Would you rather be a millionaire or a billionaire?
Okay so on the surface the answer is obvious, most of us would choose billionaire but is it really the right answer?
Trending Content
| +95 | Are you “less ambitious” for having long term goals outside of NYC | 24 | 7h | |
| +37 | Interviews Are So Fake | 24 | 8h | |
| +33 | 2024 UK Election - Tories finished? | 20 | 17h | |
| +29 | Being Christian in investment banking | 14 | 11h | |
| +26 | Is my boss gaslighting me? | 3 | 6d | |
| +25 | Non-Competes Banned | 17 | 2h | |
| +22 | Ideas for things to do with a free semester before starting ft? | 9 | 1d | |
| +20 | Sabotaging Peers to Get Ahead? | 34 | 4d | |
| +18 | Best NYC neighborhood for single 30M | 12 | 2d | |
| How do I become Sigma | 12 | 1h |
Career Resources
I'd choose high-millionaire. I'd rather remain more private while still having plenty of money.
I think the cons outweigh the pro's once you are a billionaire tbh. Would rather have 600M, and nobody know my name then $5bn with a target on my back.
whichever one is more
Mahths.
I'd rather have the title of Technoking of Tesla
Absolutely something in the hundreds of millions vs. billions. You have no privacy when you have billions and the paranoia about defensing all that wealth from everyone trying to take it from you (in some form or other) would not be something I'ld want to live with. A couple hundred ml is probably where you completely peak (although I think after a 10ml net worth you're probably already pretty close to peaking anyway, returns on incremental dollars is small)
Why do you think this? If your wealth isn't mostly in the form of a publicly traded security, I'd venture to guess that rather few people know the names of the vast majority of billionaires. Even "rankings" people like those at Forbes probably miss the vast majority of them.
Don't have an Instagram full of yourself on planes and yachts and you'll be fine.
I'm not sure why but the exposure you get just goes way up when you hit 2+bl. I'm sure there are a few undiscovered billionaires out there but don't underestimate the armies of Forbes journalists who get paid $50k a year and want to expose people with boatloads of money
Think even if estimates are far off they are directionally correct. For instance, if you are CEO at a 30bl asset manager who owns 50% of the fund (getting paid 50ml after expenses every year) after probably 10-15yrs you can estimate that they're a billionaire (assuming it is reinvested). Lot of simple triangulation you can do like this, or when you give away a 50ml donation to a hospital, etc. Exposure will find you somehow most of the time
Really does suck I bet. Sure there are perks but there's also how people try to get close to you for money & stuff....it's not an easy spot I'd bet but then again, world's smallest violin
I think you have this backwards. I'd bet a large number of the folks on the Forbes 400 or whatever have press folks pushing to get them included.
Right, but this is my point. You're view of who is a billionaire is a bit blinkered, and you're only thinking about the people who are already in the public eye to a certain extent, like hedge fund managers, or people who want to plaster their names all over showy gifts and donations. It's selection bias.
I've mentioned this in other contexts, but take NYC real estate (only because it's an area with which I am familiar and in which there are many private wealthy families). Plenty of people built upper east side rental buildings in the 70s/80s/90s who you've never heard of in your life. And if you own half a dozen of those? Billionaire, easy. I can think of a couple families I know of that aren't on Forbes' list. Real estate is especially opaque and due to the high leverage associated it can be difficult to tell who is a billionaire and who isn't (an example would be Mr Trump, whose net worth is almost certainly less than a billion dollars). Lots of old money NY families, especially real estate families, aren't interested in the spotlight and don't make an effort to help people track their wealth.
Unless you are wealthy for an extremely public reason (which, to be fair, is most people) it's hard to tell who has what, so you definitely can maintain some privacy. If you own a privately held business? Who knows what your annual earnings are! Make sure your kids don't have an Instagram account with their gold plated Bentley, and don't go in the papers spouting off about how much you're worth, and you'll be fine.
