????賺更多更多的錢，似乎是一些億萬富翁生活的驅動力。換言之，他們想成為贏家。而其他億萬富翁生活的驅動力則是，好吧，其實我也說不上來。據說沃倫?巴菲特依然住的是他1957年在奧馬哈購買的那棟有5間臥室的房子，這太讓我不解了。他不是跟比爾?蓋茨關系密切嗎？難道蓋茨就沒讓他瞧瞧1.5億美元能夠買一棟什么樣的豪宅？

????現在讓我們繼續討論高科技發燒友。在我看來，我上面提到的4位富豪似乎都是天真無邪的樂觀主義者。這有什么不招人愛的？布蘭森顯然最有風格。特斯拉電動車公司（Tesla）創始人馬一龍最有可能在實現夢想之際賺到真金白銀。貝索斯很快就會成為整個地球的統治者，所以我們還不如讓他做他想做的事情。至于艾倫嘛，我對任何一位用自己的錢建造起一座搖滾樂博物館的人，或任何一位擁有世界上最豐富的吉米?亨德里克斯（美國吉他演奏家，歌手，和作曲人，被認為是流行音樂史中最重要的電吉他演奏者，1970年逝世——譯者。）紀念品的人，都很有好感。

????當然，跟馬一龍一起創建貝寶公司（PayPal）的皮特?泰爾也是一個不容忽視的人物。泰爾估計擁有150億美元的財富，除了作為Facebook的早期投資人狠狠地賺了一筆之外，他還在納米技術、太空探索和機器人研發等領域投入了一大筆錢。此外，他還參與建立了瑪士撒拉基金會（Methuselah Foundation），該基金會的目標在于逆轉人類的老化趨勢（我要是個億萬富翁的話，我當然也想長生不老，至少要比我現在的愿望更迫切）。但泰爾的問題在于，他是一位自封的哲學家。在《紐約客》雜志（New Yorker）上月刊登的一篇讓人讀起來筋疲力竭的人物特寫中，他清楚明白地表明，要想獲得他的投資代價可不小：要想他掏腰包，就得聆聽他沒完沒了地嘮叨那些他所謂的那些“重大”的課題。

????與皮特?泰爾相比，我更欣賞理查德?布蘭森——在億萬富翁當中，他最懂得“及時行樂”。但我也非常欣賞保羅?艾倫。我完全不知道保羅?艾倫對任何事物的看法——我反正也不在乎。雖然他的財富下降了260億美元——這意味著他損失的錢比大多數億萬富翁（除了比爾?蓋茨，沃倫?巴菲特和拉里?埃里森之外）掙的錢還要多——但我并不覺得他是有史以來最糟糕的投資者。我看到的是事情的另一面：他是史上最會花錢的億萬富翁之一。他帶著孩童般的好奇心，以一種令人欽佩的方式把他的萬貫家財揮霍了出去。

????譯者：任文科

????Some billionaires seem driven to make more and more and more. In other words, they're playing to win. Other billionaires seem driven by, well, I have no idea. When they write about how Warren Buffett still lives in the same five-bedroom Omaha house he bought in 1957, I am reduced to a state of total perplexity. Doesn't he hang with Bill Gates? Hasn't Gates shown him the cool kind of house $150 million can buy?

????Back to the tech nerds, though. The four I mentioned above all seem like wide-eyed optimists to me. And what's not to love about that? Branson obviously has the most style. Musk is probably closest to actually making money off his dreaming, with Tesla (TSLA), his maker of electric cars. Bezos, well, he's going to be ruler of the entire planet pretty soon, so we might as well let him do what he wants. And Allen? Anyone who builds a rock-and-roll museum on their own dime—and who owns the world's largest collection of Jimi Hendrix memorabilia—is all right in my book.

????Of course, we also have Musk's co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel. Thiel is worth an estimated $1.5 billion, and in addition to scoring big as an early investor in Facebook, he's thrown money at nanotechnology, space exploration, and robotics. He's also involved in the Methuselah Foundation, which has a goal of reversing human aging. (If I were a billionaire, I'm sure I'd want to live forever too—more so than I already do.) The problem with Thiel, though, is he's a self-styled philosopher, and in an exhausting profile in the New Yorker last month, he made it clear that his investments come with a high price tag: we have to listen to him go on-and-on about whatever "important" topic is on his mind in exchange for his opening his wallet.

????I'll take Richard Branson—who epitomizes carpe diem more than any of his peers—over Peter Thiel. But I'll take Paul Allen, too. I have absolutely no idea what Paul Allen's opinions are about anything—and I really don't care either way. And while he's down $26 billion—meaning he's lost more money than most billionaires have ever made, save Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison—I don't think that makes him the worst investor of all time. I call this glass half-full: he's one of the best spenders that ever lived. And he squandered it all in an admirable state of childlike wonder.