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Mostly real estate, but also oil wells, department stores, insurance, surgery, parts for rocket ships. Old money, publishing, household electronics, swords and razors, cotton plantations.
The few I know are from:
Real Estate (1)
Business owners (2)- HVAC and Roofing
Inherited family business that revenues 30 million a year (1).
Partner at large firm (1).
I know a few, although most are more like $100M than $10.. The $100m plus friends I have are all old money... Think magazine /newspaper founders, oil and gas company founders, media and entertainment moguls, etc. The $10m are just well off mostly normal folks.... bankers, private equity, general counsel, etc.
Old money in magazines/newspapers = dead broke today!
Keep in mind a VCR manufacturer was on the top of their game in 1985, today not even in business!
The few I know are from:
Real Estate (1)
Business owners (2)- HVAC and Roofing
Inherited family business that revenues 30 million a year (1).
Partner at large firm (1).
Keep in mind 30 million in revenue and 31 million in expenses = in the red 1 million dollars!
Revenue doesn't always = profit!
I know plenty as in order to afford the types of boats I work on, and use them, one must be well off. But I really don't pry into the personal finances of my bosses. As far as a couple that I worked for, they started out regular people, not remotely rich.
One worked his butt off in a construction trade and moved up to commercial contracting. He still gets his hands dirty right besides his employees and is one you don't say it can't be done. He'll prove you wrong every time!
One started a small company and it was sold and payed for partially in company stocks. He be came a billionaire!
Looking at the names on the back of boats in assorted places you can kind of figure out what they did. There are multi brand car dealers, high end commercial contractors, Dr's, Stock brokers and investing firms, Real estate, yacht dealers/brokerage firms, retired athletes, singers, sportfish yacht builders, assorted internet and tech CEO's and a few from the "lucky sperm club" and trust fund kids.
The one trait those I know all seem to share is that they are always busy. Even when out of the country on a fishing trip they'll be inside on the phone.
The richest person I know he has a few hundred million dollars, and he never worked a day in his life. He inherited his money. I think some of my neighbors have millions of dollars that they also inherited. I have an uncle who made his own money. One of those businesses started in the garage that grew much much larger.
I have a 30 year friend who made $25 million in a dot.com startup. I know the number because she was named in the SEC filing. Her startup was sold to another private company. She had a falling out and quit but kept all her stock. That private company was then purchased by a public company. She made $25 million on something that could easily have been worth zero.
My dot.com startup got bought by a private company that was bought by Lucent. I never sold the stock and learned a valuable lesson when the stock crashed when the dot.com bubble burst. I still own that almost worthless Alcatel-Lucent stock as an object lesson in maintaining a diversified portfolio.
The ones I know are: (In order of most to least wealth)
Retired CEO of publicly traded oil services company
Small Business owner who sold company at retirement
Small Business owner who sold company at retirement to large publicly traded company
Trust Fund baby
Modest inheritance he used to build a bar/restaurant empire back in my hometown.
Plastic Surgeon.
The one thing they all have in common (aside from the trust fund baby...) is they all worked their butts off and didn't come from much. And the two richest ones, live very modest lifestyle despite being worth in excess of 100mil these days.
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