Who's the wealthiest person you know and how did they get there?

Just wanted to start a fun conversation. I have an uncle who's a chiropractor who makes 300k a year. He owns several offices and generally caters to hispanic people.

I grew up with a very modest background so I don't know too many people who "made it big". Hope the monkeys here have fun anecdotes to share :)

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Extended family on both sides have multiple billionaires. Mostly took an already rich family up multiple levels with construction in KSA, telecom in Africa, and air freight in EU.

 

Close but no..

These are 3 different people from Lebanon. But honestly many across Lebanon and Egypt (among MANY other countries) built significant wealth (or vastly expanded wealth) 70s through 90s with the same formula.

 
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Founded a private equity firm. Well, I recently met Arthur Blank through a guy I met at my old apartment gym who used to teach Blank’s kids at a YMCA camp. Blank paid the guy (immigrant from Eastern Europe) to take over the camp, but he did it in stock. Well, Home Depot did pretty well for itself, and now this crazy immigrant dude is worth a couple hundred million.

Got an apartment because he wanted to be close to his grandkids but within walking distance to an ihop lol. Very interesting man - he’d talk way too much when you’re trying to work out, but dude was a genuinely good guy.

 

The wealthiest person I know is Sheldon Lavin who is a billionaire.

He owns OSI which is a major meat company. He was a banker who was initially financed the company’s major expansion and eventual joined the company with a 1/3 ownership interest (and with major support from one of their big customers: McDonalds). He eventually got at least half the ownership and was the primary driving force behind OSI’s international expansion and its product/customer diversification

 

Nancy and Paul Pelosi. They have a knack for buying stocks just before key legislature afffecting their value is voted on. I still cant figure out how they do it 

 

My cousin married a billionaire. His family has a monopoly on several industries in a smaller country. Part of the few somewhat legal, legitimate families. His main business generates 300k profit a day. Lives modestly and his family has accumulated wealth for the past century. Quiet billions, Pandora Papers type beat. Will never see these people on Forbes.

 

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