When Aaron Rodgers slid all the way to the 24th pick of the 2005 NFL Draft, it was easy to feel bad for him. Coming out of Cal, he was in the discussion as the top overall pick. To nearly fall out of the first round entirely? That's tough for anyone to swallow.

Those bad feelings have long since subsided, though. Rodgers has made quite the name for himself in the NFL after becoming the Packers' full-time starter in 2008.

He's the NFL's all-time leader in career passing rating and has had six seasons where his interception rate is below 1.5 percent. And he's trending towards his seventh such season, too, with a 19:1 TD:INT ratio through 10 games.

He's also had a knack for making incredible throws – remember the year he had not one, but TWO successful Hail Mary completions? Generally, Rodgers is considered one of the top quarterbacks currently in the league, if not of all time.

The Packers are paying him accordingly, offering a four-year, $134 million extension this summer. Between his salary and bonuses, Rodgers will take home $66.9 million in 2018. That's nearly $5.6 million per month and more than $183,000 per day.

Rob Carr/Getty Images

Could you imagine going to bed and knowing you have $183,000 coming to your bank account the next day? That's essentially what Rodgers has experienced all year.

It may seem outrageous to pay one player so much, but the Packers have proven to be dreadful without Rodgers on the field. Their 6-11-1 record is already pretty bad, but those wins have usually come thanks to their defense, not a backup quarterback.

Even earlier this season, Rodgers left a Week 1 game against the Chicago Bears with a knee injury. While he was examined, backup DeShone Kizer looked overmatched, and the Bears climbed out to a 20-0 lead. Rodgers re-entered the game in the second half and drove the Packers back to a 24-23 victory.

With a 4-5-1 record this year, the Packers are on the brink of missing the playoffs for a second straight season. Last year, Rodgers missed nine games due to injury. This year, he's appeared hobbled after that knee scare in Week 1.

Either way, the Packers are in far more trouble with Rodgers off the field than they are with him on it. And they've learned they need to pay a hefty amount to make sure they're set at the most important position.

Read more: Aaron Rodgers Will Make An Absurd Amount Of Money This Calendar Year

Adam Thielen has had himself quite a productive year. He leads the league in receptions with 85 and is third in receiving yardage, amassing 1,013 through 10 games. His story is impressive, too – he's now got a $10 million guarantee after initially going to college on a $500 scholarship.

His hard work is paying off – literally.

About four minutes into the third quarter of the Vikings' 25-20 loss to the Bears, Thielen caught a 12-yard pass from Kirk Cousins. It was a fairly ho-hum catch; it gave the Vikings a first down, but the drive ultimately ended without any points.

It was a huge catch for Thielen, though, because it was his 80th reception of the season. That triggered a $300,000 incentive bonus in his contract. It also escalated his 2019 base salary by $250,000.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images

In essence, Thielen's catch was worth $550,000.

The Vikings paid Thielen $1.5 million combined during the 2014, 2015, and 2016 seasons. And he made about a third of that with his 80th grab on Sunday.

Thielen is well on his way to setting career-high marks in receptions and receiving yards this season, and has already broken his single-season touchdown record. However, we have a feeling he'll look back on this catch a little more fondly.

We just hope he held onto that game ball. After all, it's worth a lot.

Read more: Adam Thielen Earned An Extra $550K After Making One Catch

Beyoncé is cutting ties with Topshop billionaire Philip Green, her partner in sportswear line Ivy Park. Green was recently accused in the U.K. of sexual harassment and racial abuse charges. Beyoncé's company issued a statement saying that it had acquired 100% of her athleisure line. Beyoncé teamed up with Green in 2014 to develop the line of leggings, hoodies, and sports bras. The line debuted in 2016 to great success at Topshop.

Last month, the Daily Telegraph reported on the results of an eight-month investigation which ultimately named Topshop founder Sir Philip Green as the high profile businessman who had been trying to keep his name out of the press in relation to the British #MeToo scandal. The newspaper said that Green had used non-disclosure agreements to buy the silence of his accusers.

Green has been accused by a number of employees of inappropriate behavior. One woman accused him of verbal abuse. Others called him a bully and said he threw things at staff if he thought they were slacking off. One former employee at Topshop's parent company Arcadia Group said that:  "It was the f-word all the time, just tripping out of him, rolling off his tongue. I found it really aggressive. "He verbally harassed people and it was a constant verbal barrage – it was an attack."

(L-R): Lady Tina Green, Sir Philip Green, Beyoncé Knowles, Brandon Green and Chloe Green (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Auna Irvine was the manager of Topshop's Las Vegas store in 2012. She was fired. She said about Green: "It turned into things like him slapping my butt or him calling me fat or him calling me sexy or talking about my boobs or my ass."

