Is there such a thing as Too Rich: Al Waleed

I have been obsessed with Prince Alwaleed bin Talal since I learned about him from our B&B hosts at Pencarrow in Queenstown. Bill and Kari, the owners of the B&B, lived in Saudi Arabia and worked as Alwaleed's personal pilot and flight attendant, flying him around the world on his various supped-up aircrafts for 12 years.

The man is one of the wealthiest in the world, is known as the "Arabian Warren Buffet," and keeps company with George Bush and the leaders of every county in the middle east. We're talking uber rich.

Here are just a few little tidbits that have me utterly fascinated:
At one point, he was the fifth richest person in the world.

His $100 million dollar 317-room palace is nearly 500,000 square feet, and every square foot is ornately decked out. See a french video of his palace, here.

Apparently the man can't find a big enough plane. Bill flew him around in a 737, but he bought a 747 after Bill left his employ. Now he's going to be the first and only private owner of the largest jet available today, the Airbus 380. Airbus had the unfortunate task of telling Alwaleed that, no, you can't put a swimming pool in a plane. See pictures of his jet, here.

He owns 300 cars.

He purchased his old yacht from Donald Trump for the bargain price of $40 million, who in turn bought it from the Sultan of Brunei. But it is far too shabby for this prince. So he's building a new $500 million dollar yacht that will look like this:

He spent a week with a Forbes journalist for the sole purpose of proving that he's richer than Forbes reports he is.

How must it be to live like that? Would I even want to? Bill reports that Alwaleed is constantly surrounded by people who want something from him and he uses just 2 of the 317 rooms in his palace, his office and a small TV room, and is pretty lonely most of the time. It's easy to condemn a man that lives this much in excess, but he is also something of a philanthropist: he believes in equality for women (and has only 1 wife as opposed to the usual 4 for other Saudi princes and allows his female employees to dress in designer western clothes bought with their $60,000 clothing allowance instead of the traditional abaya and veil), he routinely takes to the streets to deliver envelopes filled with money to those in need, he donated $10 million to WTC Victims Fund after 9/11 (though Giuliani ultimately rejected it), and he's been a major investor in Citi and hasn't pulled his investment, preferring to go down with the ship. The man also is relatively self-made (not resting on his oil trust fund laurels). So there's as much to admire as there is to criticize.

Saudi succession experts doubt Prince Alwaleed will become King, but I think the world could do much worse. One thing's for certain, this Silicon Valley educated prince has a lot invested in our little country and let's hope he continues to spread the wealth.