What does the richest person you know do for a profession / how did they accumulate their wealth?
I know at times a lot of us can be narrow-minded and act like the only way to wealth is through the IB -> PE path, so would love to hear some anecdotes.
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Comments (93)
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Politics
Oil business
russian?
I'm going to go with Texan or Oklahoman more likely if we're sticking to the USA on a USA focused site (with some European input and a small smattering of Singapore/HK users too). More than enough of TX/OK gas money to go around in these parts. Know plenty of them myself, but the film person I mentioned still makes more than they do in the end.
Invest in movies/TV shows and sit back and watch them all day or read potential scripts while the royalties and investor check stubs come in. Maybe visit the set(s) in person if they're feeling restless and want to be active from time to time. They came from a mortgage banking background but wanted to do something actually interesting instead.
How would one get into this? It's always been an interest of mine but unsure of where to start.
Gotta start with a good stack of investable capital. Either straight out of your bank account (and I mean like $1mm+ for at least a 5-10% stake) or at least a sizeable enough portion to secure financing from the banks for the rest. There's plenty of money in being the finance person who handles all the banking too. As we all know, leverage can be your friend if you use it safely and prudently.
Then I'd say look up certain producers on IMDB or elsewhere that have worked on projects and genres you have interest in and do what you have to do similar to recruiting in IB/PE/HF/PWM and start drafting emails to get in touch about any upcoming projects. It may take a bit, but if you have that capital at the ready and can prove it, you'll get a lot more attention faster. They won't give a good god you know what if you just said you had "a cool idea for a movie/show", but dollars don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk and don't care about what you think is a worthy passion project. Look at Avatar. I'd invest in that even though I think it's a dumbass story, but I know it'd make my returns and then some. Sign all the NDAs, accept that until you build a pipeline it could be at least six months to a year before you can expect any kind of return until you build a rep that lands you backing series productions and can just keep rolling one return into another.
And very importantly...if you're just investing, back the hell off and let them do all the work like you would when putting money in a mutual fund/ETF/PE syndication/REIT/etc. As mentioned, the production timeframe isn't going to be snap of the fingers quick and can take some time (this guy has sat through two year production cycles before release and before they saw any kind of return even if just net-net even). But if you manage to find a good TV or movie series, just essentially DRIP it and let CAGR be your friend.
Charity work - inherited wealth.
Array
Real estate. He is over 90 now with a high 9 figure net worth. Started building homes in the 60s and now just buys and holds large commercial developments. His kids took over day to day but he's still part of the business, kinda.
1) Entrepreneurs
So I have a couple of entrepreneurs in my family and among friends, they simply started early/young and sold something or build something and it blew up. Some are in ecommerce, some wrap cars, one engineer I know has a design studio for certain products that larger companies won't do.
All of them have top line revenue beyond 1M $US p.a. or more, with good growth over the years.
2) Assets like Real Estate
Regular employees who started investing in properties early on, multiplied through the decades.
3) Medicine, most often surgeons
Many people I know are in medicine and they make significantly more than the average employee in other industries. Especially with more focused areas and training.
The majority of finance people I know do have a higher salary than the average person, but they don't necessarily make it to xM per year in income. That is not easy to get.
Long only, tech focused hedge fund founder. The dude traded tech stocks like a fucking college student and made insane amounts of money. Retired very very wealthy in his mid 40s around halfway through the bull market. No wonder why WSO loves these types of hedge fund seats.
I know about 4 individuals with 10 figure net worths.
First one works in real estate, has about 10,000-15,000 apartment units spread out across a few states. He nearly owns every building (He runs low mortgage payments for insurance reasons instead of owning them outright) and the average unit is $3000/month. Do the math this dude is pulling in hundreds of millions annually. Been doing it for about 15 years. Went to a no-name university, and grew up poor. Stumbled across a building for sale after his shift at a jewelry store and he sold his house to put a down payment on it. He rented out the 3 units and stayed in the spare unit. Really crazy story of how it all worked out for him.
Second one owns a successful biotech/pharma company specialized in laboratory rat cage technology (who would have known this pulls in crazy money). He just got his company valued at $600m. He also owns a few private executive airports throughout the country, and some luxury FBO services as well at each airport. This was valued at $250m a few years ago before he did a massive revamp on everything so I know this has at least increased $250m in value. He also owns at least two other companies valued at a hundred or so million each. Both of those companies are in manufacturing. His background is at a good but not insane private university and then a top MBA. Worked as an accountant out of undergrad then as a consultant after MBA, hated the fact he would always be stood on top of. Met a woman from Europe here in the states and they started a company and got married.
