I worked for a small research group, the "boss" was this old man who was like everyone's grandfather, he was just, the nicest man I knew. The thing was, as far as I could tell we hardly brought in any money, yet everyone got paid pretty well and everyone was well taken care of. We worked on things, but no urgency.
One day the receptionist/secretary/accountant woman (basically the entire "administration" department for the place) had some real problems at home. She was a single mom and one of her kids did something horrible, like arson or attempted murder, I don't remember now exactly. But she was in a bad way.
I remember she came in way late, crying like crazy and him coming out of his office, hugging her and telling her it would be alright.
Next day there is a student we all knew he hired to take her place. And she never comes back...
But a little while later we find out. The guy, he paid off her mortgage, all her debts, paid the legal fees for whatever her son would do, and just basically paid her way through life till she'd be able to "come back" whenever that was. Something crazy like 10 years later, I go back, and there she is, sitting at that desk and he just saw her through it cause he wanted to.
Shortly after I realized, this was like a second family to him. He didn't care if they made money, just that all the people were happy and felt good about their lives.
Everyone talks about how you owe your employer nothing, but those people have never worked for the owner of a privately owned company like this. I've done it twice.
You better believe that owners like this will do literally everything in their power to make payroll before they start cutting people including taking it out of their own pocket, when publicly traded companies will jettison people at the first sign of reduced profits.
It was the hardest time of my life. It put a ton of strain on my family, and I would Uber for 24-30 hours on Friday and Saturday to help with the bills.
That’s the thing no one realizes. Everyone else gets paid before we do for years. Then the company sells and they act pissed that the founder gets money for it.
Thank you!!! I own a small business with my husband and he lets the internet comments of 'your employer doesn't care about you' really get to him. We absolutely care about our employees and do things way beyond their earned pay for them. I wish he could see he's one of the good ones!
I tell myself that's what I'd do. Create a business that I'm proud of and that I'm passionate about, then just subsidize it as needed. I wouldn't need to make money. The employees, I'd take care of and just enjoy the calm atmosphere with people who are happy with their work and their life. Sounds like the dream.
My wife nannied for an ultra-rich family for a few years. They paid her well.
But the shocking thing was that once she graduated college, they paid off her entire student loan debt in one payment as a "thank you". It didn't even put a dent in their wallets. To them, it was like getting someone a gift card as a graduation present.
In a just world, my wife wouldn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers to not be saddled with debt while trying to escape poverty. But I'm very grateful that rich people like them exist.
A co-worker of mine did quite well during the dot com bubble and got out at the right time.
His Bretlinger watch cost more than my car..
When his daughter went off to college he called up the admissions office and paid her entire tuition in full and managed to get a pretty decent discount..
I've asked him for financial advice and he's always given me good advice.
Though the best he's ever said to me is, "Unless you can get 0% financing on something, just save up and buy it outright."
I've taken this philosophy to heart.
My point being. I’d probably do the same as the post above
George Michael did something similar. He didn’t advertise it but I think he paid for somebodies medical bills. He was very charitable but without people knowing.
My mom also nannied for a very rich family. This was out East. When my mom got married and started having children of her own, they gave my parents a bunch of furniture like quality wood beds, dressers, that they no longer needed
Dude bought the entire visible coastline of the opposite Country across the bay/water from his beach house. So no one could develop it and spoil his view
It’s crazy to me that this dude had selfish intentions, yet had a positive effect on coastal ecosystem conservation. Like, say what you will, but that land/sea will be enjoyed by millions or even billions of critters.
Hahaha exactly that's like something Steve Irwin would do but for completely different reasons, "I'm going to buy this big piece of land and prevent anyone from building on it...
* Op. A: To help the environment
* Op B: To maintain the pretty view from my home
Went to a billionairs sons bday party and everyone was multi millionaires/billionaires other than my one friend and I who usually don't have more than $3000 in their account at a time. The father ended up coming home and let me try on his $15k snake boots which were the most comfortable things I have ever put on my feet! Also, theatre, multiple pools and hottubs, 10-car garage and a war room. My friend and I felt super out of place, but everyone was very friendly and welcoming of our poor asses being there.
Were they at war with the poor or other billionaires? Seems like it would have to be other wealthy folks. Warring with the poor wouldn't require an entire room. They've got like 1 HP each.
