If your dad is a billionaire, how do things work? (What gives?)
So why do people think billionaire kids don't need to work/ have life set? If you're under 18 ~, then sure, you legally live under your parents' roof and you use your dad's money. But when these billionaire kids go into their 20s, then what? They still use their dad's money and literally live like a child (live with their parents)? Ain't no way the billionaire dads are gonna treat them as kids and still give them money, right? Their dad's money isn't theirs especially in adulthood, the same way the 99% of normies' (including regular millionaires) dad's money dont belong to them.
And for the real life billionaire kid adults who don't work - wtf? Do they get pocket money from their dads every month like kids?
Like I literally don't get it
depends on if your dad wants to use them but you'd have all the connections in the world to do whatever you want if your dad was a billionaire and the billionaire dad wanted to flex his social capital to help you do something. of course you have not fumble the opportunity but still.
Do you live under a rock? When you're that wealthy, of course the children's life gets subsidised. If you had a billion dollars and your child went over 18, you'd just stop trying to give them a better life? I don't believe that for a second.
I mean maybe you'd not want them to coast but of course you're gonna subsidise them (to what extent and to what end depends on your philosophies as a parent).
I can't make sense of what your point is but, anecdotally, I had a direct report with family money in the 10s of Bs and this motherfucker worked his absolute dick and balls off. An unbelievable analyst that absolutely grinded through his 2 years. Single handedly crushed every preconceived notion I had about the uber rich kids.
Good for that guy, probably had decent parents too
And something to prove
Closest I know is a guy whose dad NW is in the hundreds of millions. Their relationship is weird but similar to his friends that came from the same means. His primary form of communication with his dad is through email, bi-weekly usually. When they talk in person it’s like an interview. At his wedding everyone was lining up to ‘kiss the ring’, quite literally. When his dad does let, for lack of a better word, his guard down, he is the fucking man, just a bro.
My buddy actually applied to like 200 jobs before he got his first job, and worked as a financial analyst then did some corp dev. until recently. He took a job with one of his dad’s companies as a ‘CFO’ pulling ~350k base I think.
His older brother took the same route.
His younger sister on the other hand….. Has been failing college for… five years now. He bought her a sick condo, and she constantly takes ‘mental health’ trips out of the country. Gets a fat monthly stipend etc…. Will be interesting to see where life takes her, because she is also not good looking enough to warrant a sugar daddy.
Plenty of hot women date ugly guys for their money. I'm sure she'll find someone to reverse that for her! Sounds like she has a couple hundred million things going for her beyond her looks
This is going to be shocking... but it depends on the person!
I am sure some parents prioritize work above all else and while their kids have everything they could ever want, it's done through staff or very formal and relatively rare face to face interactions. I'm sure some kids do absolutely nothing but party (or have a nominal job) and live insane lifestyles - I read in the Real Deal (real estate trade rag) of scions of UHNW parents whose position in life is entirely inherited who live like kings while frittering away the family firm.
And then there are plenty of exceptionally wealthy families who treat their kids like any other reasonably well off person would - they get a lot of doors opened for them, they go on insane family vacations, maybe their apartment is subsidized, but at the end of the day they're expected to work hard and live within their means in their day to day life, it's not all yachts and clubs and drugs. I know a couple people like this whose parents must be worth 100m+, and yeah - they live in a nice condo that was partially/entirely paid for by their parents (not sure but it has to be at least partial) and they don't have student debt... but nor do they get some crazy "allowance" and they're expected to work hard at their job. They have the underlying financial security to work a passion project instead of maximizing income, which is an amazing luxury to have, but they were raised to value money and hard work. And they have healthy, normal relationships with their parents that you'd see at any point on the socio-economic scale.
Frankly, there are lots of people whose parents are worth way less than that who don't have the same outlook on life. It all comes down to how you're raised. And frankly, you're just as likely to raise an asshole kid if you're worth 500 million dollars or just 500. Though the kids of the former probably are a lot more noticeable when they're acting like assholes than the latter.
