Millionaires and billionaires living under their means

buffett owns the company

Facebook has to IPO and Zuckerberg has to sell off stock for years before his liquid net worth would be anything close to his estimated $10+ billion on paper. He probably has a mortgage on his house.

 

What I've noticed is that spending money on expensive shit is really distracting. Running a start up tech company is extremely difficult, it just doesn't work out very well with 50% of your attention. The guys that are partying on the weekends or worried about tiling the bathroom in their second house will never even make it to the point where they have a wildly successful company (unless they just put in money and have little to do with day to day operations.) Some people get to that point and then they lose it. In technology there is no coasting, your company has to constantly improve by leaps and bounds to remain viable. I have a big party and it can take me two weeks to get back on course. Take a guess, there are a lot less parties now.

 

Warren Buffet lives middle class but has no problem charting private jets. Very few wealthy people actually live a strict middle class lifestyle, as the article states.

 

Without getting very deep into this, there is much that most all of us don't know. We assume he's dealing with preferred stock, where common stock could be valued at 1/10-1/100 true value. I know there has been trading of private stock behind company lines, but can't comment on any real figures.

 

Beyond that, we don't know what he has leveraged with his bank, what they have called it at a bottom / vs what he paid tax on at a forced sell price.

 

aka. Bank lens you $$ on a given share price, based on your stock holding. Share price falls from $25/share to $13/share, on the way down Bank calls in payment and you pay $$$$$ tax on that. Problem is when they call in payment you pay taxes on $$$ based on your allocation, not when they were called in and sold. So yes, you can end up net negative at the end of this. aka paying tax on $25/share when they were called at $15/share. This whole ordeal of leveraging company shares for liquid $$$ can be extremely risky, especially pre-ipo.

There are lots of very very wealthy people who fly below the Forbes List radar, so just because they don't show up on the yearly report don't think it isn't around.

 

 

Precisely. I know of at least two billionaires that would never appear in any magazine.

 

The corollary is also true in that many guys that appear in the magazines are attached to inflated NWs and are nowhere near the number.

Reminds me of this Born Rich documentary...

 

 

I've seen that documentary.

There's a bunch of names in that film that don't appear anywhere on the Forbes list.

I'm sure there's plenty of extremely wealthy people that don't show it or make it well known.

 

I've never seen a Rothschild listed on any Forbes list, but I have a hard time believing they aren't just as wealthy as they were 100 years ago.

they just keep it more low key now I guess.

 

from wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothschild_family

Since the end of the 19th century, the family has taken a low-key public profile, donating many of their most famous estates, as well as vast quantities of art, to charity, keeping full anonymity about the size of their fortunes, and eschewing conspicuous displays of wealth.[32] The family once had one of the largest private art collections in the world, and a significant proportion of the art in the world's public museums are Rothschild donations which were sometimes, in the family tradition of discretion, donated anonymously.[33]

 

 

 

I say let them do what they want with their money. It's not what I would do, but I don't have hundreds of millions right now so I'm not going to judge.

Precisely. I know of at least two billionaires that would never appear in any magazine.

 

The corollary is also true in that many guys that appear in the magazines are attached to inflated NWs and are nowhere near the number.

 

 

Yup, you're with it! I only know this from being reasonably close friend with some people of vast wealth. Granted this has absolutely nothing to do with my income, or net value. But purely from a business standpoint. From my first hand experiences their way of business is vastly outside the spectrum of normalcy, and also includes families with fortunes most of us couldn't fathom.

 

Needless to say the Clarks, Rockefellers, blah blah, when at one time your wealth was +25% of the GDP of a nation, that sort of $$$ just doesn't disappear in a generation, or five.

 

Rest assured that the people in the spotlight are mere pawns in the game of the big players. The families/politicians calling the shots have control over industries and people that common billionaries can't even fathom.

 

aka, even Bill Gates is someones bitch when push comes to shove.

Yup, you're with it! I only know this from being reasonably close friend with some people of vast wealth. Granted this has absolutely nothing to do with my income, or net value. But purely from a business standpoint. From my first hand experiences their way of business is vastly outside the spectrum of normalcy, and also includes families with fortunes most of us couldn't fathom.

 

Needless to say the Clarks, Rockefellers, blah blah, when at one time your wealth was +25% of the GDP of a nation, that sort of $$$ just doesn't disappear in a generation, or five.

 

Rest assured that the people in the spotlight are mere pawns in the game of the big players. The families/politicians calling the shots have control over industries and people that common billionaries can't even fathom.

 

aka, even Bill Gates is someones bitch when push comes to shove.

 

That's what I was trying to get at. There is no way wealth like that can be squandered, no way the previous generations would let their wealth get into a position where it could be squandered.

 

 

From that documentary at least they said most of it is tied up in trusts and can't be accessed until certain age..which makes a lot of people bitter.

 

In other news today in a luxury yachting magazine I heard this opinion: since richest people provide 95% of employment and more than 90% of taxes THEY SHOULD BE SPECIAL.

 

I don't know whether he pulled the numbers from his as or not, but if you take any other country and tell me this I agree wholeheartedly, you deserve it! But in the US, for a reason we don't really all think that way. Bad or good..it's what it is.