Beyoncé has been under pressure to cut ties with Green since the allegations were made public. She has known Green for at least 13 years. She performed at the billionaire's son's extravagant bar mitzvah in 2005.

Philip Green is the CEO of Arcadia Group, which owns Topshop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, and other retailers. Green quit school at the age of 15 and found work as a shoe importer. This work took him to the U.S. and Far East, which inspired him to set up his own business. When he returned to England, he borrowed £20,000 to set up a business importing jeans that he sold to London retailers. In 1979, Green snapped up the entire stock of 10 designer clothing labels that were going out of business. He sent the clothing to the dry cleaners, put them on hangers, and wrapped them in plastic to make them look new. He then rented a store to sell them and the rest is history.

Read more: Beyonce Cuts Ties With Topshop Billionaire Accused In Sexual Misconduct Scandal

One of the most fascinating things about billionaires is the myriad ways they attain their membership in the 10+ figure club. Take David C. Paul, for instance. He founded Globus Medical in 2003. The LinkedIn page for Globus Medical says: "Globus Medical, Inc. is a leading musculoskeletal solutions company and is driving significant technological advancements across a complete suite of products." The company is focused on advancing surgery to achieve pain free, active lives for all patients.

In 2013, Paul went to Phoenix. He saw the future of spinal surgery – a robot prototype called the Excelsius GPS. He was immediately impressed and remarked the robot was going to change everything. A few months later, he bought Excelsius Surgical, the company that invented the robot. Since 2014, shares of Globus have more than doubled. The robot received FDA approval in August 2017. Since that time, shares in Globus are up 65%. Paul owns about a quarter of the company. That stake, plus recent stock sales, give Paul a net worth slightly north of $1 billion.

DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

Paul got his undergraduate degree in India. Afterwards, he moved to the U.S. to attend Temple University. He graduated with his master's degree in engineering in 1994. He went to work for Swiss medical device maker Synthes. He remained with that company until 2003, when he quit to found Globus. The following year, Synthes filed a lawsuit accusing Paul and another early Globus employee of poaching workers and trade secrets from Synthes. Paul countersued for libel. The suits were settled in 2007 with Globus paying Synthes $13.5 million while admitting no wrongdoing. That wasn't the end of litigation between these two companies, however. There have been lawsuits back and forth between the competitors over patents and employee poaching for the past 14 years—even after Synthes was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2012.

The Excelsius GPS is one of just two spine surgery robots on the market. Audubon, Pennsylvania based Globus believes it can help surgeons perform spinal fusions by placing screws more accurately and quickly. The device costs more than $1 million per robot. There is not yet large scale published data to show that Excelsius is any better at putting screws in spins than surgeons. A study on this is underway at Johns Hopkins University.

Robots in operating rooms is big business. Hospitals want them, and money is flowing in the direction of the companies developing them. Just two months ago, medical device maker Medtronic announced that it would acquire Mazor Robotics – Israeli creator of the other spine surgery robot on the market – in a deal valuing Mazor at $1.6 billion.

Paul served as CEO of Globus from its founding until August 2017, when he stepped down to recover from a health condition, according to a company press release. He is the executive chairman of Globus and owns 76% of the company's voting shares. In other words, he maintains tight control of the company he founded 15 years ago.

Read more: A Robot That Can Perform Spine Surgery Created A Billionaire

There appears to be something of a financial scandal brewing in the kingdom of rapper Tekashi69. TMZ reports that the artist's former booking agency, MTA Booking, has gone public to deny his claims on a recent Breakfast Club radio interview that the agency cheated him out of a concert deal worth $3.6 million.

As Tekashi told it, he had a $3.6 million concert deal with MTA, but only actually saw "a couple hundred thousand dollars" of that amount. An MTA rep, on the other hand, wholly denies this, saying that not only was Tekashi not stiffed but that they never had any $3.6 million concert deal in the first place. The agency says that it booked a total of 11 upcoming concerts for the rapper – nine in the United States, two in Mexico – for which he was paid a $700,000 deposit. Then there are the five upcoming dates in Germany for which MTA says he's been paid almost $160,000 in deposits. Not only that, but MTA says that it and Tr3way Entertainment have gone "above and beyond" to meet Tekashi's needs, handling his travel, security, and transportation, even working to make sure the rapper makes all his recent court dates on time. According to the rep, MTA is considering legal action against Tekashi for his comments.

Bennett Raglin/Getty Images

Then things got even more confusing, as Tekashi's lawyer Lance Lazzaro says MTA has it all wrong and they were never authorized to book dates for Tekashi in the first place:

"We have asked [MTA] to show us any contracts with Tekashi69's signature showing they were acting as an agent to book performances on his behalf and they haven't provided us with any to date… Their cooperation has been very limited."