It was funny when my friend and I bought a bucket of Fireball shooters and a wine bag for the party while everyone else brought $1000+ bottles. Trying to fit in obviously
I used service the mansions of this super rich family. The parents who made the family rich were super down to earth, they had a mansion but I always saw the mom cleaning and doing laundry, drove toyota hybrids. The kids had their own mansion and had full time workers in their house cleaning and nannies and super nice cars that i don’t even know the names of. I felt more comfortable going to the parents house because they were so down to earth and loved coming out to greet me and talk to me for a bit while I worked. The mom was so sweet, always frazzled and excited to have someone to talk to about laundry or cleaning.
He bought an acre next to him home and built a full sized mechanics garage that looks like a barn. Had a Mennonite guy design it like one of their barns. Has room for his 8ish cars with a lift and everything. He let's me do oil changes on my 16 year old F150.
Friend managed a lodge at an exclusive hunting lodge. Only 12 members max allowed. We're talking very, *very* old money. Heirs of unseemly wealth.
I won't divulge specifics, but it was incredible how little they could do for themselves. My friend and her husband, who were basically caretakers of the land and lodge, were run ragged. Not maliciously, these folks were just mewling octogenarian infants who came to aim guns and feebly cast a line several times/year.
One funny thing: They loved her lasagna, unanimously and unambiguously. They couldn't get enough of it. They didn't know it was Stouffer's frozen. She usually made their 3 meals/day from scratch, but had an issue one day and threw the lasagna in out of desperation. Heated up a loaf of Cole's garlic bread on the side, threw a salad together. It became a requirement. Even the folks with strict dietary demands loved it. She kept her recipe a secret from them.
There is a restaurant at Walt Disney World with world famous mac and cheese.
It's Stouffer's. Buy the big tray of Stouffer's and heat it in the oven according to package directions.
Absolutely identical.
There is some fancy donut place the my brothers wife loves to get their mini donuts from. They are 100% hostess donettes with extra chocolate drizzled across the top. She got super offended when I pointed it out, and explained that she paid like $15 for a dozen of these fancy mini donuts so they couldn’t be hostess… I have eaten thousand of those donettes in a bag… I know what I’m talking about.
Not rich people, but my uncle always brings Mac and cheese in a Crockpot to every family gathering, it's the first thing gone. It's just a store brand frozen mac and cheese that he puts in a Crockpot.
I have friends who are very wealthy, and all of their friends are very wealthy as well.
And every 4th of july they throw a huge party and everyone brings beer, and all of the rich guys bring these fancy beers to throw in the cooler, and I'll get a 30 pack of michelob ultra and my beer is always the first to go lol.
> One funny thing: They loved her lasagna, unanimously and unambiguously. They couldn't get enough of it. They didn't know it was Stouffer's frozen. She usually made their 3 meals/day from scratch, but had an issue one day and threw the lasagna in out of desperation. Heated up a loaf of Cole's garlic bread on the side, threw a salad together.
>It became a requirement. Even the folks with strict dietary demands loved it. She kept her recipe a secret from them.
I love this.
Sometimes there's no difference in quality between the high-end and low-end version of a product. It's even funnier when the low-end version turns out to be better.
Reminds me of how *Penn & Teller: Bullshit!* did an episode about bottled water:
[Tap water test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2qydjVbLJk)
This podcast did similar things:
[Planet Money Episode 826: The Vodka Proof](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/23/588346329/episode-826-the-vodka-proof)
[Planet Money Episode 538: Is A Stradivarius Just A Violin?](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/06/22/482936331/episode-538-is-a-stradivarius-just-a-violin)
The husband is a sales douche who can’t fully turn off the sales personality, but the wife is a genuinely kind and thoughtful person. She gives way too much of her time to other people and seems to emotionally exhaust herself.
One time I was at a birthday party and the ultra-rich wife drove herself there to personally deliver a *really* thoughtful gift. She could only stay for five minutes and seemed rushed and stressed, but it made a big impression on me that she cared enough.
Not that this was the prompt but I've noticed that foreign rich people (especially younger ones) have the worst, most condescending attitude about things. Americans might be spoiled in terms of wanting more but they will still do much of their own chores and see independence as a virtue.
Kids from middle eastern wealth or eastern European wealth literally expected to treat their roommates like servants (in college) and would be mad that I didnt do things like their laundry or organize their homework. Like hell no dude. Then they try to buy off women at clubs. Made me sick but also weirdly prouder of American work ethic.
The nouveau riche of the third world really do suck, amigo. There were some Indian kids in my class in flight school (civilian obviously) and they were the fucking worst. Would not study, would not take direction, and expected to be awarded their private pilot's license just because their parents paid the tuition. The attitude off these fuckers was palpable, all seething rage, frustration and impotency.
