Bettencourt didn't even manage her investments – that was all handled by some very clever financial planners, lawyers and accountants. In other words: for Bettencourt, doing nothing at all produced more wealth as founding the most successful corporation in the world did for Gates. Bettencourt, a person who owned things, did better than Gates, a person who did things. Liliane Bettencourt had no revolutionary new business ideas, invented no miraculous new materials or processes, produced no brilliant art. But the American state found new ways to conduct mass-scale, global surveillance, often by collaborating directly with tech giants.