Lazzaro adds: "I would take anything MTA says with a grain of salt." The attorney says that MTA has been asked not to book any more concerts on Tekashi's behalf.

Read more: Tekashi69's Former Booking Agency Denies His Claim Of Being Cheated Out Of $3.6 Million Deal

We live in an era of truly incredible wealth and vast inequality between the richest billionaires and every day middle class people. The 25 richest families in the world have a combined net worth of $1.1 trillion. The Hearst family is the 23rd wealthiest family in the world with a combined $24.5 billion net worth. William Randolph Hearst started the family fortune when he took control of the San Francisco Examiner from his father in 1887. William's grandson, William Randolph Hearst III, is chairman of the group these days. Its stable of media companies includes stakes in television networks A&E and ESPN.

William Randolph Hearst was born in 1863 in San Francisco to millionaire mining engineer, goldmine owner and U.S. senator George Hearst and his wife Phoebe Apperson Hearst. His mother, as the first woman regent of University of California, Berkeley, funded many anthropological expeditions and founded the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Hearst attended Harvard where he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals, and the Lampoon before being expelled for, among other things, sponsoring massive beer parties in Harvard Square.

After his expulsion from Harvard, Hearst was at loose ends. He needed to find a job. In 1887, his father gave him the San Francisco Examiner, which he had won in 1880 as repayment for a gambling debt. Hearst installed top of the line printing equipment, dubbed his newspaper the "Monarch of the Dailies," and hired the top writers of the time including Mark Twain and Jack London. Hearst published stories about municipal and financial corruption and didn't skip attacks on companies in which his own family had a stake. Within just a few years, his newspaper was the undisputed leader in the market.

Evening Standard/Getty Images

Hearst set his sights on running a large newspaper chain and knew that he had to have a New York City newspaper in order to accomplish this goal. In 1895, with the financial support of his mother, he bought the beleaguered New York Morning Journal. This put him in a head-to-head circulation way with Joseph Pulitzer, owner and publisher of New York World.

Hearst married Millicent Veronica Wilson in 1903. She was a 21-year-old chorus girl whose mother ran a brothel in New York City at the turn of the 20^th century. Together Hearst and Millicent had five sons: George Randolph Hearst, William Randolph Hearst, Jr., John Randolph Hearst, and twins Randolph Apperson Hearst and David Wilson Hearst. Randolph Hearst is the father of Patty Hearst, best known for being kidnapped and then joining the Symbionese Liberation Army. Patty is the mother of model Lydia Hearst.

Hearst soon opened newspapers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and other cities. By the mid-1920s, he had a nationwide string of 28 newspapers among them the Los Angeles Examiner, Boston American, Chicago Examiner, Washington Herald, and Seattle Post Intelligencer. He also diversified his publishing empire into books and magazines. A number of the magazines he started or acquired are still in circulation today including Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and Town and Country.

Hearst opened the New York Daily Mirror in 1924. It was a racy tabloid imitating the more established New York Daily News. He diversified into radio and entertainment with WINS in New York and King Features Syndicate, which still owns the copyright on a number of comics characters. Hearst also had extensive real estate in New York City, thousands of acres of land in California and Mexico, and timber and mining interests that he inherited from his father.

Hearst owned the biggest media conglomerate in the world during the 1920s and 1930s. The Great Depression hit the Hearst companies hard – especially the newspapers. He had over extended the finances of his companies during expansion and the building of the Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California. Hearst Corporation faced a court-mandated reorganization in 1937. Hearst was reduced to being merely another employee, subject to the directives of an outside manager. Newspapers and other properties were liquidated, art and antiquities were sold. World War II restored circulation to his newspapers and increased advertising revenues.

In 1948, Hearst became the owner of one of the first television stations in the country, WBAL-TV in Baltimore. Today, the Hearst Corporation division Hearst Television owns 32 television stations in the United States.

When William Randolph Hearst Jr. took over the Hearst Corporation he was able to restore a measure of family control.

According to William Randolph Hearst Sr.'s will, the Hearst Corporation will remain under family control as long as any grandchild that was alive when Sr. died in 1951 is still living. The family business is controlled by a board of 13 trustees, five from the Hearst family and eight Hearst executives. Today, Hearst Sr.'s branch of the family is represented on the trustees by his grandson, William Randolph Hearst III. The other members of the Hearst family on the board today are Anissa Boudjakdji Balson, granddaughter of fifth son, David Wilson Hearst Sr., Lisa Hearst Hagerman, granddaughter of third son, John Randolph Hearst Sr., George Randolph Hearst III, grandson of Hearst's eldest son, George Randolph Hearst Sr., and publisher of the Albany Times Union, and Virginia Hearst Randt, daughter of late former chairman and fourth son, Randolph Apperson Hearst.