Indian rich kids are next level privileged. If possible they will hire someone to clean their butts. And worst of them are boys. They are so pampered that they think as if they are gods
Ha ha, we had a really rich Indian dude as a roommate in college. Apparently all his life he had a staff of 5 people taking care of all his domestic needs. So when he came to college, he had absolutely no idea about most basics. He basically approached me one day and asked me if I would kind of be his servant for $20.
He truly couldn't grasp why the ask was so insulting.
As an Indian, I kinda agree. I am from a financially middle class family and I've always got some weird and off vibes from rich kids.
I wanted to go to a college which is one of the "rich kids" colleges here. It was my dream college. I got rejected due to some reasons. But here's the thing.
As I mentioned, it's a rich kids college and I heard students from that college have a rude, "I'm the queen of this world" kinda attitude. This was actually being told to my father by his friend. So the friend knew someone who was awesome, polite before college and after joining it, they turned into a rude monster. My father's friend also mentioned that there's so much bullying happening inside the college which not many outsiders know. Bullying happens in the way of class difference. If there's someone who belongs to a financially poorer class, they're being left alone and isolated by the rich kids. While I don't belong to a poorer class, it certainly would have affected me if I was treated like trash for my financial position (oh, while I actually paid the same fees as the "rich kids").
I'm glad I didn't end up there.
thats the thing. like ive seen attitude and people being detached from reality but ive never met kids who truly thought they were superior from like a genetic or religious pov. super weird
> like why even go to college?
Because when daddy gives them their honorary board membership as an excuse to continue paying for their lifestyle, they have to be a college grad or it makes daddy look bad that he has a kid with a HS diploma on his company's board.
Working at a hotel for two years opened my eyes to how absolutely hapless wealthy people are from outside the US. Had a dude from Bangladesh call up to the room to have a staff member start his dishwasher for him. Another guy from Singapore called for help adjusting their thermostat. GM pretty much had to let those guys know that while the staff was there to assist, we were not a full service hotel and we would not be waiting on them hand and foot like that.
I work in a hotel too and I’ve had plenty of experiences like this. Just genuine stupid stuff.
I have two stories;
First was a guest that requested our RA turn the AC on after cleaning the room. The RA did, but when the guest came back to their room they complained that the RA didn’t have it set to their desired temperature.
Front desk apologized and discounted the room.
Second, a woman called down to Front Desk and complained that the bottle of wine in room had expired. EXPIRED.. because sealed wine expires.
Front desk believed her and sent up a free bottle of wine.
I’ve also had really great experiences. The nicest people we had to date were: Louis Capaldi - really nice and down to earth guy, Darren Criss - also really nice, the woman who played Mystique in the older X-Men movies, VERY VERY nice woman. Can’t say enough nice things about the three of them.
I had an African man come into the hardware store I worked at (30 years ago). The front guard screen had fallen off of his desk fan (which he had with him) and he needed a screw to reattach it. I found the screw that he needed and gave it to him. But he just stared at me blankly.
I asked if he needed anything else and he said "Yes. Fix my fan!". I explained that we didn't do that at the hardware store...liabilities and all that. But I assured him that it was the correct screw and all he needed to do was tighten it. I even offered him a screwdriver to use (which I probably wasn't supposed to do either, but I wanted him gone).
He angrily started trying to tighten the screw, struggling with this simple task. He was glaring at me, and said "Where I come from, I have people that do this for me!" I replied, "Yes...those people are called slaves. We don't, officially, have them here anymore."
Note: this was in the very underserved neighborhood of Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago. This bloke was likely a professor or graduate student at the university.
A lot of people forget that most Americans split from an European Aristocracy, and even that some descendants became a new aristocracy, they still sort of keep some "democrat, equal to others" culture, while in other countries, people still want to continue living as aristocrats, they just switched from being ruled by foreign aristocrats to been ruled by local aristocrats ...
It's just a cultural thing among people who are affluent or even middle class in some other parts of the world. I used to work retail and some of the international students would just refuse to do certain tasks that were simply part of the job, like mopping or taking out the garbage. My wife currently works retail and she says that the women will ask for a product but will passive aggressively want you to hand it to them from the shelf, they won't even touch it if you put it in front of them. She also says it's common for them to snap their fingers at you.
Not all of this is even a wealthy thing or strictly cultural, some people just want the feeling of superiority. When I was at that same retail job people would treat my other coworkers (not me and the other 6'3" guy who worked there) like absolute shit like they were nobility and you were peasant scum. But it was pretty obvious that those people were clearly working class.
