a law was passed that allowed Louis II to adopt his illegitimate daughter Charlotte Louise in order to ensure her succession.

That law was later determined to have been illegal, and now the Count de Causan is seeking financial damages of about $401 million from France. According to his attorney Monsieur Jean-Marc Descoubès, this quirk in the line of succession is far from being a simple matter of title or even of political power, since were it not for that decision "[h]is fortune would be out of proportion with what it is today."

Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Albert II, Prince of Monaco today (pictured above) is worth around $1 billion, but it isn't he whom de Causans blames for the situation, nor is he included in the lawsuit. As he explains:

"I thought it was the Grimaldis' fault, but then I found out it was the French state that caused this dramatic turnaround for us."

The $401 million in damages is said to be about how much de Causan's family has lost in the wake of losing their place in the throne's line of succession.

Read more: French Count Louis de Causans Suing France For $401 Million Over The Throne Of Monaco


Matt Lauer Reportedly Paying Wife $20 Million Divorce Settlement

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The hits keep on coming for former Today host Matt Lauer. Reports have surfaced claiming that he's about to pay his soon to be ex-wife Annette Roque a settlement that could be as high as $20 million. According to Page Six, sources say that Lauer is bending over backwards to give Annette everything she wants as he feels so guilty about cheating on her. Lauer was fired in November from the NBC morning show when multiple women came forward accusing him of sexual misconduct.

In 2006, Annette filed for divorce on the grounds of "mental abuse, extreme mental and emotional distress, humiliation, torment, and anxiety," painting a picture of how difficult it was to live with Lauer and his infidelities. She agreed to rescind the divorce filing after Matt paid her a lump sum in the millions as an incentive to stay with him and maintain his image and reputation. At that time, the couple also created a post-nup designed to make things smoother and easier should she ever decide to file for divorce again. She also received an allowance every year and the agreement calls for her to get a share of the value of all of their houses if they divorced.

Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images

Since his firing from Today, Lauer has been putting all of his homes up for sale. He sold his Upper East Side apartment for over the asking price of $7.35 million. He originally listed his Sag Harbor home for $18 million but slashed the price to $12.75 million recently. Sources say that though Matt is willing to give Annette anything she wants, he really would like to retain the Hamptons home for himself. He bought the six-acre estate in 2016 for $36.5 million from Richard Gere. He has been spending the majority of his time there since he was fired.

Matt and Annette are believed to have worked out the shared custody agreement for their three children – Jack, 17, Romy, 14, and Thijs, 11.

The source also said that Lauer continues to insist that the relationships he had in the offices of Today were consensual.

Read more: Matt Lauer Reportedly Paying Wife $20 Million Divorce Settlement

Whatsapp Founder Jan Koum Is Showing Up To Facebook, Barely Working, Waiting To Collect $450 Million

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Back in April, WhatsApp founder Jan Koum announced that he planned to not just leave Facebook, but also give up his seat on the board of Facebook. Remember, Facebook bought WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion. It was thought that he could be leaving as much as $1 billion of shares on the table by leaving before they vest. He's already sold $7.1 billion of his Facebook shares. Koum is no dummy. He's still showing up to the Facebook office. He has one more payday to collect and it is a whopper: $450 million in stock. So Koum is participating in the uniquely Silicon Valley practice of resting and vesting.

Resting and vesting is a term specific to Silicon Valley that refers to wealthy engineers and entrepreneurs who basically have already signaled that they will be leaving a tech company but are permitted to continue to be employed officially until their stock and options vest. Resting and vesting is an open secret in Silicon Valley. Even the HBO show Silicon Valley addressed this practice in an episode where engineers hang out on a roof and don't do any work.

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Stock awards after an acquisition or merger are usually distributed on over a schedule of four years. If you make it through all four years, you get your entire stock grant. Koum's last scheduled vesting date is in November. According to The Wall Street Journal, Koum put in an appearance at Facebook's Palo Alto offices in mid-July. That fulfilled a requirement of his employment contract.

Koum decided to leave Facebook because he was upset that Facebook plans to weaken encryption and use personal micro-targeted data from the app for advertising. He has reportedly been clashing with Facebook management for months. The privacy and protection of its users' data is at the core of what Koum and his co-founder Brian Acton set out to do with WhatsApp. When they sold their then small startup to Facebook, they promised their user base that WhatsApp's independence would be preserved, as would personal data. In 2016, WhatsApp strengthened its pledge to protect user's data by adding encryption. Koum's exit from Facebook is pretty unusual. Zuckerberg's inner circle of management and its board of directors have been very loyal as scandals have plagued the social network. Additionally, Koum is the only founder of a company Facebook acquired who was a member of its board of directors.

Koum's last vesting will finish up the 24.9 million restricted shares of Facebook he received when he sold WhatsApp to the social media behemoth. He has two more vesting dates left—one in August and one in November.

Read more: Whatsapp Founder Jan Koum Is Showing Up To Facebook, Barely Working, Waiting To Collect $450 Million

Michael Che Net Worth

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Michael Che net worth and salary: Michael Che is an American actor, comedian, and writer who has a net worth of $4 million. Michael Che was born in Manhattan, New York in May 1983. He is best known for being featured on Saturday Night Live where he became a co-anchor of the Weekend Update segment, becoming the first black anchor on the segment. He co-anchor's Weekend Update with Colin Jost. Che joined the television series Saturday Night Live in 2013 and is also a writer, serving as co-head writer starting in 2017. He made his debut on the TV series John Oliver's New York Stand-Up Show in 2012 and has also appeared on the TV series The Daily Show. He only appeared in nine episodes of The Daily Show before he jumped over to SNL. Michael Che hosted the 70th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2018. He has also appeared in the films Chinese Puzzle, Lyle, and Top Five. Che has won Writers Guild of America Awards for Comedy/Variety – Sketch Series for Saturday Night Live in 2017 and 2018 and has been nominated for multiple Primetime Emmy Awards.

Saturday Night Live salary: Michael Che's SNL salary is $15,000 per episode which works out to around $315,000 per season.

Read more: Michael Che Net Worth

Founders Of Wish App Sell Enough Cheap Goods To Become Billionaires

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Have you heard of the Wish app? It's kind of genius. For ridiculously cheap, you can get anything from costume jewelry to home accessories to clothing and beyond. I like to buy jewelry. It ships from China so takes a while to arrive, but ensures that I frequently have something fun in my mailbox. I'm apparently not the only one who does this because Wish sells so much stuff that the e-commerce site has become a Silicon Valley unicorn with an $8.5 billion valuation. That makes its co-founders Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang billionaires themselves, with $1.3 billion each.