Read more: How The Hearst Family Became One Of The Wealthiest Families On The Planet With A Combined Net Worth of $24.5 Billion

It appears that the relationship between Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez is getting pretty serious, because TMZ is reporting that A-Rod's "bachelor pad" in the Hollywood Hills is being sold for $6.5 million.

A-Rod purchased the home back in 2014 from none other than Meryl Streep, for about $4.8 million, so if the house sells for its asking price, he'll be making a decent profit in the bargain. As for the house itself, it's a pretty cool architectural specimen, known as the Honnold & Rex Research House.

Ian Brooks

The Honnold & Rex Research House was constructed in the 1950s as a sort of a clearinghouse for architectural concepts and designs. In other words, it was beyond the cutting edge back then, and still maintains its cool, unusual vibe now. Inside its two stories, it boasts luxuries like a floor-to-ceiling fireplace, a fully equipped chef's kitchen, and a pool and spa in the backyard. As the house listing on YouTube puts it:

"Architectural Perfection Achieved. Located on the most desirable street above Sunset Plaza, this modern, state-of-the-art estate features exquisite quality of fixtures and furnishings. Massive walls of glass open to a serene courtyard with tranquil pool & spa, creating the perfect union of indoor-outdoor living."

A-Rod reportedly purchased a new high-rise condo with J-Lo in Manhattan earlier this year for more than $15 million, so his new living situation is all set in advance.

If you're in the market for "Architectural Perfection," or you just want to live in the house where A-Rod used to live, you'll have to somehow be connected enough to make an offer in the first place ("Shown by appointment only to pre-qualified clients. No open houses. No exceptions.") But in the meantime, or if you just want to do a little online fantasy shopping, you can take a look at the house in the video below:

Read more: Alex Rodriguez Lists Hollywood Hills Home For $6.5 Million

Suzanne Vega net worth: Suzanne Vega is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer who has a net worth of $4 million. Suzanne Vega was born in Santa Monica, California in July 1959. Her musical styles include alternative pop and folk rock. Her self-titled debut studio album was released in 1985. Vega released the album Solitude Standing in 1987 which reached #1 in New Zealand and Sweden and #2 in the UK as well as #11 in the US. She had success with the albums Days of Open Hand in 1990, 99.9F° in 1992, Nine Objects of Desire in 1996, Songs in Red and Gray in 2001, Beauty & Crime in 2007, and Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles in 2014. She also released the album Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers in 2016. Her most successful single "Luka" reached #3 in the US and #2 in Sweden and she is also known for her single "Tom's Diner". In 2008 she won a Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical for Beauty & Crime.

Read more: Suzanne Vega Net Worth

Princess Eugenie net worth: Princess Eugenie is a member of the British royal family who has a net worth of $10 million. Princess Eugenie was born in Portland Hospital, London, England in March 1990. She is the daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York. Princess Eugenie is ninth in lien of succession to the British throne. She is the second child of her parents and the sixth grandchild of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Her parents divorced when she was six years old and at 12 she underwent back surgery to correct scoliosis. She graduated from Newcastle University and spent a year in New York City working for online auction firm Paddle8. Eugenie moved back to London in 2015 to work for Hauser & Wirth art gallery and later became director in 2017. She was married to Jack Brooksbank in 2018. Her official title since 1990 is Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie of York.

Read more: Princess Eugenie Net Worth

Erica Hill net worth, career earnings and salary: Erica Hill is an American journalist who has a net worth of $6 million. Erica Hill was born in Clinton, Connecticut in July 1975. She works for CNN and has appeared on several television series. Hill was featured on the TV series TechLive from 2001 to 2003 for TechTV. She joined CNN's Headline News in 2003 as a general news anchor. From 2005 to 2008 she hosted Prime News with Erica Hill and from 2008 to 2010 she was featured on the series Anderson Cooper 360. Erica Hill was featured on the television series The Early Show Saturday Edition from 2008 to 2010 and The Early Show from 2010 to 2012. She was featured on the series CBS This Morning in 2012 and Weekend Today from 2012 to 2016. In 2016 she began appearing on the series On the Story. Hill became the CNN lead fill-in anchor and national correspondent in 2018.

