He purchased each plot for between $5 and $15M. The article describes the residents as "Doctors, lawyers, business executives and Stanford University professors".

I would not call these "regular people"

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benzible 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

These weren't inherently $15M properties - obviously price is no object for him and once he started buying adjacent properties the prices went way up. Zuckerberg paid $14 million in 2013 for a 2,600 sq ft house that was valued at $3.17 million [1]

As far as whether they're "regular people", depends on perspective. Relative to the US / world, a net worth that includes equity in a $3M+ house is an outlier but most of these people live what would have been considered a typical "upper middle class" lifestyle a couple of decades ago [source: me, ex Palo Alto resident, still have friends there]. Putting a couple of kids through college has become insanely expensive. They don't have compounds in Hawaii or fly around on private jets.

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/Zuckerberg-to-raze-4-hou...

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afavour 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

OP didn't say "working class people". Doctors and lawyers are plenty regular people.

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16bytes 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Doctors, lawyers, business executives are closer to "regular people" than those people are to billionaires.

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googlryas 14 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Okay, but it doesn't mean they're regular people. Owning a single one of those plots out them in the 1% of household net worth, even if they had 0 other assets.

	▲	xmprt 14 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ok but what does that contribute to the conversation? I think a good enough definition for regular people is if the average person can achieve that title with talent and hard work more than luck (not that luck doesn't also play a major factor). Whereas becoming a billionaire has a lot more to do with luck than hard work (even though hard work still plays a factor).

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foxyv 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Billionaires are so rich that dermatologists and plastic surgeons look like old man Carl from "Up." Welcome to the oligarchy!

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potato3732842 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The gulf between well paid white collar workers and regular people is so massive which is "closer" depends mostly on which billionaire you're measuring.

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UltraSane 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Doctors and lawyers are extremely regular people.