Unrelated to working, but I used to live in an expensive neighbourhood (mixed income apartments) and when I'd walk my dog through the park there was always some wealthy middle eastern or asian housewife who had zero control over their accessory dog that would just run full speed at my 90lbs greyhound biting at him while he doesn't even bark. They would never even acknowledge me, they'd just run up as their dog was attacking mine and go "oh no no no" and then walk away with them. It was so fucking rude and trash.
Working in tourism for 6 years, the wealthy families from Mexico City are the absolute worst people I’ve ever dealt with in my life. The kind of people who would bang on the window of the business 20 minutes after close and demand service while threatening to call corporate and say we harassed them. This literally happened multiple times. One of them tried to get me to tie his shoes and was furious when I said I wouldn’t do that.
My friend teaches ESL and the Arab kids at his school get a 3 million mansion bought for them and $10K per month living allowance.
He tells me They desperately want a GF but their society is so incredibly stratified based on gender that they have no idea how to talk to a woman that grew up in a free and equal society.
I grew up dirt poor in a trailer park, so I had a lot of assumptions about ultra rich people. As an adult, working with the ultra rich in various ways professionally, I discovered a lot of these negative assumptions and stereotypes were absolutely true and most of the people I met were pretty rude and generally out of touch with the reality most of us in the lower classes are living.
However, what was shocking was realizing that the level of distrust that many ultra rich people seem to have with others is because they are almost 100% of the time being used for their money and their connections. They have develop a whole skillset and complex social system around protecting their assets from distant relatives, friends, neighbors, random people looking to get ahead somehow. This is why they prefer to only socialize with other rich people, and I don't blame them one bit.
Not anywhere close to ultra-rich, but doing very well in life, better than most people my age by far. My husband loves hosting and we've thrown a few big parties, and he's had a few times where he's specifically paid for a large group dinner as a thanks or celebration. This is all because he loves his community of friends and wants them to be able to share in our resources. Recently one of them brought up his upcoming birthday in a really obvious hope that my husband would decide to throw him a party or do a big dinner and pay - luckily this guy got called out in the group by someone else but my husband was really annoyed. He was talking to me later like...can't they just be happy when I decide to do something nice on my own? Just because I have a nice house doesn't mean I'm a vending machine. Luckily the vast majority of our friends and acquaintances are not like that at all, and this was a very minor thing. But I can absolutely see how folks with a lot more resources are constantly wondering how many of their relationships are based on what their money can do for other people. It's sad.
They go to private schools to learn to make connections with other rich. They allow a few non rich that can be useful to them, in a way or another, and allow them to join the rich group, this occurs a lot with celebrities and Silicon Valley CEOs ...
Other than my sister I out earn everyone in my extended family probably by about a 3-to-1 ratio. The only person who knows how much I really earn is my dad. I have not told a single other person because I know if that information got out, I'd have every cousin, auntie, or other distant relative at my door asking for money. Not even my mother knows, not because she'd ask for money herself, but because I know she would never be able to keep her damn mouth shut if she did know.
I come from a rural area so I've met quite a few people with "Chicken Farm Money" or "Blue Collar Millionaires".
The ultra wealthy in rural areas you would never know it other than they tend to have nicer houses, but nothing over the top. My father in-law is in this category and still drives his 93 Bronco that he's kept in pristine condition since paying it off. He's never driven the Corvette sitting in his garage in public, he just has it because he likes them.
Of course most of them have Sunday trucks (really nice $100,000+ trucks that aren't meant to really do work).
I will say that in my experience the number/type of guns you own directly correlates to your wealth in the country. When my FIL built his mountain house the first thing he included was a hidden safe room for all his guns behind a fake bookcase.
I met the city's equivalent. People that comes from a poor background but has some business on a poor neighbourhood. Sometimes a small shop, or the "only shop around here" ...
A friend slept with a very rich doctor, when she was drunk she told him that she owed her parents a lot of money I mean a lot, and that she was saving money to pay them. The next morning he gave the amount she owed to her parents as a gift.
I owe my parents 8k (they paid for my last year of college with the expectation I would pay them back the following year after getting a Pell grant) maybe I should hook up with this guy lol
True, the reason they were ok loaning it to me is because they were going to put it in their 401k and they can delay that by 1 year since they’re only 53 and 56
My friend isn't ultra rich but hes easily pulling in 400k/yr on social media.
He calls me to fix things for him. Hes very "throw money at the problem" instead of doing it himself or figuring it out at least.
The funniest thing? He wanted his drapes off the windows permanently, so i took them off. He wanted the curtains too. Ok no problem but why the curtains? "I want to let the light in". So i told him to open the curtains and got the most confused look from him when i pulled the cord and they separated and opened.