Wish was founded in 2010 by Szulczewski and Zhang, former programmers at Google and Yahoo. Szulczewski spent six-and-a-half years at Google solving big matching problems before leaving to cofound ContextLogic with Zhang. The idea was to build a next generation mobile ad platform that would compete with Google's AdSense.

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Szulczewski and Zhang quickly realized that business development, an integral part of any ad network, was not their thing. They changed tracks and launched Wish as an app that asked people to create wish lists. The company then would let merchants know a certain number of people wanted, say, a certain vase. Users viewed similar products on other websites, earning Wish revenue through a pay-per-click model. By 2013, Wish was an e-commerce site where users could purchase items on the app with Wish taking a portion of each sale.

All of those inexpensive goods are big business, it turns out. Last September, Wish raised $250 million at an $8.5 billion valuation. The San Francisco-based company has more than 500 million users across the globe.

Szulczewski and Zhang were the latest founders of a unicorn startup to become billionaires – on paper, at least. Their combined $2.6 billion gives them one of the largest stakes held by startup founders.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go browse Wish for some new bedroom curtains.

Read more: Founders Of Wish App Sell Enough Cheap Goods To Become Billionaires

Andrew Carnegie's 110-Year-Old Advice On Attaining Wealth And Prosperity

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The economy has changed a lot since 1908. But evidently there's at least one person's financial advice from way back when that's still relevant today, because Andrew Carnegie's musings on wealth and prosperity from a 1908 interview with reporter Napoleon Hill were reprinted just last year in a volume entitled How To Own Your Own Mind. During his talk with Hill, the famously wealthy Carnegie discussed what he considered to be the foundations of his success: "Creative vision," "organized thought," and "controlled attention."

Creative vision, the first principle cited by Carngie as being crucial to one's success, is itself broken down into ten "attitudes" (evidently one unspoken part of being a success is thinking almost exclusively in lists of abstract concepts). Here they are:

  1. "Recognizes opportunities favorable to his own advancement."
  2. "Moves with definiteness of purpose in embracing opportunities."
  3. "Plans every move he makes."
  4. "Provides himself with…the knowledge of others."
  5. "Removes limitations from his own mind."
  6. "Adopts and follows the habit of Going the Extra Mile."
  7. "Keeps his mind.attuned to the circumstances and conditions of those around him."
  8. "Moves on his own personal initiative, without being urged to do so."
  9. "Assumes full responsibility for his own deeds and depends upon the soundness of his own judgment."
  10. "Develops and uses.the faculties of [imagination.]"

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You might think that after checking all those attitudes off your list, you're pretty much on your way to success. But no, you're really only 33 percent there. Now it's time for you to organize your thoughts, with another ten attitudes:

  1. Become the master of your own mind
  2. Prohibits procrastination
  3. Working with definite plans
  4. Stimulate the subconscious mind
  5. Develops self-reliance
  6. Benefit of the knowledge, experience, and education of others
  7. Convert efforts to greater material resources
  8. Develops a habit of accurate analysis
  9. Maintains sound health
  10. Peace of mind

Now, you've achieved organized thought and creative vision, and now you must master the third principle: Controlled attention. According to Carnegie, controlled attention is a way for you to focus your thoughts on a specific idea or set of ideas – in this case whatever it is you're hoping to achieve wealth by doing – and allowing that idea to flourish as a result. In his words:

"Controlled attention magnetized the brain with the nature of one's dominating thoughts, aims, and purposes, thus causing one to be always in search of every necessary thing that is related to one's dominating thoughts."

Carnegie's ideas about his success might be helpful to anyone hoping to make it big today, even though he came up with them over a century ago. But in some ways, his thoughts are very similar to certain arguments made today in favor of concepts like universal basic income:

"A man will always be more effective when engaged in the sort of work he likes best. That is why one's major purpose in life should be of his own choice. People who drift through life performing work they do not like, merely because they must have an income as a means of living, seldom get more than a living from their labor. You see, this sort of labor does not inspire one to perform service in an obsessional desire to work. It is one of the tragedies of civilization that we have not found a way to give every man the sort of work he likes best to do."

Kind of sounds like something Mark Zuckerberg or Richard Branson might say, doesn't it?

Read more: Andrew Carnegie's 110-Year-Old Advice On Attaining Wealth And Prosperity

At One Point He Was The 7th Richest Person In The World. Today Eika Batista Is Serving 30 Years In Prison For Bribery

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It has not been a good year for Eike Batista. Not long ago, Eike was richest person in Brazil and the seventh richest person on the planet with a net worth of $35 billion. He was married to a Playboy Playmate and famously kept his favorite super car of the moment parked in his mansion's custom living room. In a glowing 60 Minutes interview, Eike predicted that within 10 years he would be the richest person on the planet with a net worth north of $100 billion. That was roughly 10 years ago. So how'd his prediction turn out? Well, he is not worth $100 billion. And even if he was, he'd still be $50 billion away from being the richest person on the planet (Jeff Bezos). Tragically, Eike's fortune is gone. He's actually $1.2 billion in debt. It gets worse. He was recently slapped with a 30-year prison sentence. The crime? He paid $16.6 million to the then-governor of Rio de Janeiro in exchange for lucrative government contracts, a bribery scheme that was exposed by the Brazilian government's massive "Carwash" corruption probe. Marcelo Bretas, the presiding judge over the case, made no bones about precisely why he decided to throw the book at Batista:

"Precisely because he was a world-famous businessman, his criminal business practices were potentially capable of contaminating Brazil's business environment and reputation, causing deep scars to the confidence of investors and entrepreneurs who, in the recent past, saw Brazil as a good investment option."

Batista was reported to be under house arrest at the time of the sentencing, while the ex-governor he was convicted of bribing, Sergio Cabral, was actually in prison. Meanwhile, Batista's lawyer Fernando Martins said in an email to the press that they were planning on filing an appeal.

YASUYOSHI CHIBA/AFP/Getty Images

The Carwash corruption probe in Brazil began in 2014 and has sunk a lot of big time political figures in the country, even up to Brazil's former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Its exposure of massive corruption in the country has remained a hot political issue in Brazil, but some have pointed to the release of some of its convicts as evidence that lengthy prison sentences like Batista's might not ultimately stick.

