How to marry a billionaire? | Audrey Vernon | TEDxGeneva

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community.

Everything you always wanted to know about billionaires, Audrey knows it. Year after year, she studied classification of the wealthiest people in the world put out by the Forbes magazine to learn a little about them. Here is an offbeat presentation where you will get to know the filthy rich.

I am a comedian.

I had two dreams in my life
when I was little.

The first one was to become a comedian.

And the second was to get rid of
inequality because I thought it unfair

that to become a comedian was
a possibility, even a conceivable dream.

while other people less fortunate than me,
could even imagine such an idea.

Because as Oscar Wilde once said,

"In a nation, there's
a part of the population

that think more about money than the rich

and those are the poor people."

The poor people can't think
of anything else.

This is what the curse of being poor is.

The first dream came true.
But the second hasn't yet.

I told myself I would find a technique

to eradicate the inequalities:
marry a billionaire.

I calculated that if 7 billion people
each married one of 1827 billionaires:

on the basis
of joint ownership of property,

in only one generation,
we would be able to eradicate inequality.

Well, I'm not an expert in probability.
I'm better in statistics.

I calculated that today

I had one chance out of 6 of marrying
someone who suffered from hunger.

And was not anorexic: malnourished.

One chance in 4 of marrying someone
who earned less than $1.25 per day.

A very, very poor person
from Asia or Africa.

One chance in 2 of marrying someone
who earned less than $2 a day.

In other words, even in Europe,
you don't earn much.

And one chance in...

8 millions of marrying a billionaire.

Is there anyone here who earns
more than 10 millions euros a year?

One again, a room full of poor people.

(Laughter)

Hey, it's not so bad; we're may be poor,
but we're are happy!

So, a billionaire. Let me explain.

Because for poor people,
these figures may appear a bit vague.

A billionaire is someone
that has 999 million more than 1.

There are only 1826 of them
in the world. That's nothing.

That would be animals
that would be a preserved species.

(Laughter)

That's that reason we don't have the right
to kill them for their fur.

(Laughter)

Or even make sushi out of them.

The wealthiest man
in the world is Bill Gates.

The second wealthiest
is Carlos Slim Helú.

He owns 15% of Mexico.

He owns the phone companies,
hotels, television networks.

As a result, better not play
a killer game of Monopoly with him.

Mine, mine...

(Laughter)

And following behind, Warren Buffett.

He's the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway,
an investment fund.

He buys shares and sells them.

He hasn't manufactured anything,

hasn't invented anything,
he has 50 billions.

I love Warren.

(Laughter)

He never changes his car.
He still lives in the same house.

He married the cafe waitress
from across the street.

He only traveled one time in his life.

He went to China, and didn't like it.

And his thing is to eat
a T-bone steak on Fridays.

He's number 3 of 7 billionaires.

and when he dies, he will leave
all his fortune to Bill Gates.

(Laughter)

For his charity.
They repaint the schools.

(Laughter)

Hey, but pretty darn well
with a paintbrush.

(Laughter)

He's going to give
everything back to the poor.

I can't understand that.

He spent his whole life
living off the work of the poor.

He didn't pay them much.
And he more or less succeeded.

And at the end, what does he tell them?
"Surprise, it was only a joke?"

(Laughter)

It was not necessary to exploit people
if you didn't want to earn money.

It's like people who catch
and release fish for pleasure.

and then release the fish in the water.

Fair-play, noble gesture.

I personally don't think
that's a noble gesture.

to humiliate a fish
and to pierce its mouth.

Warren impoverishes people just for sport.

(Laughter)

Well you're going to say,"It's
a good idea to get rid of inequalities."

But what should you do
to marry a billionaire?"

It's very easy.
You should study the Forbes' list.

It comes out every year

with the names of billionaires
in descending order and with their photos.

Well, I made posters.

George Clooney, he's the best looking,
but he's not on the list.

(Laughter)

There''s Hugh Grant.

No, not that one. The other one.
That one is a poor guy.

His namesake.

(Laughter)

He's the CEO of Monsanto.

To become a billionaire,
you only need to have a good idea.

He had the idea of getting a patent
on grains, seeds, apples.

He only had to think about it.

In the Forbes List, there's no actors,
football players, no singers.

There is a clown.

Guy, a man from Quebec,
the creator of Cirque Du Soleil.

He's number 1006.

Well, that's not bad for a fire-eater.

And he's a real billionaire.

His last vacation, for his birthday,
he went to Soyuz.

It's not in Russia. It's higher. In orbit.

You didn't know, but it's uncommon
to take a vacation on Earth.

I can't really tell you how to recognize
a billionaire in one evening.

There is really no sign.

On the contrary, I can tell you
how to recognize a poor person.

If he's wearing brands that you recognize.

The little Ralph Lauren horse,
a Rolex, a Porsche, that's a poor guy.

A billionaire has no external sign
of being rich. At least not on himself.

Abramovitch, the Russian billionaire.
His external sign of being rich's Chelsea.

(Laughter)

The English football club.

Well, I made some notes.

I made you a good one
so not to discourage you.

Larry Ellison.

He's the CEO of Oracle
and Java on computers.

It's a free thing.
Who knows how he did it.

(Laughter)

What "oh" he's good.