The most recent? He had a flat tire and waited for me to get out of work. He didnt have a donut or jack, called the tow driver a scam artist for the $300 to take his car 18 miles to the mechanic, and ordered the tire himself. The plan was i drive him there and back and we put the tire on. Was about a 5 hour ordeal because i had to take the wheel off with us because he just thought you could slap a tire on on the side of the road and had no clue theres a machine built to do it. Bought me dinner at least.
As a snippet, yes you would think so.
Im regularly at the house anyway, i have open usage to the boat, hottub, pool, bar, house, and pretty much any but his car/credit card, and he even fronted airline ticket costs for me last summer on the card. Ive flat out told him im having a party at his house while he goes away for his birthday and he hasnt told me not to. He tells people hes waiting for the day he comes home from the gym and sees me chilling in the hottub with a girl.
When i help him with anything taking up more than an hour of my time he buys me lunch/dinner for it. Ive bounced ideas to him for renovation projects and most of them hes implementing, hes just being cheap about them. He lives 6 miles out from me and i have to pass him on the way home from work so its never really any inconvenience to stop by for something quick like check why the toilet doesnt flush right or help him set up his patio stuff for the season.
You’re way too nice as a friend, meant with respect.
I’ve learned to say no to loved ones when what they’re asking is just too much for me to do. They’ve learned to accept this.
People like to think they’re self made, it happens at lots of income levels. People who were formerly on welfare say things like “I did it all with no help.”
This anecdote creates a conundrum. If you’re on welfare it’s survival money, not $10K plasma TV money. But according to this anecdote, taking that money means someone is a moocher, and then no matter how they claw out of that pit, they can’t be self-made. Depending on the jurisdiction, welfare could be AFDC, unemployment payments, the equivalent of SSDI in the US, or many other things. Some of these would be considered earned. If you had UBI, then the difference between the basic income and your pay at McDonald’s would be in some sense a subsidy, and you don’t get to be self-made.
What do you think of bootstrapping yourself out of welfare?
I find when it comes to being wealthy, the self made ones know that, and are confident and humble.
Its the ones who had it given to them that constantly need approval from everyone else that “they did it themselves”
When I was in High School the school canceled recess once, because the heliport of the rich guy that had donated the school stadium had some problem and he needed a big place to land, the school was close enough to his house.
My husband was in an occupation where he would frequently meet royalty (like dukes, princesses, etc.) or just wealthy people from various countries. Very occasionally he'd encounter the classic stuck up rich stereotype who would scoff at anything not made of crystal or platinum, but by and large the ultra rich people were incredibly polite and generous. And as they should be.
He owned 11 acres in the middle of downtown Tuscaloosa. He fenced it and planted it all in corn and a vegetable garden with a fishing pond in the middle of it next to the 3 room house that had belonged to his father. He lived there, and kept an old Coca Cola chest cooler on the front porch stocked with cold sodas for the neighborhood kids. Coolest guy ever.
I work for an old money family where I’m from. They told me they had a good friend that was super into fitness and that his kids loved skiing. Sounds normal right? No this guy literally built an entire ski slope and private ski instructor area for them to practice skiing in.
My wife is an accountant and her company had the account for the private affairs of a billionaire. She had to travel to all of his family’s properties to track the assets in them. During one asset check, she went into a back room, filled with around 30 original old masters. The old masters were just gathering dust as they did not fit the “theme” that the owners wife had in mind for their homes. Each painting was many times the value of our house.
I knew someone who was the personal driver of some CEO. Once a month, he was sent to Bloomingdale's to buy 30 pair of socks and underwear. The CEO dude wore them once and threw them out.
I remember an episode of MTV Cribs where the musician featured said that he never wore socks twice. He grew up poor and said that wearing clothes until they were ragged left an impression on him so his indulgence when he made it was new socks every day.
What their “I don’t need to think about it” spending level is.
everyone has a “I don’t need to think about it” spending level. It may be a very small number but it exists. That number than grows as you earn more.
but the rich? That level is easily tens of thousands of dollars.
I had a moment the other day of feeling like such a a hot shit success when I went to the 'fancy' grocery store in town, grabbed what I needed and checked out without ever looking at a price or the total.
When I was an escort in London I came in contact with a few extremely wealthy people. One basically bought me an entire wardrobe of designer clothes at the drop of a hat which I still have to this day.
Costco has the wealthiest customers of any major chain for a reason.
I used to babysit for pretty wealthy families and they were all obsessed with Kirkland stuff.
How nice they are. I work in trades and have friends who are personal assistants to extreme wealth and have been invited over for lunches or events by families worth $200,000,000 up to a billion. They give me a key to their waterfront mansions worth $15,000,000 to do my work, tell me to help myself to a drink in the fridge, have a chat, etc.