Know someone who had intimate dealings with Trump's finances when they were taking away his casinos. He said that at the time he was worth roughly $1 bn - $ 1.5 bn (he was claiming to be worth $3-4 bn IIRC during the elections). Still an enormous amount of $ but just not what he claimed.
The claim seems to be right actually, it's just that his net worth has taken a massive hit since 2016 (not sure why)
https://www.forbes.com/profile/donald-trump/?sh=2b74043947bd
As I recall, the vast majority of his net worth was tied up in the self-assessed value of his brand. Forbes always gives the impression of assuming that what people report as their net worth is accurate. Kind of hard to imagine Donald Trump has/recently had billions in assets and yet couldn't get a loan from a major bank.
It’s most definitely exaggerated. Read Micheal Cohen’s book recently and maybe it’s not the best source on all things but he claimed Trumps net worth wasn’t more than 2 billion at maximum.
He couldn’t get a loan because banks didn’t want to be associated with him after Jan 6. The timing seemed pretty obvious to me.
He hasn't been able to get a loan from a major lender since well before his Presidential run...
A billionaire is just a guy with +1000 millions. I am guessing the question you’re asking is would you rather be famous or live a more private life. I’d prefer being famous (or billionaire) because I’d try and would likely be able to do more good with that additional wealth and credibility.
At that level of wealth I care less about net worth and more about cash flow. Cash flow is what allows you to make a difference (either in private business or charity or something adjacent). High net worth without cash flow just gets a target on your back.
Like Nassim Taleb said - Becoming a billionaire requires an appetite for countless meetings with people like attorneys and regulators. Goldie does not possess such an appetite. I'll take the multi-millionaire with passive income streams and a lot of free time route living a sort of stealth wealth life.
Billionaire if I could achieve it before I turned by 50 and 55 at the latest. At that point, you'd still be relatively young and healthy when you go to walk away.
Millionaire ($10 mn or higher) if I could achieve that before 40 with $20-30k/month in net cash flow coming in.
this dude definitely watches a lot of billions
I’ll take $200 billion, or why not $500 billion - let’s spice this world up a bit.
You can be a billionaire and still fly under the radar. Plenty of $1 billi people out there that aren't constantly being bombarded by AOC. I think the reason to prefer being a millionaire over a billionaire is that as a millionaire, you have more company because the absolute number of millionaires is higher than the number of billionaires. Plus, you have something left that is tangible to work for. If you never get there, it'd be a lot more fun than if you never made your first million.
Not sure how you think Musk and Bezos don’t have something tangible to work for.
If I was Bezos, I'd be dreaming and staring up at the stars
Hundreds of millions, as long as I could live a private life
millionaire and have a private life
Billions because I need to bankroll my movement to destabilize the global order and allow me to achieve power, secured by loyal masses committed to the cause. Upon which I will begin rebuilding the world in my image.
His will be done.
sup george
You guys are really overestimating the publicity gained from being a billionaire. Even in finance (which I'd argue is a more visible method of wealth creation), I doubt anyone can recognize the majority of the billionaires that were partner #5 at *pick your rocketship PE / HF*. I doubt David Blitzer (as an example) would have any problem living a relatively normal life if he wanted to. And that's not even counting the families that got there by buying midwest farmland or starting some random widget manufacturer
I worked for a billionaire’s family office before, and you’d never know the guy... no WSJ articles, doesn’t appear on CNBC, our website was a single page and didn’t list any names, etc. The only reason I even knew the number was $1bn+ was because I briefly helped our accountant with some entity-level work.
It’s not like there’s a list that suddenly adds you as soon as you cross the threshold - Forbes, Fortune, etc. only know what’s publicly available.
Eaque consectetur aspernatur nisi odit. Iure unde dolor temporibus exercitationem voluptatibus. Dolorum pariatur perferendis reiciendis aut in veniam repudiandae. Id quidem cupiditate ut adipisci molestias labore. Ullam modi earum vero illum.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Fugit culpa vero praesentium in natus temporibus. Eos molestias explicabo dolorem sed.