Wait, there's still others.
You're going to be sorry.

(Laughter)

George Soros.
He invented the hedge funds.

And then, he ruined
England, the franc.

And at this time, he love the euro.

Pay attention, the best progress of
the year is thanks to whom?

Thanks to us: Zara.

Amancio Ortega,
fourth richest in the world.

Does anyone speak Spanish?

He just lost his wife.

(Laughter)

That's terrible.

Look out men...

Ta-da!

(Laughter)

It's Jacqueline Mars of Mars.

Of "a Mars and it sets off". It's hers.

She's super nice.

You know who it is?

No?

I'm happy that I'm here
to show you the nice ones.

Without me, you would only be
good for marriages for love.

(Laughter)

Lakshmi Mittal. He manufactures steel.

His best business is Kazakhstan.

He bought a part of the country,
a whole region.

The iron and coal mines, the factories,
the electric power plant, the railroads.

As a result, he was given
a gift to the people.

(Laughter)

That's normal it's a commercial gesture.

Every year, he goes around the world
10 times with his jet.

Imagine the mileage?

(Laughter)

He must have earned a free trip by now.

On Pluto.

To have discussions with billionaires
you have to be able to talk to them.

to know a little about their lives.

In the Forbes list there are
billionaires whose jobs we know about:

Ingvar Kamprad, the CEO of Ikea.

We know he builds furniture.

And then, he cuts them down,
and he puts them in very small boxes.

Because as a child, he was very poor.
He sold matches.

Well, that remained with him.

Then, there are CEOs,
that frankly we don't know anything about.

" What does your husband do?"
"Algorithms."

"What?"
"He invented Google."

It's an algorithm.

One enters a word in a search
engine, and thanks to PageRank

a line of code of 2 billion terms
with 500 millions variables,

the information
goes into the computer wires,

in a data center in the region.

There are server farms.

It's air conditioned
because it can't be too hot.

And thanks to an electric signal,

the information is transmitted
to your computer via fiber optics.

What's funny is that it takes
less than two seconds for a full circuit.

It's instantaneous.

My husband is the 20th richest
of 7 billionaires, he's really nice.

But, frankly, when he talks...

(Laughter)

Well, I don't understand a word.

Beware of scams.

In the Forbes list,
there are few African billionaires.

Very few African billionaires,
they couldn't get it.

But, they try.

For example, in Ethiopia,
they're the ones who invented coffee.

Coffee, now that's a great invention.

It's the top traded
agricultural product in the world.

The problem is they didn't register it.

(Laughter)

As a result, they don't see color in it.

Where as Nestle is made by the Swiss.

They registered it.

(Laughter)

I don't know why you have to like
opera in order to marry a billionaire.

But whatever you do,

you must read the women's
supplement of the Financial Times.

It's titled "How to spend it?"

"What am I going to do
with that?"

That really exists.

Above all, you have to
to learn to speak the lingo,

"Sweetheart? Did you
see the keys to the Falcon?"

I have to run an errand.

While I think of it, don't you think
that we should trade in the plane?

I don't like flying in last year's model.

It's feels like flying in an old dress.

The last model of the Bombardier:
too cutesy, makes you think of a keychain.

60 square meter all in leather.

And you know that it's the only jet

capable of going around the world
with only one stopover.

It's an awesome way to
to go visit the kids at school."

And I think that 95% of the world
population has never been on a plane.

Oh, it's not bad.

It's worth saying the remaining 5% are

the ones who have
a blast and who pollute.

But as a result, regarding the poor,
they did a cute thing.

In India, near Delhi,
they set up decommissioned Boeing plane.

And for 125 rupees,
the equivalent of 3 euros,

on weekends, they take
their families on a plane ride.

They were their Sunday best saris.

They tear off their tickets.

There's a steward,
airline hostesses, a captain.

They are served a drink and tray meals.

They are given safety instructions,

"Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome aboard Air Nowhere.

Please fasten your seat belts.

You have to attach the
seat belt like this.

You should also know
that you manufactured them."

(Laughter)

"In case of depressurization,

well, very unlikely, we have air masks.

I'm not going to give you
the life jacket spiel.

That's done for the wealthy,
they don't like having no hope.

But frankly, they ought to have
put a pair of skis, goggles, and a tuba.

That would have been the same thing."

All the same, except they don't fly.

Well at the end of 2 hours,
when they get off the plane,

they are happy anyway.

That's like in Gaza.

There's no zebra in their zoo.

So they paint the donkeys.

They cover them with scotch tape
to stay in the lines.

But, they do a hell of a job
with a paintbrush.

The billionaires invented
an incredible thing. It's a slot machine.

It's quite a good thing
that we aren't familiar with

where a bit of money from each person
in the whole world quickly disappears.

However, they're the last,
and they're hopeful.

"The vacuum cleaner
that doesn't lose its power."

That's Dyson, who's a billionaire.

That's it.

Now you know how to marry a billionaire.

How to talk to them, learn
to understand and to like them.

I hope that it will be you
on the Forbes list next year.

In 2009, at the beginning
of the crisis, there were 793.

Today, there are 1,826 billionaires.

I hope that tomorrow,
we will be the 7 billionaires on the list.

(Applause)