Read more: Erica Hill Net Worth

Amanda Hearst net worth: Amanda Hearst is an American socialite, fashion model, and heiress who has a net worth of $100 million. Amanda Hearst was born in New York City, New York. She is an heiress to William Randolph Heart's media conglomerate Hearst Corporation. Amanda Hearst serves as an associate market editor for Marie Claire. She founded the organization Friends of Finn dedicated to stopping inhumane treatment taking place in puppy mills. Hearst is also a co-chair of Riverkeeper's Junior Council. She has modeled for IMG and appeared on the covers of magazines including Town & Country, Cosmopolitan, and International Harper's Bazaar. She graduated from Fordham University in 2008. In 2004 she appeared on an episode of the TV series E! True Hollywood Story titled Trust Fund Babies. She is the daughter of Anne Hearst and the niece of Patty Hearst as well as the great granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst.

Read more: Amanda Hearst Net Worth

Cryptocurrency as a whole is not having the best year, but Coinbase's Brian Armstrong is. He has become the second person to achieve a billion dollar net worth in the cryptocurrency industry. He joins Ripple Labs' Chris Larsen as the only two people in the U.S. who have accumulated wealth solely through cryptocurrencies. Of course, the volatility of cryptocurrency of late affects 35-year-old Armstrong's fortune day-to-day, but it is safe to place his net worth at $1.3 billion.

Brian Armstrong was born and raised in San Jose, California. Both of his parents are successful engineers. Growing up, he saw the Internet as a tool that could bring change to society but suspected that he came along too late to play an essential role in the internet's development. After all, Google's founders are a decade older than he is and they were in their 20s when they founded the search engine. By his calculations, he was 10 years too late.

Steve Jennings/Getty Images

Armstrong attended Rice University and got his bachelor's and master's degrees in Computer Science there. He also majored in economics during his undergraduate years. While he was in college he founded the website UniversityTutor.com, which he ran until May 2012. After college he worked as a Consultant on Enterprise Risk Management for the Houston office of Deloitte and Touche for five months. Armstrong was a software engineer at Airbnb from May 2011 until June 2012. Somewhere along the way, he came across a whitepaper on Bitcoin written by Satoshi Nakamoto. He was already interested in the digital currency field, but the whitepaper made him realize that a digital currency that was decentralized and beyond the reach of governments was what he'd been looking for.

Armstrong left his job at Airbnb to co-found Coinbase. He designed Coinbase as an exchange where people could purchase cryptocurrencies with bank transfers and cards. The company has become the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the U.S., recently securing a $300 million funding round that values Coinbase at $8 billion.

Read more: Meet Brian Armstrong: The Latest Cryptocurrency Billionaire

The wealthiest American billionaires in the United States have net worths that are hard for normal people to comprehend. I mean, come on, Jeff Bezos has $136 billion. Bill Gates has $96 billion. It stands to reason that billionaires have a lot more disposable income to buy mansions and jets and super yachts. They also have a lot more money to donate to charity. Many billionaires have joined The Giving Pledge, which was founded by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Members of the Giving Pledge vow to donate at least half their net worth to charity during their lifetime.

Other billionaires, like Chuck Feeney, take it one step further. Feeney founded the chain of stores Duty Free Shoppers and once had a net worth of $7.5 billion. One day, he decided that he was going to go broke by the time he died. Today, Feeney has a net worth of $1.5 million. He directly inspired Gates and Buffett to start The Giving Pledge. Mark Zuckerberg is a member, as is Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Home Depot founder Arthur Blank, AirBnb's Nathan Blecharczyk, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia; Paul Mitchell founder John Paul Dejoria, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Sheryl Sandberg, Groupon's Eric Lefkofsky, Elon Musk, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar… and so on. You know who isn't a member of The Giving Pledge? Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and most of the American hedge fund billionaires.

STAN HONDA/AFP/Getty Images

Below is a list of 28 of the wealthiest Americans ranked by how generous they are with philanthropic donations. We've calculated this list based on how much each person has given away over their lifetimes, as well as the percentage of their fortune they've donated. A value of 1 to 5 is assigned to each, with 5 being the most philanthropic. Bill Gates is the second wealthiest man in the U.S. (and the world) and received a ranking of 5. He has given away about 27% of his fortune. On the other hand, Jeff Bezos only gets a 2 despite being the richest man in the world. It should be noted that Bezos recently donated $2 billion to help the homeless. If that was distributed immediately, rather than over time, he would have gotten a 4.

