The world’s super rich as you’ve never seen them before

If you are part of the world’s super rich, you have little chance of being an eccentric, unknown recluse these days. Endless rich lists and the celebritification of the wealthy ensure your finances and personal life will be dissected by the media.

If you are bored of reading the dry figures on how many billions Bill, Gina, Carlos and the rest have, how about livening up proceedings with an infographic or two?

Here’s a great one from our very own Fred Schebesta on the 10 highest-paid Australian CEOs, while this rather sobering Guardian chart shows how the world’s wealthy are now better off than ever before, despite the post-GFC struggles of many of the world’s population.

The process of creating wealth isn’t a new one, of course, and Weekend Reads’ eye has been caught by a couple of nostalgic pieces this week. Firstly, check out this lengthy but intriguing charting of the history of the corporation and then swivel your eyeballs to this insightful tale from Amazon’s first employee, hired at a time when the company couldn’t even come up with a name for itself.

Want to become the next Amazon? Well, you may need the help of a new breed of business angels emerging in Australia or, alternatively, heed these top tips on how to bootstrap your business without the need for outside cash.

While some Australians baulk at the introduction of a carbon tax, Californians are getting hot under the collar over a tax targeted at the internet itself. What? Surely not?

Staying in the US, entrepreneurial activity is as frantic as ever, with Yahoo! in the frame to buy online video service Hulu and the wonderfully-named Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr, revealing her new start-up, which sounds a bit like another issue that’s contentious in Australia at the moment.

Back in Australia, Weekend Reads enjoyed the surely never-to-be-seen-again headline ‘Mumpreneur outraged at Fairfax over Twitter name ownership.’