When authorities raided Batista's mansion in 2017, they found a safe full of cash, as well as a Lamborghini Aventador parked in the living room, and Batista himself was declared an international fugitive from justice and jailed upon his return.

It's all part of a meteoric rise and fall for Batista. At the beginning of this decade he was one of the richest people on Earth with a net worth of around $35 billion. Unfortunately, in August 2012, the worldwide commodities markets had clearly peaked, and along with that, so did Eike Batista's personal wealth. Over the following 12 months, oil production at his largest company, OGX, declined 87%. OGX went from producing 750,000 barrels of oil per day to just 15,000. The collapse of mineral prices obliterated Batista's remaining four companies in similar fashion. To make matters even worse, Eike personally guaranteed $3.5 billion worth of corporate loans, causing a variety of creditors to circle him like vultures. OGX eventually filed for bankruptcy; it is the largest bankruptcy in the history of Latin America. Then, after a series of additional misfortunes for his chain of startup companies including huge debts and investigations into accusations of insider trading, in 2015 he became one of the few "negative billionaires" by being more than a billion dollars in the red. As of right now, Eike is officially worth NEGATIVE $1.2 billion.

His lawyers plan to appeal the 30-year sentence, but this has been one of the most dramatic falls in the history of wealth and billionaires.

Read more: At One Point He Was The 7th Richest Person In The World. Today Eika Batista Is Serving 30 Years In Prison For Bribery

Kevin Durant Is Investing In A Major Venture Capital Firm To Bring More Diversity To Tech

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Fresh off of his second straight NBA title, Kevin Durant is working on another empire: his off-court businesses. And his next move could help change things in Silicon Valley forever.

Durant, Will Smith, and Essence magazine publisher Richelieu Dennis invested in a $15 million fund from venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The fund, "Culture," will be backed by black celebrities and prominent media to shine a spotlight on the lack of diversity in the tech industry.

Though there have been attempts to include more diversity within the tech world, those efforts have largely been unsuccessful. Large companies, such as Google and Facebook, have made minimal progress in employee demographics. Earlier this year, the Congressional Black Caucus visited Silicon Valley and said some of the companies had actually gone backwards with their diversity initiatives.

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Durant, Smith, Dennis, and others hope this time is different. The Culture fund will focus on creating opportunities for people of color in tech. Andreessen Horowitz won't collect any fees or interest, instead donating the money to nonprofits looking to improve diversity in major technology industries.

However, Durant, Smith, Dennis, and other investors will make money if the fund grows.

In just two years, Durant has already invested in at least six startups, including startup food-delivery company Postmates. He's certainly grown his own opportunities. Now he's looking to throw an assist to others.

Read more: Kevin Durant Is Investing In A Major Venture Capital Firm To Bring More Diversity To Tech


Tinder Employees Suing Parent Company Accusing It Of Faking Financials For Low Valuation

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Some early Tinder employees, including co-founders Justin Mateen, Sean Rad, and Jonathan Badeen, have filed a lawsuit against IAC and Match Group, Tinder's owners. They are alleging that IAC faked the financial figures and purposely lowered the valuation of Tinder in order to avoid having to pay the dating app's founders and early employees billions of dollars in equity.

In 2014, the Tinder employees received contracts that outlined stock options and laid out four dates on which they could exercise them. Before the first exercise date in May 2017, IAC set a $3 billion valuation of Tinder and merged it with Match. This action took away the Tinder team's original options and left them with Match options, which were far less valuable. IAC also cancelled three scheduled independent valuations of Tinder set for 2018, 2020, and 2021. IAC also reorganized the executive structure of Tinder so that its founders and early employees could not exercise their options at a higher valuation.

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The lawsuit claims that IAC and Match Group created a "disinformation campaign" and "false picture" of Tinder's financial figures and projections to back up its lower valuation of the company. The lawsuit alleges that IAC inflated Tinder's expenses to set up an "alternative universe" in which Tinder appeared to be heading for bankruptcy. It also claims that IAC downplayed new and upcoming features of the app that would impact Tinder's performance figures.

That led to the $3 billion valuation, which was partially based on IAC/Match Group's projection that Tinder would bring in $454 million in revenue in 2018. As of August 8th, Tinder is on track to bring in more than $800 million this year.

The lawsuit also says that IAC placed its own financial executive at Tinder. Greg Blatt determined that Tinder was worth less than the Tinder executive team thought it was. This is an important point because Tinder was not a publicly traded company and Match was. Therefore, Tinder's financials were private, allowing IAC to undermine the valuation outside of the public eye. The valuation directly affected the worth of the Tinder group's options. The lawsuit alleges that IAC and Match purposely controlled the valuation of Tinder and deprived the Tinder employees of the right to participate in the company's future success. The false valuation also saved IAC billions of dollars.

The suit also accuses Blatt, the former chairman and CEO of IAC of groping Rosette Pambakian, Tinder's VP of marketing and communications. The alleged sexual misconduct happened at Tinder's 2016 holiday party, shortly after he took over as interim CEO of Tinder.

Although owned by IAC/Match, Tinder operates independently. Tinder was founded in the incubator Hatch Labs. IAC was the majority owner of Hatch Labs. There has been a conflict over the ownership structure and founders' equity stakes that date back to the founding of Tinder.

Read more: Tinder Employees Suing Parent Company Accusing It Of Faking Financials For Low Valuation

'Black-ish' Creator Kenya Barris Signs $100M Netflix Deal

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The latest television auteur to benefit from Netflix's seemingly infinite coffers is Black-ish creator Kenya Barris. Variety reports that Barris has signed a $100 million development deal with the streaming platform that will have him producing original Netflix series over the course of several years.

Before he could finalize a deal with Netflix, Barris first had to get out of his contract with ABC, the network home of Black-ish. This reportedly happened "several months ago," following creative differences between Barris and ABC that resulted in an episode of the show being pulled from the air. At the time, Barris characterized the decision like this: "Given our creative differences, neither ABC nor I were happy with the direction of the episode and mutually agreed not to air it." But those creative differences eventually deepened to the point of Barris leaving ABC and his position as a co-showrunner on Black-ish (he will stay affiliated with the show and its Freeform spin-off Grown-ish as executive producer).