The "least" generous: The 1
Rupert Murdoch, News Corp., $13 billion net worth

Room for Improvement: The 2s
Jeff Bezos, Amazon, $136 billion net worth
Jim Walton, WalMart, $45 billion net worth
Jacqueline Mars, Mars, $28 billion net worth
John Mars, Mars, $27 billion net worth
Harold Hamm, Oil & Gas, $17 billion net worth

Middle of the Pack: The 3s
Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, $19 billion net worth
Len Blavatnick, Diversified, $16 billion net worth
Abigail Johnson, Fidelity Investments, $12 billion net worth
Alice Walton, WalMart, $44 billion net worth

The Givers: The 4s
Donald Bren, Irvine Group, $16.6 billion net worth
Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, $14 billion net worth
Phil Knight, Nike, $29 billion net worth
Sheldon Adelson, Sands Corp., $35 billion net worth
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft, $40 billion net worth
Sergey Brin, Google, $52 billion net worth
Larry Page, Google, $53 billion net worth
David Koch, Koch Industries, $45 billion net worth
Charles Koch, Koch Industries, $45 billion net worth
Larry Ellison, Oracle, $51 billion net worth

The Cream of the Crop: The 5s
Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies, $15.5 billion net worth
Paul Allen, Microsoft, $20 billion net worth
Laurene Powell Jobs, Apple, $20 billion net worth
Michael Dell, Dell Computers, $23 billion net worth
Michael Bloomberg, Bloomberg LP, $56 billion net worth
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, $57 billion net worth
Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, $82 billion net worth
Bill Gates, Microsoft, $96 billion net worth

Read more: How Generous Are America's Billionaires?

Billionaire Michael Bloomberg announced Sunday, November 18^th that he's donating a record $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University. The donation is specifically to support student financial aid and made the school's admissions process "forever need-blind." Bloomberg graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1964 with a B.S. in electrical engineering. This donation is believed to be the largest private donation to higher education in the modern era. It is also part of the growing trend to make elite universities affordable and accessible to students from low and middle income families. Tuition for a year at Johns Hopkins is currently about $50,000. Add in fees and room and board and students are looking at $70,000 a year.

Bloomberg's donation will enable the Baltimore-based university to remove loans from financial aid packages and expand grants for those who need them for incoming students in the fall of 2019. The donation will also help current undergrads who have taken out federal loans to cover their tuition, housing, and fees.

Johns Hopkins, like many universities, has had a hard time achieving the goal of welcoming the most talented students, regardless of their backgrounds and financial means. The president of the university, Ronald Daniels said:

"Our dedicated financial aid endowment was simply too small. Now, as a consequence of Mike Bloomberg's extraordinary gift, we will be fully and permanently need-blind in our admissions and be able to substantially enrich the level of direct assistance we provide to our undergraduate students and their families."

Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

Bloomberg wrote an op-ed in the New York Times explaining that his donation is so that students can attend Johns Hopkins based on merit, not their family's wealth. He wrote: "This will make admissions at Hopkins forever need-blind; finances will never again factor into decisions."

Before the Johns Hopkins donation, Bloomberg had given $6.4 billion to education and other causes. With the donation, his total giving to Johns Hopkins is $3.3 billion. Bloomberg is a member of The Giving Pledge

Bloomberg's gift will directly impact the student body of Hopkins. The money will not be used to build a building, it will reduce the debt that students graduate with and ensure talented students of merit can attend the university. Direct aid from universities is crucial. The maximum federal Pell Grant only provides $6,095 a year for students in need, less than a tenth of what private schools charge for tuition, fees, and room and board. With all of that figured in, many schools, including Hopkins, charge $70,000 a year.

Bloomberg's donation is the latest in a series that started with a $5 donation to Johns Hopkins the year after he graduated.

Read more: Michael Bloomberg Just Made An Enormous Donation To His Alma Mater To Fund Financial Aid

Megyn Kelly's lengthy, intense negotiations with NBC to finalize the financial details of her premature exit from the network have finally come close to ending, according to The New York Post. You might remember previous reports saying she was looking for a $69 million payout to go away quietly, and the final figure is indeed said to be $30 million, which is supposed to be the remainder of her contract and no more.

One source expressed surprise that the negotiations between Kelly and NBC took this long to finalize:

"Everyone wants this to be over — both Megyn and NBC — and Comcast has the money to pay off Megyn. We thought this would be a done deal a few weeks ago."

ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images

While another "senior TV source" put the affair in context, adding that Kelly probably has a bright career in TV ahead of her despite the controversy surrounding her attempt to defend blackface Halloween costumes on her now defunct NBC morning show:

"NBC decided rather than fight and face a lawsuit from her, they — and more importantly, Comcast with all its money — decided to draw a line under the entire debacle and pay Megyn the full amount owed in her contract to go away.

"But this is far from the end of her TV career — in the Trump era, there are few broadcasters like her. Megyn would likely take a short break from TV and return to cable news ahead of the 2020 election."