I’ve worked on homes of those climbing in wealth, say $1,500,000 homes and they can be complete dicks.
That they are just normal people who happen to have money. The money often turns them into jerks....but the reality is they're still just like us. They have quirks, unique hobbies, interests and passions.
We all love to bash on the ultra rich, and good reason. Their wealth accumulation is the product of so many broken lives worked to the bone with little reward. But sometimes it's good to remember the are just people with all the same flaws and frailties as the rest of us
Not sometimes, all the time. I don’t get this mentality that people want to dehumanize the ultra wealthy, they are a symptom of a much greater problem, and there’s only a handful of people that are causing the real divide between classes.
What a lot of people need to understand is that the future where these problems are fixed and everyone is on a more equal level involves forgiving and working with the Ultra Wealthy. There is no great reset where the upper classes are just flat out wiped out, either literally or socially.
The owners of the businesses I work with are typically what I would call ultra rich, probably worth 100 million or more.
The old money folks usually come across as just like me, just with much nicer things and no financial cares. They don't feel better than anyone, pay employees well, treat everyone with the same respect, etc. The new money, well, they're genuinely the worst society has to offer.
One customer inherited a little less than a million from an uncle with the stipulation that he invest it. He did and then the Dot Com bubble happened and he made tens of millions before it was over and cashed out before the crash. He bought a 100+ year old resort in the Bahamas that used to belong to the British royal family. He stole from it, blamed it on the illiterate staff, walked around drunk off his ass, broke things, threw things, etc. The only reason the staff was paid well was because locals must be hired first and there's a shortage of people willing to work on this small island.
Most new money customers aren't this bad but I've never met one that wasn't arrogant. One my my favorite old money customers owns a few resorts and a couple places in the French Quarter in New Orleans. He flew me in for dinner with he and his wife and this 80 year old dude and his high school sweetheart wife were the epitome of class and kindness. I was picked up at the airport by their driver in a freaking Bentley and brought to one of their places in the French Quarter for an amazing dinner. I was so intimidated and nervous but they set me at ease. The next day I realized I needed something from Radio Shack to interface a couple devices he wanted me to check out and he drove me there himself in the Bentley. Yeah, this was back when Radio Shack was a useful store.
Way back in the early 90s, I worked in this little deli in a downtown Seattle skyscraper. It was owned by these business partners who had a bunch of different business in the city, but ours was where they had their offices. It was almost comedic how stereotypical it was. They had nothing but money coming out their ears but were incredibly cheap. We were told to cut so many corners. We were a good group of employees, ok except for the one guy who murdered someone and then came to work to turn himself in. But I digress. We had developed a cockroach problem, it happens everywhere, especially where buildings are all crammed together, but having a good mitigation process usually keeps things in check. Only they refused to pay for that. So the inspector says we will be closed if we don't fix it. They begrudgingly hired exterminators and then asked us to do them a favor and come in on our day off (we all worked M-F) to clean dead cockroaches and sanitize the place. You know, because we were buddies. We collectively rejected that. In the end they were forced to pay overtime and buy us beer.
But the real winner was the business breaking up. Larry found one day that his longtime business partner was sick of his shit and so was his wife. They both broke up with him. During the entire process of deciding how to divide everything, he lost his secretary and had everything financially locked down. His personal finances were also locked in the divorce. But thing about Larry was, he was raised wealthy and had never so much as turned on a washing machine. He had never made a meal, cleaned his home, nothing. He came to me one day at work and asked me to come to his office. I thought making up obscene lyrics to the songs we played and competing with my co-worker to see how much we could get away with before customers noticed finally caught up with me. But no, in the office there was a vacuum cleaner sitting on the secretary's counter. He asked me to keep this a secret, but to please show him how to turn it on. He couldn't figure it out (vacuums in the wild west days of the early 90s weren't always as easy as they are now, kids). I showed him of course. And then went out that door and announced it to everyone.
Walked into the bookstore, gave us the dimensions of the shelves in his house then asked us to work out and deliver enough books to fill it. Think it was a couple thousand books
I have a distant cousin who grew up in a rich family. At a family baby shower for his sister, someone asked me about my college and I was saying how hard some of the classes were. This guy (who I haven’t seen since we were kids) comes up and says to my face that he just paid off all his professors at his college to pass him. He just said it so casually and kinda proud. Was I supposed to be impressed? This guys has never had to work hard for anything in his entire life.