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Cindy Holland is the vice president of original content at Netflix, and she's enthusiastic about adding Barris to their ever expanding talent stable:

"Kenya Barris is one of our great modern storytellers. Kenya uses his voice to make audiences more aware of the world around them, while simultaneously making them laugh. His honesty, comedic brilliance and singular point of view, combined with the creative freedom he will enjoy at Netflix, promises to create powerful new stories for all our members around the world."

"When my agents reached out to me about this little garage start-up called Netflix, I wasn't sure what to think. But after I talked to Ted and Cindy, I started to believe that maybe this mom-and-pop shop with only 130 million subscribers might just be something… so I decided to take a swing… a leap of faith if you will, and take a chance with the new kids on the block."
What Barris will come up with for Netflix remains to be seen, but the roughly $100 million deal puts him in rare company with the highest paid creators on TV, like Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy, who have also signed big ticket contracts of their own with Netflix.

Read more: 'Black-ish' Creator Kenya Barris Signs $100M Netflix Deal

Scarlett Johansson Tops The List Of Highest Paid Actresses In The World

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Playing Black Widow in the Avengers movies is big business for Scarlett Johansson. Such big business in fact, that it has made her the highest-paid actress of the year with $40.5 million in pretax earnings between June 1, 2017 and June 1. 2018. Her $40.5 million take is quadruple her 2017 earnings. Look for her to top next year's list next year as well, as she will reprise her Black Widow role in the 2019 film in the series.

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Angelina Jolie comes in at number two with $28 million, thanks to her upfront payment for Maleficent 2. Jennifer Aniston grabs the third spot with $19.5 million. It has been more than 14 years since Friends ended, but Aniston continues to bring in the big bucks thanks to her endorsement deals with Aveeno, Smart Water, and Emirates airlines, among others. Her salary for next year is set to be even higher thanks to her upcoming Apple series with Reese Witherspoon. Aniston and Witherspoon are set to make $1.25 million per episode. Jennifer Lawrence, who once topped this list, is the fourth-highest-paid actress with $18 million. Oh, and by the way, Reese Witherspoon clocks in at number five with $16.5 million.  Emma Stone, who topped last year's list, failed to make the top 10 highest paid actresses this year.

Let's take a look at the ten highest-paid actresses of the year.

#10. Gal Gadot – $10 million
#9. Melissa McCarthy – $12 million
#8. Cate Blanchett – $12.5 million
#7. Julia Roberts – $13 million
#6. Mila Kunis – $16 million
#5. Reese Witherspoon – $16.5 million
#4. Jennifer Lawrence – $18 million
#3. Jennifer Aniston – $19.5 million
#2. Angelina Jolie – $28 million
#1. Scarlett Johansson – $40.5 million

Read more: Scarlett Johansson Tops The List Of Highest Paid Actresses In The World

Kyler Murray Is A College Athlete Who Will Make $4.66 Million This Season… By Going Pro In A DIFFERENT SPORT!

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Twenty-one year-old junior Kyler Murray is competing for the starting quarterback spot with the Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners are ranked No. 3 in the nation and are led by their coach Lincoln Riley. Riley will make $4.8 million this season. Murray will earn nearly that much starting in January.

Here's how: Murray signed a deal with the Oakland Athletics. While NCAA rules prohibit a player from competing in a sport if they earn money from it, a player retains their eligibility in other sports.

Murray won't be able to play for the Sooners baseball team, but football (or any other sport) is fair game. And his unusual situation is an eye-opener in the longstanding debate about paying collegiate athletes.

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Outside of a scholarship and gear, Murray won't receive much financially from the Sooners. That's despite the University of Oklahoma making $155 million in revenue through its football program last season. The Oakland Athletics, meanwhile, made $210 million in revenue and dished out $83 million in player salaries.

Murray stands just 5'10", which is fairly short for an NFL quarterback. That, coupled with the average MLB career lasting more than two years longer than the average NFL career (5.6 to 3.3 years), could have factored into his decision.

However, Murray isn't ready to abandon football completely. The junior, who previously played at Texas A&M, could still return to Oklahoma for his senior season. He shadowed Baker Mayfield last year, and Mayfield ultimately became the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. He signed a four-year, $32.7 million contract with the Cleveland Browns.

If Murray has a similarly impressive season, he could potentially receive as much money in the NFL. He wouldn't be the first athlete to ditch baseball for football. Russell Wilson was drafted by the Colorado Rockies, but returned part of his signing bonus to pursue a career in the NFL.

Then there are guys like Bo Jackson and Deion Sanders, who played professionally in both the NFL and MLB.

Murray doesn't have to make a decision quite yet. But it does have to feel pretty good knowing he has nearly $5 million in the bank should he head to Oakland.

Read more: Kyler Murray Is A College Athlete Who Will Make $4.66 Million This Season… By Going Pro In A DIFFERENT SPORT!

The Eagles' Greatest Hits Record Has Surpassed 'Thriller' In Overall Sales At 38x Platinum

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For a long time, only one album has occupied the very peak of commercial success, and many believed that thanks to changes in the music business nothing would ever topple its dominance. It's Thriller by Michael Jackson, the massive cultural phenomenon that's certified 33x platinum with 33 million total units sold and streamed. But contrary to that record's title track, it appears that there is at least one group of mere mortals who can resist the evil of the Thriller: The Eagles, whose greatest hits compilation Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is now certified 38x platinum by The Recording Industry Association of America.

Don Henley of The Eagles delivered a typically inspired statement to the press on his band's achievement:

"We are grateful for our families, our management, our crew, the people at radio and, most of all, the loyal fans who have stuck with us through the ups and downs of 46 years. It's been quite a ride."

Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 was first released in 1976 and has become something of a ubiquitous cultural object in the decades since. The RIAA last tabulated its sales and streaming figures in 2006, when it was certified 29x platinum, while Thriller's figures were updated only last year. It's not known whether news of this upset might provoke a slew of Michael Jackson fans to buy and/or stream his masterpiece all over again and allow him to retake the top spot, but such a scenario certainly isn't impossible.

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The RIAA changed the way it calculates album sales in 2013, when it began factoring in streaming figures on platforms like Spotify and YouTube into its certifications. Today, 1,500 streams of an album comes to one sale, while ten downloads of a particular song equals a sale of the album on which the song appears.

The Eagles got more good news from the RIAA, as their 1977 studio album Hotel California is certified 26x platinum and is right behind Thriller in its place as the third best selling album of all time.