I really need to consider changing my username at this point because it's time for another episode of *dun dun* agree to disagree on certain pieces. A lot of these three commas members came up from rough times and want to dote on their children to give them anything and everything because they never had anything themselves. Have you heard about the whole four generational rotation that usually happens with wealth? First gen makes the wealth, raises their kids granting them definite advantages such as the best schooling,an au paire or nanny, seed money to pursue their own ventures , etc while making sure their kids see the struggle they went through so they want to see the value there and emulate it. Then their grandkids get treated even softer because we're getting further removed from the initial struggle and both previous generations want an easier life for the grandkids than they had and we start to see the whole "well at least you tried sweetie!" attitude. Then great grandkids just f'off and wind up on TMZ or reality tv shows and are so insulated and ignorant that they don't get that the rest of us are laughing at them and not with them because they've never had any adversity in their life and blow all the family assets (sometimes on blow!).
Also, a lot of times their parents' money does become their money. And no I don't mean in the macabre sense of inheiritance. The words Trust Fund ring any bells? Sure, there coule be stipulations written into them such as they have to graduate college, at least work some kind of job on their own even if it's stocking groceries part-time or simply keep their nose clean criminally and not rack up any felonies. Not to mention write it out as a revocable vs irrevocable so they can yank it at any time if they wanted (that whole saying what it is on the label with the revocable naming). And for your idea of "pocket money" they can set monthly spending/withdrawal limits on there too. So in a roundabout way they get that pocket money you asked about.
At the end of the day, I get the fascination with some of these shitheels we see with all this money that they have just for simply being born to certain parents. But don't get frustrated, get even my dude and work on becoming the first generation of the cycle I lined out earlier.
To be fair, that shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves paradigm has less to do with future generations getting "weak" and more the inherent improbability that you have several successive generations of business geniuses. Part of the beauty of being hyper wealthy is allowing your kids to follow their passions - for every artist or musician the family produces, for every research scientist or doctor, you have someone who isn't rebuilding or adding to the family wealth (though doctors might not eat into it). Getting to 4 generations, if I make a billion dollars and each of the successive three generations has 3 kids, means 27 descendants. Assuming each generation lived solely off the interest, that means the 4th generation has ~9mm each to pass on (also assuming 50% inheritance taxes). That isn't poor, by any means... but my guess is that in the popular consciousness, they'd be considered back in shirtsleeves. There are plenty of families which have maintained massive wealth through multiple generations; the Astors, the Rockefellers, the Kennedys, the Waltons (will get there), the Vanderbilts, etc. It's just that dilution takes its toll, even if most of the people involved aren't living well beyond their means
I'm not implying "weak", just listless and careless without any consequences or discipline. So that 4th generation just throws that monney around "because I can" and has zero regard for preserving their assets since to a lot of them there's always money so why should they care? To your point of letting your offspring pursue their passions, that's why I mentioned giving them all the resources and opportunities they never had themselves to pursue those passions. I agree that not all of them are leeches and do reignite the spark within themselves to be their own person and not just someone else trading on the family name.
Nice breakdown of the family multiplication btw. I agree that ~$9mm isn't anything to sneeze at on any level. You mentioned living off interest, but are you implying a trust environment with limited withdrawals to maintain that? Or assuming that none of them don't take that $9mm and unload it on random business deals that may crater and ultimately they're left with zero? Or the opposite direction as well (I'm not satan here). Not to mention that if we're talking four generations down, how are they coming into that $9mm? What about children that get disowned or emancipate themselves of their family?
And yes, there definitely are some outlier families that have withstood beyond the four generations theory. There's probably a decent amount of others we've never heard of either because they take discretion that seriously. Which of course is probably part of why they're still going 4+ generations later.
Seems a bit sexist saying "Dad" instead of "Parent."
Almost all billionaires that generated their own wealth are men. Look up wealthiest women in America and tell me how many are in the B club and their money didnt come from inheritance? I believe it is only a handful.
This is correct, but the number of women billionaires is still not zero.