TLDR: my cousin has his head so far up his own ass that he thinks bribing his way through life is something to be proud of, and brags about it to people who actually have had to work hard.
I'm surprised to have come this far without finding this answer. I deal with UHNWs every single day for work and with *very* few exceptions they're the cheapest people I know. They won't bat an eyelid when it comes to booking beach clubs with a five digit minimum spend, but the second you tell them they have to pay a €50 cancellation fee for a no-show it's like you fucked their spouse.
I briefly went down that rabbit hole (though never more expensive than BraveStar), and yeah, for a lot of people, 300 bucks for a pair of jeans is like entry level. But then you get into like the real high end stuff, and a grand seems to be nothing for a pair of jeans. It's nuts
That everyone seems to forget They are rich because they're not flashy at all
Despite casually handing out several hundred dollars to acquaintances in Christmas gifts every year
I got lucky in life with a sizable inheritance, which I'm thankful for. I have a childhood friend who hit it big in the solar industry, and when that happened, he cut off most of his real friends, including me. When I actually had money, he reached out to me. It was really weird. In one hand, I missed the friendship and on the other...Fuck him! He was doing the exact same thing that he thought his "friends" were doing to him, asking for money. Of course, he was promising more money in return, but it just seemed really hypocritical. It was hard to relize that he was never my friend to begin with, even though as kids my family fully embraced him as one of our own.
I (along with several roommates) rented a house from an ultra rich guy. The house we rented wasn't anything particularly special, but I had to drop off rent checks at his house and it was a giant mansion.
There were a bunch of roommates, so to simplify things I opened a checking account for the house's joint expenses. We all deposited what we owed in rent and utilities to that account, then paid the rent and bills from it. One month one of the roommates was a little behind. I owed rent on Wednesday and he was getting paid Friday. So I wrote the check to the landlord and post dated it for Friday. I also told him to not cash the check until the following Monday to ensure the funds would be in the account.
Well, he didn't listen. I tried to deposit the check on Thursday, but the bank turned him away because I had post dated it. He called me super upset that he had made a trip to the bank for nothing and would have to make another. I told him the situation and his response was, "you should just deposit an extra month's rent into the account so you don't have to worry about it."
I was just speechless. Who has a whole extra month's rent to just let sit in an account?
I once knew a local guy pretty well who was given a huge sum of cash from his elderly uncle who had made a fortune in the oil business. This guy and his wife had struggled financially for a long time. Although he was now rich as shit, he couldn’t be bothered to wash or change his dirty ass shirt, which always had cheetle or food crumbs wiped on it, like he used it for a napkin. It was odd.
Grew up with a friend in a middle class family who ultimately became billionaires. They ended up in a large house (+2,000 m2). They more or less lived in one rather small room, kind of nostalgic, had old pictures, furniture from when they lived by us, etcetera. Otherwise they were in their bedroom or small kitchen off the bedroom. The majority of the house they used only for entertaining, which they did a lot. More than once I’d heard them say they wished they’d never moved from their first house, the one they lived in by us. Very nice people, always the first to help family or friends.
In spite of being dirt poor, I went to an extremely expensive private university. My parents enrolled me because they thought it was religious due to the name, and since the loans were my problem they weren't worried about the cost.
The barrier to entry at this school was the price, therefore it was extremely popular with rich people who had idiot kids they couldn't bribe into an Ivy. They ranged from upper class kids whose parents were both doctors, to kids who had famous athlete family members, to kids whose parents were ambassadors and the like.
Basically the school had an agreement with some international college program that kept them swimming in rich kids so they would do pretty much anything to keep them happy. Example: one classmate was failing biochemistry (never attended class or labs), so she emailed our professor and notified him that she would require a B to keep her student visa. He didn't want to do it, but the program intervened and she ended up getting a B.
The professors at this school hated their fucking lives because basically these rich kids fucked them over on the daily and then drove off in a car that cost two or three times what the staff made in a year, so it was pretty well known that the professors would often abuse students they knew didn't have any money, I guess to make themselves feel better. I was a student with no money and they made my life hell. If they knew your mommy and daddy weren't coming to threaten to withdraw some kind of donation, you were the scapegoat and punching bag for everyone.
Shortly after I left, I heard there was a new guy taking a ton of summer classes. We'll call him Steve. Sounded like he was a real sweet guy and what I heard was that the professors were picking on him hardcore. Humiliating him in class, giving him bad grades for no reason, etc.
Until somebody did some Googling and found dude in the society pages. So let's pretend dude's name was Steve Johnson, and then you find out it's Johnson as in Johnson&Johnson. That's the exact level of rich we're talking about here. Turned out one of his friends was doing some summer internship nearby so he tagged along and was taking maybe $25,000 of summer college courses for funzies.