Read more: The Eagles' Greatest Hits Record Has Surpassed 'Thriller' In Overall Sales At 38x Platinum

Two Of The Richest Men In The World; How They Made Their Money, And How They Spend It On Their Political Agendas

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Charles and David Koch are two of the richest people in the world. Charles Koch has a net worth of $47 billion and his younger brother David has a net worth of $50 billion. They are two of the most controversial billionaires around according to the book Dark Money by Jane Mayer. The book details the rise of the radical right and the billionaire families that funded that rise. The Kochs, in particular, have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to bring their fringe political ideas to the center of American politics. The Kansas natives have used their wealth and influence to create a network of political influence in support of their libertarian values.

Lately, they've been clashing with the President over his proposed tariffs. And I am not sure if Donald Trump realizes it, but if he would like to remain President and/or be reelected in 2020, Charles and David Koch are not the people he should be on the bad side of.

How did these brothers come to be so rich and influential? It all dates back to their father Fred Koch. The Texas native and MIT grad joined the Keith-Winkler Engineering Company of Wichita, Kansas in 1925. Later that same year, the company was renamed the Winkler-Koch Engineering Company. The company had a big breakthrough with a gasoline refinement technique. Lawsuits from established companies that didn't appreciate a new kid on the block prevented them from getting much work. So, Fred Koch looked to Europe for work.

David Koch. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

In the years preceding World War II, a young and industrious Fred Koch headed to Europe to seek his fortune. He received a $500,000 paycheck from Stalin for his assistance in building 15 oil refineries in the Soviet Union in the 1940s. While in Europe, Koch entered into a partnership with William Rhodes Davis, best known as an American Nazi sympathizer. Mayer hired Koch to build the Third Reich's third-largest oil refinery. This refinery was a critical part of Hitler's war machine. Just a few years later, Koch helped the Nazis build that huge oil refinery. That refinery went on to produce hundreds of thousands of gallons for the Luftwaffe.

In 1940, Koch Sr. founded the Wood River Oil and Refining Company. Six years later, he changed the name to Rock Island Oil and Refining Company. He married Wichita native Mary Robinson and had four sons: Fred Jr., Charles, and twins David and Bill. Fred Jr. had no interest in the family business, which was worth $80 million in 1960. Fred Jr. became a patron of the arts. Charles, on the other hand, was very interested in the family business. In 1961, at 26 years old, he joined the company. Five years later, he became president of the company. Fred Sr. died in 1967 and Charles became chairman of his father's company. At that time it was worth $250 million. Charles renamed the company Koch Industries in 1968 in honor of his father. David joined the family business in 1970. Bill joined in 1971.

The three brothers did not get along, and in 1980 Bill tried to launch a coup to take over the board of Koch Industries. Charles and David killed that plan and fired Bill. He left with a $400,000 severance payment. That wasn't the end of the battle. Bill and Fred Jr. had shares in the company. Negotiations began between the four brothers with Charles and David on one side and Bill and Fred Jr. on the other. In 1983, the Koch brothers reached a settlement. Bill was paid $620 million for his 21% stake in the company. Fred was paid $400 million for his stake in the company. In 1985, Bill and Fred Jr. took their brothers to court, alleging that their shares had been undervalued in the settlement. The case reached a $25 million settlement.

Koch Industries ran into more trouble down the road. In 1998, the company paid a $6.9 million settlement over oil spills in Minnesota. The company also pled guilty to a federal criminal charge related to the Minnesota case that resulted in an $8 million fine. That same year, a pipeline explosion killed two teenagers. The pipe was corroded. The victims' families received $296 million from Koch Industries in a wrongful death lawsuit. In 2000, the company paid a civil environmental fine of $30 million for 1995 charges over more than 300 oil spills that were found to have happened by the EPA due to Koch Industries failing to inspect its pipelines. In 2002, the company paid a $28.5 million fine after a subsidiary was found guilty of price fixing.

All of those fines and judgments would kill most companies, but not Koch Industries. The company branched out into mining, real estate, and ranching.

Politically, the Koch brothers are a force to be reckoned with. They are reportedly spending $400 million in the upcoming midterm elections. In 2017, Koch Industries gave $1.3 million to congressional candidates.

Today, Koch Industries brings in an annual revenue of $100 billion. Charles and David each own a 42% stake in the family business. Going forward, only one Koch brother will be at Koch Industries. David announced his retirement this year. Charles will remain with the company.

Read more: Two Of The Richest Men In The World; How They Made Their Money, And How They Spend It On Their Political Agendas

He Started A List. Now He's A Major Billionaire Philanthropist.

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Back in 1995, the internet was in its infancy. On March 1st of that year, Craig Newmark, who had just been laid off from his job as a computer engineer at Charles Schwab, sent an email to his friends announcing his intention to "give back." With the time off his job loss afforded him, and his severance package, Newmark launched a mailing list of art and technology events around San Francisco. That mailing list morphed into Craigslist.org. That was five months before Netscape went public and about six months before the launch of Windows 95. Craigslist is one of the last true first of wave dot-com era holdovers. The online classifieds site was the 46th most visited website in the United States in March 2017 with 59 million unique visitors – that's more than the Wall Street Journal and Expedia.com. Craigslist has made 65-year-old Craig Newmark a billionaire. Now, 23 years later, Newmark is still giving back. He's become a major philanthropist.

Over the last few years, Newmark has donated $40 million to journalism initiatives, $50 million to his private foundation Craig Newmark Philanthropies, through which he gives to causes that support voter registration, women in technology, and military families. Most recently he made a $1 million grant through DonorsChoose.org for public school teachers in STEM. Teachers at schools where more than half of the students are from low income families can apply for funding for science and math classroom projects.

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The $40 million that Newmark has given to journalism initiatives is aimed to fight the plague of fake news that started during the 2016 presidential election. In 2017 he gave $1 million each to the nonprofit news forums ProPublica and the Poynter Institute. He also gave a $20 million endowment, in one lump sum to the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. The school was renamed the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism.

Craigslist is a cash cow. According to research done by Advanced Interactive Media Group, Craigslist took in more than $690 million in revenue in 2016 – most of that net profit. With that level of revenue, the company is conservatively valued at about $3 billion.  Even more amazing, the San Francisco-based company has never raised any outside investment. Craigslist is free for most users.

