Bezos may be world's richest person, but Amazon isn't fastest

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was recognized as the richest person in modern history, with a net worth of $150 billion, by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in July. That put him $55 billion ahead of the runner-up, Microsoft founder Bill Gates. It made him the richest man since records began - when Forbes launched its wealth ranking in 1982.

Online responses were mixed but largely critical, with one tweet by user@kweenrashi attracting more than 131,000 retweets: "He can literally fix Flints water issue 1800 times, end world hunger and still have 20 BILLION left over. The amount of wealth he is hoarding for no reason is disgusting."

For me, the news rekindled the frustration of a "First-World problem" I experienced over the summer with Amazon's more than nickel-and-dime approach to e-commerce.