The recent Appleby disclosures (aka "Paradise papers") had an interesting pitch for wealthy clients that explained that often third generation offspring were the point where they no longer understood how the wealth was created and things started dissipating. What Sean was alluding to was life extension technologies that would allow the original creator of the wealth to hang around for much longer periods of time.
Many dystopian novels have explored that concept where at the point people can be kept alive indefinitely the moving around of wealth stops. Anybody not in the 'club' at that point is doomed to fight for fewer and fewer available resources. I personally don't feel that is the most accurate prediction of what will happen when billionaires become immortal but I recognize it as a possibility.
Yeah, I think it's an interesting thought experiment for what would happen if billionaires never died and the same person who made the money in the first place was allowed to manage it in perpetuity. Would the same skills that put them on top of the heap in the first place keep them there? Or would they get rusty and decline, even without the specter of death?
I'm more inclined towards the second, simply because even if the rich don't change, the world around them does. Joy's Law: "No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else." In my view, most of the rich got there because they had mental models that were particularly well-adapted to the times they lived in, and life circumstances that let them capitalize on the opportunities that this let them see before anyone else.
I've noticed that even in my relatively short life (I'm mid-30s), a lot of my mental models have already become outdated. When I started my career, desktop apps reigned supreme, you shouldn't even bother competing with Microsoft, and the richness and responsiveness of your UI determined how many customers you got (well, that and having a Windows version that was all of those things). By the time I graduated from college, this mental model was already out-of-date - and the people who recognized it was out-of-date, Larry Page and Mark Zuckerburg and Jeff Bezos, are now literally among the richest people on Earth.
I can only imagine how out-of-date someone's mental model would be after 1000 years of being on top of the world. Could you imagine putting Charlemagne into the modern world? He'd be dumber than the most idiotic teenager.
Many dystopian novels have explored that concept where at the point people can be kept alive indefinitely the moving around of wealth stops. Anybody not in the 'club' at that point is doomed to fight for fewer and fewer available resources. I personally don't feel that is the most accurate prediction of what will happen when billionaires become immortal but I recognize it as a possibility.