The vast majority of classified listings on Craigslist are free and only a small subset is charged for posts. The site started charging $25 for job postings in 1998 simply to cover the costs of running the website. Today the site also charges fees for categories including ticket sales by brokers, New York City apartment listings, and cars sold by dealers, to name just a few. Fees range from $7 to $75 per posting depending on location. Fees were expanded in listings to combat spammers in categories that were very competitive, such as New York City apartment listings. At one point in the early 2000s, the site was making $40,000 a day on just job ads in the Bay Area alone. That sum has increased dramatically over the ensuing years.

Newmark has not been involved in Craigslist's day-to-day operations since 2000.

Read more: He Started A List. Now He's A Major Billionaire Philanthropist.


Billionaire Roundup: New Digs, California Dreaming, And More Elon Musk Weirdness

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How is it nearly the end of August already?! Before we know it, the leaves will be changing, the weather will cool off, and pumpkin spice everything will take over. But before that, let's enjoy the last lazy, hazy days of summer with another edition of the Billionaire Roundup. Today we've got a swanky new high-priced San Francisco address for billionaires (and multi millionaires). We've also got an update on a billionaire's quest to divide California into three separate states and a truly bizarre story involving Elon Musk, his girlfriend Grimes, and Azealia Banks.

A New Address For Billionaires And Others That Can Afford It
San Francisco has a new pricey address at 181 Fremont in the SoMa neighborhood. The 56-story condo tower is mixed use – but only has one commercial tenant – Facebook. It also has 55 multi-million dollar units and a five bedroom penthouse still under construction that is on the market for $42 million. The building has been under construction since 2013. The first unit just sold for $15 million. It is a 3,326 square foot three bedroom condo. It broke the San Francisco record for the highest price per square foot sale for a condo. The developers encased the building in criss crossed beams that are supposed to act as shock absorbers in an earthquake.

Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

Billionaire Abandons Plan To Divide California Into Three States
Billionaire Tim Draper has dropped his quest to split California into three states after the California Supreme Court kicked it off the November ballot. Draper spent more than $1.7 million trying to get his initiative to divide the U.S.'s most populous state onto the ballot.

Draper spent more than $1.7 million to qualify his initiative for the ballot, which requires gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures.

Draper's plan would have put the Bay Area, Silicon Valley, Sacramento and the rest of Northern California into one state; the second would be a strip of land from Los Angeles to Monterey; and the third would include San Diego, the Central Valley and Orange County.

The Planning and Conservation League argued that such an enormous change to the state's government could not be done through a ballot initiative. The group sued to keep Draper's initiative off the ballot.

The Totally Weird Story Involving Azealia Banks, Grimes, And Elon Musk
There are a lot of weird stories about Elon Musk, especially lately, but this one just might be the weirdest. So, Azealia Banks and Musk's girlfriend Grimes were planning to collaborate on Banks' second album. According to Banks, Grimes invited her to fly to L.A. to stay at Musk's house so the two of them could finish up their collaboration. Banks flew to L.A. and things got really weird.

Banks began posting a since-deleted Instagram story about how she had been sitting in Musk's house, alone, waiting for Grimes "for days." Well, let's just transcribe the story in Banks' own words:

"Literally been sitting at Elon Musk's house alone for days waiting for @grimes to show up and start these sessions. I have no idea when she is coming back. I'm going to wait one more day then I'm going to go."

Banks confirmed that she was at Musk's house from early Friday to Sunday night.

"Staying at Elon Musk's house has been like a real life episode of "Get Out""

"LOL I waited around all weekend while Grimes coddled her boyfriend for being too stupid to know not to go on twitter while on acid. Then she had the nerve to go ghost and "book me a first class flight" thru roc nations as if she's big enough to send ME out of LA. Ha!"

"I should have stayed my ass in NYC. They invited me here to stay and told me I couldn't bring my boyfriend…Lol…it was probably some weird threesome sex shit to begin with…"

"I'm good luv, enjoy."

Over the course of her Insta story, Banks claimed Musk only took Grimes to the Met Gala to make Amber Heard jealous.

The reference to Musk tweeting while on acid apparently refers to his tweet that announced he was planning to take Tesla private at $420 a share. It is still not clear if Musk meant it, he did indicate that funding was secured. He could have been making a bad marijuana joke. If he was serious it could be seen as illegal manipulation of the stock market.

Elon Musk's response to all of this? He said he doesn't know her and has never met her and that Banks' claims were "complete nonsense."

Read more: Billionaire Roundup: New Digs, California Dreaming, And More Elon Musk Weirdness

The 15 Richest Families in America

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Let's call it a case of the haves and the have nots. These families are the haves and the rest of us are the have nots – in that we don't have billions, mansions in multiple locations, private jets, etc. The 15 families below run the gamut. They are behind some of the biggest American brands like Campbell Soup, Snickers, and Windex. They are the heirs of a chemicals company, a hotel chain, a cosmetics company, cable and newspaper empires.

It won't surprise many to learn that the Waltons are the richest family in America, again. The seven heirs of Sam and Bud Walton are worth a collective $150 billion, up from $130 billion last year, but still enough to make them far and away the richest in the land. The Waltons are nearly $50 billion richer than the second-richest family, the Kochs.

Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images

Let's take a look at the 15 richest American families.

#15. The du Pont family
Net worth: $14.3 billion
Source of wealth: DuPont
The chemicals empire DuPont was founded as a gunpowder manufacturer in 1802. Since then, it has evolved into everything from dynamite to plastics. The company also invented Teflon and nylon. The family fortune is largely comprised of substantial shares in the company and is shared by about 3500 family members.

#14. The Ziff family
Net worth: $14.4 billion
Source of wealth: Ziff Davis Inc.
Ziff Davis, the magazine publisher behind PC Magazine was sold by the founder's son William Ziff Jr. in 1994 for $1.4 billion. His sons, Daniel, Robert, and Dirk grow their inheritance through their company Ziff Brothers Investments.

#13. The Dorrance family
Net worth: $17.1 billion
Source of wealth: Campbell's Soup
About 11 members of the Dorrance family collectively own more than 50% of Campbell's Soup. John T. Dorrance started the family business in the late 1800s. Today, the family business also owns Pepperidge Farm and V8 and has more than $8 billion in annual revenue.

#12. The Newhouse family
Net worth: $18.5 billion
Source of wealth: Advance Publications
The Newhouse family fortune comes from publishing. Advance Publications owns Conde Nast and more than 25 newspapers across the U.S. as well as Reddit and a stake in Discovery Communications.