Third individual created a tech company that sold for $8 billion a few years back. Pretty chill dude. He now owns a NBA team and is just living life. He actually lives pretty modestly, his house is nice but I was not blown away by it necessarily. I won't go into too many details on him and his company, you can look him up with the information I provided.
Fourth individual started an education company in Brazil. He sold it for >$1 Billion. It was focused on teaching people english as a second language amongst some other subjects. Apparently he taught in a way that was much more effective and he was killing all of the other education companies. They were all having a hard time competing with him as he had some intellectual property rights prohibiting certain moves the big players were trying to make. It got to a point that one of the big companies just sent him an email saying they wanted to talk about buying his company. Then it all went down and he got over a billion from the sale (because of his margins though he was making like $100+ million profit annually). He said he sold because it wasn't something he was really interested in. He was a chemistry major at a good private university in the USA, and just saw a need to fix the system for people to learn english better. Really nice dude, drives a Porsche cayenne and lives in a $2.5m home in the USA. I haven't seen his brazil assets but I could only imagine what that's like given the exchange rates.
Now that I have spent so much time thinking I recognize I know a couple more in the billionaire pool but I am tired of writing. I know easily 40-50 individuals in the 9 figure range. Some own construction companies, some own or owned airlines, some own finance companies, etc.
None of these billionaires did IB and only one did consulting. Real wealth comes from finding a pain in the world and healing it. No one on the billionaire list I know is MF PE, or HF. I personally only know a couple individuals in PE or HF that made big money and most of them retired with around $100 million. The next digit though is a lot harder to get and majority of the time comes from creation not addition. Another thing worth noting is that all of the billionaires I know never had the idea of money on there mind when starting the company. They all found something they knew they could fix.
I'm in IB at the moment and not entirely sure of my next moves. I enjoy the work and working hard but who knows how long this will continue to be a net positive for me. I have some desires to start my own company but not sure when I would do so or what I would do.
seems like the common theme here from all these replies is that no one got insanely rich from just working for someone - they all carved their own unique paths. Kinda ironic seeing as everyone on this forum wants to follow a structured path that people have taken for years lol
The money gets made by running your own thing and building equity.
This is correct. In PE and VC we often advise our PortCo CEOs and they frequently do the exact opposite. A 25 year old dude just pushed back on us. When our MD asked why, he said... "there is a reason why I am on this side of the table and you are on that side. " everybody started laughing!
people who walk a very structured path often don't make good entrepreneurs or founders.
Genuine question - how do you know all these people, and how well do you know them?
Either family connections or you're high up at a wealth management firm (so they're clients or friends of etc etc)
Specialty real estate and multifamily. Net worth could plausibly be anywhere in the low single digit billions. Owns a few other businesses that support the specialty real estate. Stealth wealth to the max.
Retired and travels 1st class all around the world. She had a lot of stock in a company and was an executive and on the board of directors and her company was bought for billions. Massive payout.
"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
Owns a professional sports team (NBA/NFL/MLB). Made money through private equity he founded. Wouldn't know he's loaded unless someone told you
seems like the common theme here from all these replies is that no one got insanely rich from just working for someone - they all carved their own unique paths. Kinda ironic seeing as everyone on this forum wants to follow a structured path that people have taken for years lol
Yes but these guys took a shit ton of risk and there's plenty of guys who failed doing that who you don't see. The reason this forum hypes up Harvard to GS to KKR is because that's probably the "best" path for risk adjusted returns. Even if you don't make it to the "top" you still be in a great position.
Wagecucks will never be rich. The structured path still makes a great income accessible.
what was their first job out of college?
Wow. What was the software company?
Through my wife's family, I have met three people worth 750mm+ and every single one of them got to that level via starting their own company. There is no other way to do it in one generation.
were they tech companies?
One guy started an agricultural company in asia.
One guy did the golden path of IB to PE and then started a health insurance company.
One guy has an IT company where he matches overseas workers to large tech companies.
Kid I used to go to school with his parents created a temporary housing service company. They sold it for millions, hang out with celebrities at charity golf events and bought couple race horses. Nuts.
Business owner
Works seven days a week, all year round.
what business?
I know a couple dozen real estate guys worth between a couple hundred million and two billion.
In CRE you have to put it all on the line for your first few deals. Once those work, it's astonishingly easy.
Thanks for the response. "In CRE you have to put it all on the line for your first few deals. Once those work, it's astonishingly easy" -- could you elaborate on this?