For now, though, we'll just have to wait and see when and where Megyn Kelly will turn up next. And a recent Deadline report on the negotiations says that while the financial aspect of Kelly's exit has been agreed upon by all parties, there still remain some tough negotiating on other issues, such as the exact terms of the non-disparagement clause of her exit agreement from NBC.

Read more: Megyn Kelly Secures $30M Payout As Part Of NBC Exit

Mary Austin net worth: Mary Austin is an English woman who has a net worth of $80 million. Mary Austin was born in Fulham, London, England, United Kingdom in 1951. She is best known for being the former girlfriend of Freddie Mercury. Austin met the guitarist of the band Queen Brian May and the two dated. She was introduced to Mercury the two became romantically involved from 1970 to 1976. The two lived together in West Kensington, London and their relationship ended when Mercury told her of his sexuality. The pair remained close friends and Mercury wrote love songs about Austin. He was also the godfather of her oldest son Richard. When Mercury passed away he left the majority of his wealth to her. She has since been married twice and started a foundation in Freddie's memory. She inherited his palatial mansion which she has continued to live in. Austin was portrayed by Lucy Boynton in the movie Bohemian Rhapsody.

Freddie Mercury Estate: Freddie left the vast majority of his estate and wealth to Mary, giving the remainder to his parents and sister and delegating some funds to be distributed to his chef, his personal assistant, his driver and his relationship partner at the time of his death, Jim Hutton. At the time of his death in 1991, Mercury owned real estate worth the inflation adjusted equivalent of $40 million and had $13 million worth of other liquid assets. In total, his net worth was approximately $50-60 million.

Read more: Mary Austin Net Worth

Fleur East net worth: Fleur East is an English singer, songwriter, rapper, dancer, and fitness model who has a net worth of $6 million. Fleur East was born in Walthamstow, London, England in October 1987. She was a contestant on season two of The X Factor as part of the girl group Addictiv Ladies. She returned to the TV show as a solo contestant for the 11th series and finished as runner up. Fleur East released her debut studio album Love, Sax and Flashbacks in 2015 which reached #12 in Scotland, #14 in the UK, and #16 in Ireland. Her debut single "Sax" reached #2 in Scotland, #3 in the UK, and #5 in Ireland. In 2018 she competed on the reality television series I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!. Fleur East has collaborated with other artists including Drumsound, Bassline Smith, Cicada, Wideboys, DJ Fresh, and more. She describes her musical style as "urban-inspired with a few twists".

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Ken Lay net worth: Ken Lay was an American businessman who had a net worth of negative $250,000 at the time of his death (but a peak net worth of $400 million). Ken Lay was born in Tyrone, Missouri in April 1942 and passed away in July 2006. He was best known for being involved in the Enron scandal. Lay was the founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Enron Corporation. The company used illegal and misleading practices to embezzle, hide, and mislead funds from auditor Arthur Andersen. The deception was discovered in 2000 and became the largest bankruptcy in the world. Ken Lay was inducted by a grand jury. He was found guilty of 10 counts of securities fraud but passed away three months before his sentencing. As a result, his conviction was vacated. He graduated from the University of Missouri and got his Ph.D. from the University of Houston. Lay worked as an economist and served as the Special Assistant to the Navy Comptroller as well as the Financial Analyst at the Office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy for the United States Navy. Ken Lay passed away on July 5, 2006 at 64 years old of a heart attack caused by coronary artery disease.

Estate After Death: At the peak of his life, Ken Lay had a personal net worth of $400 million. He owned more than a dozen homes and in 1999 alone earned $42.4 million in total compensation. Between 1998 and 2001 he earned $300 million worth of stock and stock options. After Enron's collapse, Lay claimed that Enron stock constituted 90% of his net worth and his estate was technically worth negative $250,000 (in 2006). After his death, Enron's creditors sued his widow Linda to recover a portion of $10 million was paid by Enron prior to its collapse to buy the two an annuity. The creditors and Linda reached a settlement in 2011.

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Santigold net worth: Santigold is an American singer, songwriter, and record producer who has a net worth of $6 million. Santigold was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in September 1976. Her musical styles include electronic, new wave, indie, and more. Santigold's self-titled debut studio album was released in 2008 and reached #2 on the US Electronic chart as well as #26 in the UK. Her album Master of My Make-Believe was released in 2012 and reached #1 on the US Electronic chart as well as #21 on the Billboard 200. Her album 99¢ was released in 2016 and reached #55 on the Billboard 200 and her album I Don't Want: The Gold Fire Sessions was released in 2018. Her most successful single "Disparate Youth" reached #9 on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 singles chart and #27 on the US Alternative chart. Santigold has collaborated with several artists including Julian Casablancas, N.E.R.D., Jay-Z, Kanye West, David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Beastie Boys, OneRepublic, Diplo, and more.

