How to Become a Billionaire, One Cent at a Time

So, you want to be a billionaire? Oh, you sweet, naive soul. You see, dear reader, accruing a billion dollars is as easy as pie—if your idea of making a pie involves hoarding all the apples in the world, evading the apple tax, and then selling the pie back to everyone at a premium.

In the grand tradition of playground capitalism, the formula is quite simple: Make, Multiply, and Minimize (taxes). Follow these three M's and you too can join the "Nine-Zero Club." Now, get your scuba gear ready. We're about to dive deep into the sea of sarcasm.

Step One: Make Money

The first step in becoming a billionaire is to make money. Easy-peasy, right? You might think starting a tech company would do the trick. Indeed, if you fancy yourself as the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, the tech industry is a dazzling road paved with bitcoin and IPOs.

However, remember: you'll need to create something that's going to be the next big thing—like an app that converts cat meows into human language. Call it "MeowTalk" or "Catanese". We're sure people will just throw their money at you.

Step Two: Multiply Wealth

Now that you've made some money, it's time to make your money make money. Welcome to the wonderful world of investments. Don’t be daunted if you’ve never heard of terms like "short squeeze" or "cryptocurrency". After all, billionaires don’t need to know what those mean. That’s what the army of finance bros in Armani suits is for.

Case in point: Warren Buffet. With a net worth of around $103.9 billion, Buffet doesn't invest in something he doesn't understand—and that includes tech stocks (for the most part). If this strategy works for the Oracle of Omaha, who are we to argue?

Step Three: Minimize Taxes

Ah, now we come to the pièce de résistance: minimizing taxes. If you think about it, billionaires are just like us—they hate paying taxes. But unlike us, they have the means to do something about it.

Enter tax havens, such as the Cayman Islands, where corporations are as common as palm trees, and probably even outnumber the iguanas. Companies registered here often do nothing more taxing (pun intended) than collect postcards.

Sure, you could follow the boring route of philanthropy, donating a percentage of your wealth and getting tax benefits. But why be like Bill Gates when you can be like Amazon? In 2018, this trillion-dollar company not only paid zero federal income tax but received a rebate of $129 million. Now, isn’t that a wonderful magic trick?

I should note here, for the sake of fairness, that all these strategies are legal. Morally grey, perhaps, but legal. The world's tax system is so full of loopholes that it's less of a net and more of a sieve.

Remember, dear aspiring billionaires, the world is your oyster (or perhaps, your off-shore tax haven). The journey to the top might be long and winding, but as long as you Make, Multiply, and Minimize, you’ll be on the fast track to your first billion.

In the meantime, I'll be over here, sitting under my pile of student debt, dreaming about having just 0.001% of Jeff Bezos's net worth. A humble $1.8 million would do nicely. If you need me, I'll be working on my revolutionary new app, "BillionaireSimulator." It converts the real-life struggles of being an everyday individual into an easy-to-navigate video game, replete with challenges such as 'affording a mortgage', 'paying off student loans', and the ever-popular 'living paycheck to paycheck'. The high score is surviving till the end of the month with a positive bank balance - a real heart-stopper, I assure you.

Remember, no matter how much your bank balance increases, your sense of humor and perspective should stay grounded. We wouldn't want the first trillionaire to lose touch with the common folk, would we? Unless, of course, they're busy colonizing Mars. In that case, good riddance and bon voyage!

From the dingy depths of everyday life, I salute you. Here's to us - the 99%. May we one day find our pot of gold at the end of the tax-avoidance rainbow. Or at the very least, may we all dream of vacationing in the Cayman Islands without the tax-evasion motive. And remember, in the grand game of wealth accumulation, don't take life too seriously. After all, you can't take your billions with you... or can you?

That's another topic for another day, but till then, keep counting those pennies, because every billion starts with a single cent. Keep dreaming, keep scheming, and remember - in the world of billionaires, if you're paying taxes, you're doing it wrong. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a "Money Printing" app to design. It'll be yuuuge!