#11. The Lauder family
Net worth: $24.3 billion
Source of wealth: Estée Lauder
Estee Lauder started the family business in 1947 when she received her first major order for $800 worth of skincare products from Saks Fifth Avenue. Today the family business includes 30 different brands of makeup including Clinique and MAC and generates $12 billion in revenue.

#10. The Hearst family
Net worth: $24.5 billion
Source of wealth: Hearst Corporation
The Hearst family heirs descend from William Randolph Hearst, who founded The San Francisco Examiner in 1887. His son, William Jr., became a Pulitzer prize winning journalist. His grandson William III runs the Hearst Corp. today, which owns 46 newspapers, 340 magazines, and has stakes in ESPN, Lifetime, and A&E.

#9. The Duncan family
Net worth: $26 billion
Source of wealth: Enterprise Products Partners
Siblings Randa, Milane, Dannine, Avara, and Scott inherited a $10 billion estate from their father Dan Duncan when he died in 2010. The family fortune has more than doubled since thanks to a rise in the stock price of Enterprise Products Partners, which their father founded.

#8. The SC Johnson family
Net worth: $28.2 billion
Source of wealth: SC Johnson
S.C. Johnson founded a parquet flooring company in 1886 and developed a floor way for his customers. That is how the S.C. Johnson company and fortune began. Today, the company is known for products such as Ziploc, Windex, and Pledge. The Johnson family continues to own and run the $9.6 billion privately held company.

#7. Edward Johnson family
Net worth: $28.5 billion
Source of wealth: Fidelity
Edward C. Johnson II founded Boston-based Fidelity Investments. Third generation family member Abigail Johnson currently serves as its CEO. Fidelity is the second largest mutual fund company in the world with $1.8 trillion in assets under management. The Johnson family owns 49% of the company.

#6. The Pritzker family
Net worth: $33.5 billion
Source of wealth: Hyatt Hotels
The Pritzker clan lays claim to the Hyatt Hotel fortune. Hyatt was founded by A.N. Pritzker and his sons Jay, Donald, and Robert. There are 11 billionaires in this family.

#5. The Cox family
Net worth: $33.6 billion
Source of wealth: Cox Enterprises
The Cox family fortune began when James M. Cox bought the Dayton Evening News in 1898. The company expanded from there. Cox Enterprises is made up of Cox Communications, Cox Media Group, DealerTrack, AutoTrader.com, Kelley Blue Book, and Manheim car auctions.

#4. The Cargill-MacMillan family
Net worth: $42.3 billion
Source of wealth: Cargill Inc.
The Cargill-MacMillan fortune got started when W.W. Cargill founded a small grain storage company in 1865 just as the Civil War was ending. The expansion of the railroads to the west made him a wealthy man. Today there are more billionaires in the Cargill-MacMillan family—14 to be exact—than in any other family in the world.

#3. The Mars family
Net worth: $89.7 billion
Source of wealth: Mars Inc.
The two living Mars siblings (Jacqueline and John) own the world's largest candy company. Mars has $33 billion in sales. The company was started when their grandfather began making and selling candy from his kitchen in Tacoma, Washington in 1911.

#2. The Koch family
Net worth: $98.7 billion
Source of wealth: Koch Industries
Charles and David Koch run Koch Industries, the U.S.'s second-largest private company with more than $100 billion in sales. The company was started by their father Fred, who made his fortune in the 1920s by developing a new oil refining process.

#1. The Walton family
Net worth: $151.5 billion
Source of wealth: Walmart
The Waltons are the richest family in America thanks to Walmart. Founded by Sam and Bud Walton in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962, Walmart is the largest business in the U.S. in terms of revenue, with $482 billion in sales.

Read more: The 15 Richest Families in America

Following The "Bitcoin Boom," Many Are In Financial Ruins

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We tend to focus on the lucky few who struck it rich in the world of cryptocurrency around here, but a recent CNBC story highlights those for which the game has gone the other way. Like Pete Roberts of Nottingham, England, who decided to invest the bulk of his savings into various cryptocurrencies last winter, when prices were going higher and higher every day. He put about $23,000 into various digital tokens at that time, and now those investments only come to about $4,000 in value. He explains how it happened like this:

"I got too caught up in the fear of missing out and trying to make a quick buck. The losses have pretty much left me financially ruined."

He is not, as they say, alone. Many of the major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have lost most of the ground they gained since those high points last year, and data from the cryptocurrency tracking site Coin Market Cap says that the value of all the digital cryptocurrency tokens out there have lost 75 percent of their value, which comes to a combined total of about $600 billion.

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Kim Hyon-jeong of Seoul is another such unlucky investor. In Korea, cryptocurrencies became so popular that some large exchanges opened up physical locations for people who didn't feel comfortable carrying out transactions online. Hyon-jeong invested about 100 million won, or roughly $90,000 US, into cryptocurrencies last fall. To raise those funds, she didn't just tap her savings, but also cashed in an insurance policy and took out a $25,000 loan. Now, her investment is down 90 percent:

"I thought that cryptocurrencies would be the one and only breakthrough for ordinary hard-working people like us. I thought my family and I could escape hardship and live more comfortably but it turned out to be the other way around."

Bitcoin is the most famous of all cryptocurrencies, and it's doing a bit better than the "alt coins" that have experienced such a steep crash. But it's still lost a reported 70 percent of its value compared to its peaks. Still, there are those who continue to espouse optimism and resilience in riding the famously volatile waves of cryptocurrencies, like "popular virtual currency personality" Ryan Selkis, who recently took to Twitter with some encouraging words:

"Five years ago, I was broke, unemployed, and ashamed to use my real name … For the new fanatics, stick around for your own 14 month, 85% downdraft and you'll not regret it."

Those who have been on board with Bitcoin since at least 2013 are more likely to hold such attitudes, since the virtual currency has seen peaks and crashes before. In 2013 the value of a single bitcoin reached $1,000 for the first time, a high point which was followed by a steep crash of around 80 percent. Given time, it eventually recovered its value, and even today the price of one bitcoin sits comfortably at around $6,500 — not as high as it used to be, but an unimaginable sum compared to where it was five years ago.

Read more: Following The "Bitcoin Boom," Many Are In Financial Ruins

We Are Living In The Age Of The Tech Unicorn And Paper Billionaires

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Today more than ever, technology startups are dominating the marketplace. Companies like Uber, Lyft, and Airbnb becoming household names and are creating massive wealth for their founders. The rise of the unicorns – companies valued at more than $1 billion that used to be very rare – means the founders with huge stakes are amassing huge fortunes. Well, at least on paper. In the ranks of privately held, venture-backed companies, the 10 most valuable stakes held by founders are worth $60 billion. That makes more than a dozen tech startup founders paper billionaires.

