The reality of physics and human capability?

> I think Linus Torvalds and Norman Borlaug both easily did this.

They had a part in it, but it's the people/ecosystem that creates the wealth, not an individual. Linus didn't create all the distros. He didn't install it on all the servers around the world.

> Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates certainly might be up there.

They themselves didn't create $140 billion of anything. It took the efforts of hundreds of thousands/millions of people, along with highly favorable laws and the society in which they lived in. Also, Bezos and Gates destroyed a lot of businesses as well with their monopolistic practices. As a matter of fact, when it comes to gates/microsoft, I'd say it's an overall net negative as microsoft set back computing/computer literacy more than anything.

I thought the fallacy/myth of the "great man" nonsense died with Jobs. There were plenty of people who thought Apple was over when Jobs died. But I guess it's alive and well today.

What's the right wealth level for people? I don't know. Personally, I think the best way combat wealth inequality is to create laws to foster competition so that one company doesn't become a monopoly. But instead, we are in an era of mergers, monopolies and consolidation. So wealth inequality will inevitably continue to grow.