Gotta toss in the starting pile of cash to buy that first property, and you may lose unfortunately, or....if you win (IE even just breaking even) then you can leverage that property into collateral and cashflow to buy another equal or bigger property. And then it just snowballs and a few years later you own 400 unit apartment complexes on good financing terms or some 30k sq/ft warehouse(s) or a good sized office building(s) with a 90%+ occupancy rate. Not outright, since if you have that gumption you're going to keep rolling one into the next as soon as it's safe to take advantage of with the banks. For all we know you wind up making your own REIT/BDC and collecting well leveraged cashflow that way.
I have cousins who have relatives like this. I forgot the exact number but they own I think 50+ gas stations in a HCOL state and the 'founder' (their uncle) never graduated college/came over to the US as an adult immigrant but probably took a ton of financial risk early on.
Richest person I know founded and still owns a decent % of my primary portco. Mid 9 figure net worth.
Personally I think I am going to start building a CRE portfolio. Hopefully possible in "free time."
Retired and travels the world preaching his political gospel to the world. He's kind of famous, since he revealed a massive tax fraud by American celebs in a certain tiny European nation, and got some of the settlement money after the jail time he got for breaking his job restrictions. Nice guy, but very American.
"Very American" lol what does that mean?
It means exactly what you think it means. He's very loud, moves with force, marvels at everything and finds everything "amazing", and he is very jovial in a good-ol-boy-kind-of-way. You know, as you Americans tend to be.
Pro-tip: it's all going to be business owners
Al saud mid ranking prince from Saudi. Dad worth a few bil. Used to be closer to him but he's a rival branch member to mbs and now has massive issues lol.
Real estate,
tech company CEO,
Former head of a PE firm
Thanks for the response. were their backgrounds in finance before? what do you think contributed to their success?
Former biotech CEO & chairman, since stepped down. Group he owned bought a lot of subsidiary groups, one of them did really well and ended up producing a massive consumer drug in the antidepressant space. Sold the product line to a BF (think a Pfizer or Merck), netting about $2B for himself in raw cash, while keeping an equity control stake in the subsidiary. Probably sitting anywhere $4-5B net currently.
Quirky guy. All billionaires are. I've met probably 6-7 of them in my life, all of them share similar traits. Makes sense - no one becomes that rich without having a certain edge and/or way of seeing things, however it may present itself.
What was his background before owning a biotech company?
Also, what kinds of similar quirky traits did you notice? Just a generally odd way of thinking?
His background was in healthcare financials, he co-formed a smaller pharmaceutical group with some business partners. They made some good money - two of them left, but the remaining folks joined together to form a new group. That new group was the one that ended up marketing the killer antidepressant drug that ultimately made him wealthy. I'm sure those other two members who took their buyouts were probably salty that their six-figure investment would have been nine figures... ha!
As for quirks, I just mean these people 'think' differently than we do. That's why they're brilliant and are able to capitalize off their ideas to funnel them into such massive wealth spaces. However, that often is paralleled by other things, that the average Joe may find odd. For example, this guy was super into collecting Subsaharan African wood sculptures. Like, I'm talking flying to RoC and paying six figures for an average-looking carving of an old guy's head. If that's your jam then it's great, but he would get so excited about it and drop everything business or personal-wise if he found a 'deal' on a carving. That's just one example of many that I could think of.
Overall though, he was a nice guy. I knew him from a family friend, so I got to interact with him in the business setting (he's an investor at my former group) and also a personal setting (went to a get-together at his Manhattan Beach house... sheesh).
My cousin married a billionaire and now is the owner of a PE
Fyi she has zero finance knowledge and just hire people to do financial analysis for her
So I obviously don't know the type of "rich" people that you all do. I only know working normal rich people. The richest person that I personally know is a plumber/HVAC guy who is the father of my hs buddy. Owns his own shop. No family money and no college. He did a trade program and was working full time by 20. He kept it small so he didn't have to mess with payroll and workman's comp stuff - just him and some other self employed trades guys who had their own little companies banded together -an electrician and a general contractor. When he started making bank he bought some land. He sold that land to big developers in the 90s. This guy lives in a million $ ++ house in NJ, a place in the Hamptons, and has 3 more vacations homes - one in CA, one in Fl, and one in the mountains of CO- all for his personal use. He has tons of toys - jet skies, water skies, quad runners, sailboat, huge sleeper fishing boat. All 5 of his kids had brand new cars for their 16th and fully funded college funds. They could keep any money that was left over after they graduated. He currently has a dozen or so rental properties near his house and the know how and friends to keep them up. In 2009 he bought a couple houses on one block and turned them into rentals. Soon he had the entire plot and then sold them all last year for tear downs and redevelopment. He gets all word of mouth HVAC referrals and now works when he wants on the jobs he wants. Apparently in his early years he hustled all the time but by 35-40 he had a sweet life and worked just to get out of the house. He seemed to figure out the work/life balance. He might not have the greatest net worth of everyone that I know but he has a pretty rich life that he created for himself.
