Personally I don't see the need for individual people as rich as Buffett or Gates... 'Wealthy corporations?' Sure, but the personal wealth is nuts... Why, remember in the good old days when the CEO's flew in corporate owned jets, instead of their own personal ones? Remember when they went to the country club for free because the corporation paid for their membership... instead of them buying the freaking country club? They had the same cushy lifestyle, except cubic dollars stayed in the company, instead of in their personal wallets.
The top few guys at microsoft sucked up enough bucks to start lord knows how many companies here in the US... if that money stayed in microsoft, no telling how many smaller companies it could have spun off and sold if they were 'redundant' or not really 'feeling the vibe' inside microsofts corporate structure.
Best example I can think of off the top of my head... Sprint... started by a railroad, and later sold off. And what do you know, it's probably worth a bunch more than the RR that started it. In todays atmosphere the money that RR started Sprint with (they didn't call it that) would probably end up in multimillion dollar bonuses at the end of the year in the top 5-8 guys at that RR!!! It's probably real easy for a CEO and CFO to give a fat thumbs down to a huge new 'fiber optic project' (or whatever) when the millions it's gonna cost will cut into the companies cash surplus. Cash that the board could turn around and dole out to him at the end of the year.