"In 2022, around 13.05 percent of all billionaires in the United States were female. In total, there were 735 billionaires in the United States in that year."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1125817/billionaires-united-states-….
hahahahaha. We shouldn't assume people have 2 parents :)
Parent(s)
id assume old money is allowance/trust money funding their lives while new money is a mix of that and parents who want the kids to earn it.
probably dad gives you a credit card or even opens a joint bank account (for him and you, so he can deposit and you can use funds).
if you're a billionaire and have a couple of kids, wouldn't you give each like $50M. it's only 10% of your wealth. and they can draw a mil per year for their whole life ($50M will also grow).
Varies a ton by family. Growing up I had a few classmates whose families were at least around billionaire level, and they're good examples of roughly 3 levels of how its treated:
The Hardo Bucket (rare): Dad grew up poor, began blue collar work in a commodity field, and decades later was a billionaire owning a large operation in that field. Super strict about keeping his kids humble and living humbly himself. Mediocre house, mediocre cars, shopped at Walmart regularly. He had a jet for business, but given his attitudes I doubt the family used the jet. Needless to say his sons had to work hard. This is the only example of a really rich guy I know of, who might actually let his sons permanently live lower middle class if they don't work for it. Dad was nice guy but obsessed with church, community and other salt of the earth stuff.
The Typical Bucket: 2nd generation wealth, grandpa got rich as a scrappy businessman so dad grew watching grandpa go from well-off to ultra wealthy. The kids were my schoolmates, they had an upper middle class lifestyle but still way below what you'd expect. Nice house, nice vacations, but no flying private or Ferraris. Parents obsessive about their kids not becoming stupid rich kids. But these kids knew they wouldn't have to make any career sacrifices for money. Both kids went into fields (journalism & politics) that other people would like to do but often shy away from because of money concerns.
The Ridiculous Bucket: we had one guy in the town, less wealthy than the two families above - guy was not quite a billionaire but at least halfway there. Such a ridiculous person that I have to avoid details, or people could google him and know who it is. Worked his way up as a corporate guy, then started a manufacturing business and hit it big. Wants everyone to know he's the richest guy in town even though he isn't. His house may legit be the biggest in America, 3x size of the typical megamansion. Cheap region of the country makes that possible when you only have $500m. He was divorced, always showing up at school events with tanned, bleached hoes that he'd meet in beach towns and bring back. You won't be surprised to hear that his kids grew up very aware they'll never need to work, and their development suffered as a result. One kid somehow became a productive adult despite all that, good for him. The other two are useless, one of them always thinks she has the next great startup (her ideas are awful) and the other doesn't even waste his time pretending.
The 2nd bucket is really common. I work at a single family office now and it's just like that 2nd bucket family. Similar at other family offices I know. Rich parents mostly follow Buffett's advice of "give them enough that they can do anything, but not enough that they can do nothing."
tl;dr everyone's different, but those who saw wealth built with hard work or lots of patience probably more inclined to make their kids work too.
Are most of these families primarily american (like multi-generational, or recent immigrant origin)?
Ask because foreign ultra wealthy (which I've seen many times in South Asia plus in boarding school) is far more prone to flamboyance than any american born kid. I've met wealthy americans and it's crazy how they aren't even that different from their regular upper middle class peers. Meet a wealthy guy from Nepal, Kuwait, or Nigeria and they have absolutely nothing in common with their countries equivalent professional class. This is super true for old money, and royal wealth. I know one Al-Saud, nice guy though from a rival branch to mbs so hurting rnow, and I don't think anybody lived more lavishly than him. Good guy, Saudi specOps today from what I hear, but the life he lived was something even the movies wouldn't know how to show.
The salt of the earth, or pull yourself by the bootstraps mentality is strong in the american financial upper class. I think most american wealth is only a generation or two old, so that might keep the families humble I'm guessing.
Feel like the Ridiculous Bucket might be The Triple F Collection, based out of Ohio.
I mean by that point you are already set. In most cases if they fail they will get support obviously, and if you succeed its most likely due to good connections. The few billionaires I know are able to take whatever path they want media/photography/sports/ some business. So I would just say yeah I guess they get support if needed but who cares? Really doesn't change much about anything other than I suppose they are a slightly disconnected from reality.
ask Nick Kroll
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