Tech creating wealth is nothing new. Four of the 10 richest people in the world built their multi-billion dollar fortunes in the tech industry. However, unlike Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison— most of the new breed of tech billionaires haven't taken their companies public yet. Their billion dollar or more fortunes are based completely on the private valuations of their companies.

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At the top of this list of unicorns is Elon Musk. His personal stake in SpaceX is valued at $14.6 billion. That's more than his share in publicly traded Tesla. Gwynne Shotwell is the President and COO of SpaceX. She said in an interview with CNBC that SpaceX has no plans to go public until it is flying to Mars regularly. That is years away, at the very least.

Airbnb's three founders follow Musk on the list of tech unicorn's paper billionaires. In June, Brian Chesky, the company's co-founder and CEO, told employees that it is planning to go public before late 2020. That date is significant because that is when some of the employee stock grants expire. However, the founders and early employees have been able to monetize some of their state. That group has sold about $350 million of equity in the company.

Uber's Travis Kalanick turned some of his stake into cash. He walked away with $1.4 billion after SoftBank and other investors bought $9.3 billion of equity in the car sharing company in January. That deal saw Uber shareholders selling roughly $8 billion at a $48 billion valuation. At the same time, SoftBank invested $1.25 billion directly into Uber at a $70 billion valuation. In May, Coatue Management, Altimeter, and TPB planned to buy between $400 million and $600 million in Uber stock from shareholders at a $62 billion valuation. So which valuation is correct? That's almost impossible to nail down in a pre-IPO company.

Uber isn't the only company with a number of different valuations. Data mining company Palantir Technologies was valued at $20 billion in 2015. Today, Morgan Stanley puts its valuation at $6 billion. But then Fred Alger Management, who has owned stock in Palantir since about 2006, put the valuation at $10 billion. At a $20 billion valuation, Palantir's co-founders have a combined stake worth $8 billion. At Morgan Stanley's $6 billion valuation, the co-founder's combined stake falls to $2.4 billion.

The newest pair of co-founders to join this unique club are Wish app founders Peter Szulczewski and Danny Zhang. Last September, Wish raised $250 million at an $8.5 billion valuation.

The fact of the matter is, that until tech unicorns make their IPOs (or get acquired) there is no way to pin down a valuation. All of these pre-IPO billionaires are billionaires on paper only. You can't buy an NFL team with paper. You can't buy a private island with paper.

Read more: We Are Living In The Age Of The Tech Unicorn And Paper Billionaires

Meet 7 Of The Sanctioned Russian Billionaires

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In April, the U.S. Department of Treasury announced new sanctions against 17 senior officials in the Russian government, seven Russian oligarchs, and the 12 companies those billionaires own or control. The Treasury Department worked with the State Department in determining and issuing the sanctions. All of the Russians who have been sanctioned are also on the list of 210 prominent Russian politicians and businessmen that were identified by the State Department as having prospered under Putin's reign.

The following seven Russian billionaires are currently sanctioned by the U.S. Government

Kirill Shamalov – net worth $1.4 billion
Kirill Shamalov is the son of Rossiya Bank shareholder Nikolai Shamalov, who is a longtime friend of Putin. Kirill is Putin's daughter Katerina's ex-husband. The former couple married in 2013 and divorced sometime in 2016 or 2017. He became vice president of Russian petrochemical company Sibur at 26. He sold a 17% stake in Sibur when he divorced Putin's daughter.

Igor & Arkady Rotenberg – net worth Igor $1.5 billion, Arkady $2.6 billion
Arkady and Igor Rotenberg are father and son and buddies with close friends of Vladimir Putin. Arkady used to be Putin's judo sparring partner. He was also the target of 2014 sanctions by the U.S. and Europe after the Treasury Department accused Putin of awarding Rotenberg and his brother billions of contracts for the winter Olympics in Sochi. When those sanctions were levied, Arkady transferred assets to his son Igor. Assets transferred included the family's stakes in road construction company Mostotrest.

ALEKSEY NIKOLSKYI/AFP/Getty Images)

Vladimir Bogdanov – net worth $2.3 billion
Vladimir Bogdanov received the Gold Star of Hero of the Russian Federation from Putin in 2016 for "special labor service for the country and people." He is an oil magnate.

Suleiman Kerimov – net worth $6.6 billion
Suleiman Kerimov made most of his fortune from his 82% stake in Polyus, Russia's largest gold producer. Last December he was detained by the French police at the airport in Nice as part of a tax-evasion investigation. He was held for questioning in a case related to tax fraud and money laundering. The investigation reportedly centered on the purchase of several expensive homes on the French Riviera. French prosecutors allege that Kerimov bought these homes through shell companies in order to reduce taxes owed to France.

Oleg Derispaska – net worth $7.5 billion
Oleg Derispaska is a person of interest in the Russian election hacking investigation being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. He has direct ties to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. He is accused of money laundering, bribing government officials, ordering the murder of a businessman and links to a Russian organized crime group. Derispaska led the consolidation of Russia's aluminum industry. He has always been the face of Russian metals across the globe. He spent decades cultivating the U.S. and other Western business circles and the sanctions immediately wiped all that out. He may be able to continue to do business in Russia, but he has been crippled elsewhere in the world by the sanctions.

Andrei Skoch – net worth $8.7 billion
Andrei Skoch is a member of the Russian parliament. He is a deputy minister in the Russian State Duma. He also owns a stake in Metalloinvest, Russia's largest iron ore company.

Viktor Vekselberg – net worth $15 billion
Viktor Vekselberg's journey to becoming one of Russia's richest men follows what is a familiar trajectory in that country: he took advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union. He went about buying parts of Russia's huge resource sector, which were carved up and privatized in the 1990s. He sold scrap copper from cable wires. Then he moved on to buying aluminum smelters in Siberia. Then he founded the oil and metals company Renova Group, which is headquartered in Switzerland. In 1997, he became a stakeholder in TNK-BP, a joint oil venture. In 2012 he sold his stake in the venture with the British oil giant to Rosneft, the Kremlin controlled oil behemoth.

Read more: Meet 7 Of The Sanctioned Russian Billionaires

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