Bill Gates Loses Entire Fortune By Russell Lutz

by John Hawkins | January 20, 2004 12:39 am

Bill Gates, one time CEO of Microsoft Corporation (MSN) and one of the wealthiest men in the world, announced today that a recent research scheme backfired, rendering him penniless and his company destroyed.

Two weeks ago, Gates made the following offer to the world:

“For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00, for every person that you sent it to that forwards it on, Microsoft will pay you $243.00 and for every third person that receives it, you will be paid $241.00. Within two weeks, Microsoft will contact you for your address and then send you a cheque”

“I didn’t expect the amazing reaction I got,” Gates admitted on the steps of the King County Courthouse in Seattle, where he was filing for both personal and corporate bankruptcy today. “I thought three, maybe four people would do it.”

In reality, after only ten cycles of excited e-mail users forwarding the message on to their friends, the total expense for Gates came to $355,588,042,130,960,000.

“I probably should have listened when my high school teachers talked about exponents,” said Gates. “Math is actually valuable! Who knew?”

In a related story, Neiman Marcus today filed a class action suit against 364,889 e-mail users for releasing the retailer’s $250 chocolate chip cookie recipe without proper authorization.

If you enjoyed this satire by Russell Lutz, you can read more of his work at the The Skeptician[1].