Methodology
How Value Delivered Score works
VDS answers a single question in v1: how much of a company's equity value is held by people other than the credited founder? That is the Bezos method — investor wealth created for others, not a full accounting of social good.
Core formula
For person P and company C:
VDSP,C = wP,C × (VC − SP,C)
equivalently w × V × (1 − ownership fraction)
- V — company equity value (public market cap preferred; private post-money valuation only when verified)
- S— dollar value of the person's current stake
- w — attribution weight in [0, 1], used when multiple people on the list claim the same company
Worked example (Bezos / Amazon)
Amazon market cap ≈ $2.3T. Bezos stake ≈ $0.2T. Attribution weight = 1.
VDS = $2.3T − $0.2T = $2.1T
Try it yourself on the calculator.
Career score
A person's headline VDS is the sum of weighted company scores across every live company where they are credited as a primary value creator (founder, co-founder, or controlling builder), plus approved historical co-founder exits.
Historical co-founder exits
If someone was a founder or co-founder and the company had a documented liquidity event (acquisition, merger, etc.), we count a frozen exit-time VDS:
VDSexit = w × (Vat event − Sat event)
- Exit scores do not float with today's markets and are never updated by market-cap cron.
- We do not attach successor public market caps (e.g. modern PayPal for a 2002 eBay deal). The event snapshot is the credit.
- Buying a company (e.g. X/Twitter) is not a co-founder exit credit.
- If the person still holds a live stake in an operating public company, use the live credit only — do not double-count an IPO exit plus current market cap.
- Only founder / co-founder roles qualify for historical exits (controlling-builder-only roles do not).
Example: Elon Musk's Zip2 and PayPal exits are frozen event-time scores layered on top of live Tesla / SpaceX / Neuralink / Boring Company credits.
Attribution & multi-claim rule
If two or more people on the leaderboard are credited for the same company, their attribution weights for that company must sum to ≤ 1. That prevents double-counting the full “others” pool. Example: Larry Page and Sergey Brin each receive weight 0.5 on Alphabet.
| Role | Default weight |
|---|---|
| Sole / primary founder-CEO | 1.0 |
| Peer co-founders on the list | Split so weights sum to 1.0 |
| Early employee / non-founder exec | Not ranked on company VDS in v1 |
| Investor only | Excluded |
Display metrics
- VDS — career sum (headline ranking metric)
- Retained stake — value still held by the person
- Retention ratio — retained ÷ company value(s)
- Externalization ratio — VDS ÷ company value(s)
- As-of / confidence — every number is dated; confidence reflects data quality
What VDS does not measure (v1)
- Consumer surplus or product utility
- Wages, jobs, or taxes
- Philanthropy as a separate score line
- Negative externalities
- Moral deservingness or “who should be rich”
Sold shares are already reflected in the “others” side of market cap minus current stake. We do not add a second line for historical sales cash in v1.
Limitations
- Not fully causal. Non-founder equity always existed; VDS is a clear accountability metric, not a complete causal model of value creation.
- Snapshot in time. Scores move with markets and ownership. Always read the as-of date.
- Public companies first. Private valuations are noisier and are omitted until verified.
- Seed data. Early leaderboard figures may be illustrative estimates pending live market-cap feeds and filing-backed ownership.
Ranking rules
- Sort by VDS descending
- Tie-break: externalization ratio, then name
- Require documented ownership, company value, and weight > 0
- Surface confidence badges on every profile