Precisely. I know of at least two billionaires that would never appear in any magazine.

I've dodged the list for years now!!!

But in the US, for a reason we don't really all think that way. Bad or good..it's what it is.

 

You should come to Sweden

 

I've dodged the list for years now!!!

 

Damn, I've been trying for 29 years now to get on the friggin list

You should come to Sweden

 

 

I hear you bro.. I remember the omelette. I could never hate on someone successful, that is weakness to me.

I could never hate on someone successful, that is weakness to me.

 

x1000

 

I can only admire succesful people

 

I hate and envy Brian Austin Green though, that motherfucker!

Yup, you're with it! I only know this from being reasonably close friend with some people of vast wealth. Granted this has absolutely nothing to do with my income, or net value. But purely from a business standpoint. From my first hand experiences their way of business is vastly outside the spectrum of normalcy, and also includes families with fortunes most of us couldn't fathom.

 

Needless to say the Clarks, Rockefellers, blah blah, when at one time your wealth was +25% of the GDP of a nation, that sort of $$$ just doesn't disappear in a generation, or five.

 

Rest assured that the people in the spotlight are mere pawns in the game of the big players. The families/politicians calling the shots have control over industries and people that common billionaries can't even fathom.

 

aka, even Bill Gates is someones bitch when push comes to shove.

 

What's a "common billionaire?" I wouldn't mind being a common billionaire

That's what I was trying to get at. There is no way wealth like that can be squandered, no way the previous generations would let their wealth get into a position where it could be squandered.

 

It depends. The Vanderbilt fortune for example, if I am remembering correctly, is mostly depleted now, even though at one time, it was HUGE.

From that documentary at least they said most of it is tied up in trusts and can't be accessed until certain age..which makes a lot of people bitter.

 

I was reading in Felix Dennis's book "How to Get Rich" where he says that is one of the problems for many Old Money rich, they are rich wealthy-wise, but relatively cash poor, because they can't get their hands on the loot. Also their obligation is to preserve the fortune for future generations of the family.

I was reading in Felix Dennis's book "How to Get Rich" where he says that is one of the problems for many Old Money rich, they are rich wealthy-wise, but relatively cash poor, because they can't get their hands on the loot. Also their obligation is to preserve the fortune for future generations of the family.

 

 

How did you like the part of that book where he basically said "Prepare to be an asshole if you want to be very rich"

How did you like the part of that book where he basically said "Prepare to be an asshole if you want to be very rich"

 

I don't. Hopefully he is wrong on that one.

buffett owns the company

 

If I remember his biography correctly, he was flying private before they bought NetJets

To each his own.

 

If they want to give all of their money to charity and live in the desert for the rest of their lives, it is up to them...

 

I wouldn't live as a peasant, but I also wouldn't be buying jets and throwing $400,000 parties every weekend.

To each his own.

 

If they want to give all of their money to charity and live in the desert for the rest of their lives, it is up to them...

 

I wouldn't live as a peasant, but I also wouldn't be buying jets and throwing $400,000 parties every weekend.

 

The first time you fly private it will ruin you forever. A lot of things super wealthy people buy I don't get, but you bet your ass I'd have a nice PJ at my disposal.

 

Seeing a black LWB Phantom roll out onto the tarmac @ Burbank and a couple guys casually strolling into a gulfstream just makes you wonder where you went wrong in life.

A lot of these people are paper rich. Many of them are not worth $50 , 100, mil etc in actual cash. They may have only a few hundred thousand in the bank. Zuckerberg is a billionaire on paper. When Company X buy Company Y for $100 mil its mostly in stock and not cash. If company X is not publicly traded then it is very hard to turn the stock into cash. If Twitter or Facebook etc buy out a company its using their non publicly traded stock. So most of this money is paper. I'm pretty sure if the money was 'real' these guys would be spending it or at least spending more than they currently are.

 

On the other hand if they do actually have the money and choose to live like this I guess its their business. If it makes them happy who cares. Once you have that kind of money you don't really care about status symbols like $400k cars and $20 mil mansions. It might have something to do with Maslows hierarchy of needs. The need for status symbols is in the 4th level - Esteem. These people may have moved on past that level to the highest level - self actualization. They have achieved a lot, people respect them and their accomplishments speaks for itself. So therefore they have nothing to gain through status symbols and in fact the possession of such symbols might become an impediment on their progression forward. Its easier to stay focused and driven while living in a 1 bedroom apartment than it is when you have a 20k sq ft mansion, a garage full of exotics, 100 ft yacht and a private jet.

 

 

incredibly well put

very good points in here about stock sales, etc

Two things:

 

1) Many of the wealthiest people I know are also some of the cheapest. Many would argue that they didn't become rich by blowing through money fast.

 

2) I've never met a billionaire (at least to my knowledge). To those of you that have, what was it like? Is there a difference between the man worth millions vs. the man worth billions (besides the 0's)? Serious question. It's a rare club of a little over a thousand people worldwide. Those who are self-made out of the bunch, would hold the most intriguing of stories and insight. Anyone care to share a story or two?

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