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We live in an era of truly incredible wealth and vast inequality between the richest billionaires and every day middle class people. The 25 richest families in the world have a combined net worth of $1.1 trillion. The Dumas family is the 5th wealthiest family in the world with a combined $49.2 billion net worth. Thierry Hermes started the family business in 1837. Long before the famous scarves and Birkin bags, Hermes was a harness maker who provided gear for the houses of royals throughout Europe. His grandson, Emile-Maurice modernized the family business. He brought in his friends Louis Renault and Ettore Bugatti to make trunks for cars. Emile-Maurice also diversified the company into furniture, belts, and couture. But it is Jean-Louise Dumas, a descendant of Thierry Hermes, that is credited with turning Hermes into a global giant in luxury fashion.

Emile-Maurice had three daughters. All married well and created three new branches of the family: Guerrand, Puech, and Dumas. This is why no one in the family today carries the Hermes name. In the late 1930s, Thierry's son in law Robert Dumas suggested the company expand its racing silks into scarves and neckties—he designed a few of them himself as samples. That took off. In the 1950s, Robert Dumas took over the company from Emile-Maurice and ran it for three decades.

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One of Dumas' five sons,  Jean-Louis, was named CEO and creative director of Hermes in 1978. He was 40-years-old. Jean-Louis is credited with turning the company into the luxury powerhouse it is today. With the help of his cousins Patrick Guerrand and Bertrand Puech he shook up the nearly 150-year-old family business. He relaunched the Kelly handbag in a series of vibrant colors. He designed a bag for It Girl Jane Birkin that was made to her specifications and named after her. He introduced hip ad campaigns and opened a slew of retail stores. He went on an acquisitions spree, adding Puiforcat silversmiths, Saint Louis crystal, and John Lobb shoes to the family company's portfolio.

In 2004, Dumas hired Jean Paul Gauthier—the bad boy designer to create a women's wear line for Hermes. Dumas already owned a 35% stake in the French designer's namesake brand.

However, perhaps the most important contribution Jean-Louis made to Hermes came after witnessing Bernard Arnault's long boardroom battle with the Vuitton family in the late 1980s for control of LVMH. Dumas put two things into action that would protect Hermes from a takeover battle from a non-family member. In 1989, he created a company called Emile Hermes SARL to represent the family shareholders. This company is in charge of hiring management and setting the strategy for the company. Then, in 1993, Dumas put 4% of Hermes on the French stock exchange; giving younger generations a way to liquidate while allowing the family to keep control. The publicly traded shares of Hermes have no management power. The money made from the sale of shares allowed Jean-Louis Dumas to add men's ready-to-wear attire, tableware and furniture to the company's offerings. Between 1989 and 2006 sales grew fourfold, to $1.9 billion.

Bernard Arnault noticed the growth. Hermes fit right into his growing portfolio of luxury goods companies in the same way that Dior and Fendi did. He began buying shares in 2002. In 2010, the same year that Jean-Louis Dumas died, he revealed that he owned 17% of Hermes. A takeover seemed inevitable. The Hermes family was expected to take the money and cede control of the company. Instead, they circled their wagons. In 2011 more than 50 descendants of Thierry Hermes pooled their shares into what was basically a $16 billion co-op called H51. The contributions represented 50.2% of all of the company's shares. The contributors agreed not to sell any shares for the next 20 years. Two other major shareholders, now 82-year-old Bertrand Puech and now 75-year-old Nicolas Puech kept their shares out of H51 but agreed to give the family the right of first refusal if they ever decided to sell their shares.

The unified front of the Hermes family members has been profitable for the company. The two decade ban on selling shares allows the company to make long term decisions as if it was a private company.

Today, the fifth and sixth generation descendants of Thierry Hermes run the company. Axel Dumas, sixth-generation descendant of the Hermes dynasty, has been CEO since early 2014.  He is the son of Olivier, the eldest of the five Dumas brothers. Jean-Louis was his uncle.

Hermes has flourished, due in large part to the enduring demand for its leather goods. The Kelly hand bag starts at $8,450. The Birkin bag starts at $8,850. Right now, on the designer resale site TheRealReal.com, pre-owned Birkin bags are selling for $13,000-$20,000 on average. Despite the substantial price tag, Hermes bags are coveted. They are also collected. Victoria Beckham is rumored to have a collection of more than 100 Birkin bags worth more than $2 million.

Read more: How The Dumas Family Became One Of The Wealthiest Families On The Planet, With A Combined Net Worth of $49.2 Billion