What's the criteria? Personally know? Heard of? I've shaken hands with a billionaire but I wouldn't consider him a friend.
Someone who you know well enough that you can intelligently speak about their background and personality.
The richest person I know operates out of the Caribbean and owns multiple international companies. They have monopolies on the country's oil, agriculture, and real estate. Accumulated their wealth through corruption, oppression, and political instability. Lives very modestly, but is worth Billions. Was def mentioned in the Pandora Papers…
Venezuelan?
hot
plays in the NFL
Been around a long time. Know LOTS of multi millionaires. Richest guy was a HF founder (high 9 figure) but the vast, vast majority of wealthy people I know owned businesses. Just had a visit with a buddy whose family owns a plumbing business. They have over 100M in backlogged projects. Think about that. A plumber. It's actually a pretty large family business. They do airports, stadiums, hospitals, school systems, colleges, housing developments. Not one of them has a college degree.
Lots of ways to get rich. You can certainly do that in IB. Bottom line is you have to be really good at whatever it is to get to that level. Along the way the money will matter less and less as you'll have way more than you need. What you need is the drive to grind through the tough times as there will certainly be many along the way. It's got to be about more than money or you'll lose the juice.
One of the earliest employees at one of the world's 15 largest tech companies. Just a guy who was in the right place at the right time.
The richest person I know sold inherited buildings from one of the most famous street in an european capital (about USD 400m). Now he does PWM. All other people worth > 100m I shook hands with have created/inherited a business.
One thing that has always suprised me is how fairly simple their business models seems to be(selling rocks, boxes or owning several restaurants/bars...) but they manage to know every details of it perfectly
In the spirit of answering the question best, I am going to eliminate industry folks that I've met tangentially. My childhood best friends' father is the wealthiest guy I know very well. I don't know his NW, but based on a guesstimate of his properties available from his website and his partnership %, I would guess high-8 to low-9 figures.
He made his money by developing LIHTC apartments in the rust belt and southeastern states. From there, he branched out into vending, coin op laundry, and other real estate types (notably self storage).
Not every business / RE deal this guy has done has been a good one, but he does a lot of deals, and generally they average out to be decent. If you put a gun to my head and made me guess the most important characteristic which has led to his success, I'd say that he is always looking for opportunity, irrespective of market conditions, and he is always ready (meaning he keeps more cash on hand than what most would consider to be necessary or prudent) in the event that a favorable opportunity presents itself.
Guy I know worth 8 figures owned about 2.5% in a seatbelt/airbag manufacturer for all the major auto makers. Retired at 50. Then bought a SMB home inspection business. Bought for $250k and flipped it for 600K 2 years later. Family life probably took a tole but he is a good guy and we regularly text every few days. So chill and soft spoken you'd never know.
The richest person I know has never had a job and inherited it all from their family business.
Entrepreneur. Guy was the least likely to be successful of our friend group working in a call center in his early 20's. He partnered with a software engineer friend and developed new call center software to automate some outbound dialing for insurance companies. Was running a company with 1,000+ employees within 7 years.
do you think he just got really lucky?
Yes and no. Something can be said for being reckless (ballsy?) enough to quit your job, try to build something, live on couches, etc., that many wouldn't even consider despite the low probability / high upside outcome.
Owns a commercial recycling company and patents on a lot the machines and technology. Worth hundreds of millions and will be worth a billion at some point. He's in his early 50s
Family friend who never went to college. Started his own small trucking company at 18 in Nowheresville, DeepSouth (he drove his own truck) and then grew it and now his net worth is in the 9 figures. Lives fairly humbly (relative to his wealth) but his house is one of the largest in the state. Gives his sons no help whatsoever, none of his sons have a college degree either, one of them lives in a trailer and works a retail job because he has no direction and dropped out of college, the other is a mechanic and the third (still in high school) wants nothing more than to be a farmer. None of them have social media, live flashy lives, or spend much time socializing. They live a quiet, humble, and peaceful life with their horses and dogs Warren Buffet style.
Founder of a top performing megacap PE fund. Only 3 comma club folks I've met are from PE/HF but I've met a few founders in the low 100s too.
The obedient always think of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly - Robert A. Wilson
Son of one of the most successful real estate developers in China.
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