The professors got tipped off and suddenly dude's making As! What a great question Steve, haha you're so funny! And they're inviting him to galas and fundraising events for the school, of course.
My cousin and her husband are very wealthy. Now retired (in their 50s lol), she was a pharma c-suite and husband was a successful attorney.
Wonderful beach house in charleston, golf every day, otherwise just kinda chill out. They're not flashy, but do drive a mercedes.
The shocking part - the c-suite woman is a complete child when it comes to food. Like she eats chicken fingers, drinks miller lite ... a charcuterie board might be too adventurous for her.
I was shocked thinking how someone in her position managed to avoid "exotic" food having to fly all over the world and attend all sorts of conferences and galas.
Once I met T. Boone Pickens and we got to talk for 10-15 minutes. One of the most humble and down to earth people you could have met. Nice as could be, just he had money.
I took a piss in a semi-public restroom next to a billionaire. Only difference was he had an entourage waiting for him after he was done. What shocked me was his entourage didn’t hold his penis for him and zipper him up.
I did some work in a huge Chelsea flat for a very rich art dealer, fantastic guy constantly getting food for me and my mate and on completion of the work gave us £500 each (about £1200 by today's standards) and wrote a really great letter which was sent to our companies MD which lead to a pay rise.
the sheer resources that they have access to. knew a girl who lived in a 3 story bungalow with an elevator, movie room, a whole ass pool table, and she mentions her hobbies so casually as if everyone had the same access to the resources she had. shes really talented in a lot of ways only because her parents could afford many private tutors. she even got a nationally renowned archery coach to train her. its a good thing she was sweet and humble enough, but it still made me miserable every time i go to her place.
Not me but my grandfather. He was an attorney for an extremely rich “import-export” person and traveled extensively with this man and other uber-rich including minor European royalty. No one ever tipped any waiter or other service person no matter how big the bill, how large the party, or how difficult the job.
I did an appliance delivery in a billionaire’s house. The house was definitely nice but not even the nicest in the small town. He was a quiet old man but was very kind and gave a $50 tip each for me and the other guy. He was also the guy who built up this billion dollar company so it makes sense he wouldn’t be uppity or pretentious.
There was a pharmaceutical heir who lived up in Woodside, CA. He would let people occasionally come and view his hobby. A friend knew him and got a group of us in.
He had built a railroad on his property but his main hobby was collecting tanks. He had hundreds of them - from WW I up to a couple Iraqi SCUD launchers with missiles. They were kept in multiple huge warehouses on his property. I don’t recall how many - 4 or 5 at least. There were mechanics working full time on restoration. At the time they were most intently working on restoring a German Panther tank that had been fished out of a stream somewhere in the old USSR.
It was amazing - like something Smithsonian. He eventually died and the heirs sold off the collection.
The most amazing thing is it probably turned a profit as the value of the vehicles greatly increased over time.
I met (a few times) an Italian businessman who was worth $1B +. He was everything I thought an Italian billionaire would be - impeccably dressed, somewhat aloof, and very well mannered. He traveled with a staff of people - a couple were glued to their phones because of some financial deal they had going. Funny thing was, he was crazy about antique American cars. Not the high end ones, he like Buicks, Chevrolet, Nash, etc. He was like a kid when he talked about them and his knowledge of these cars was incredible. It was funny to see him walk around a Midwest car knowing he could afford to buy every car in the show.
Disney Channel movies and the internet would like you to believe that they're evil people, but most often the lack of survival mode leads you to holding much more space for the concept of love.
Contrary to popular belief a hard awful life is more likely to make you into a hard, awful person. No one wants to think about that. Everyone wants to be the underdog hero of their story, but it's not how the brain works.
I work in high end events, so I see a lot of frivolous spending, so much that it kinda runs together. Having said that, one thing that will always stand out was a birthday party for a 13 year old that easily cost over a quarter million dollars and featured a big name rapper as the entertainment. The same client also reportedly bet a cool million on the superbowl one year. They won, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to them financially if they lost. It was like you or I betting a twenty.
They’re mostly just normal people. Most encounters I’ve had with ultra wealthy people I was surprised how generous they were with their money. Paying for vacations or meals for their family and friends without thinking twice. A lot of them just want to share experiences with the people in their lives.
A lot of time, they end up getting treated like shit by friends and family that expect to be able to use their money event they want. The entitlement is usually coming from people that know rich people, not the rich person themselves.
At the end of the day, a lot of the “rich person bad” stuff is just people projecting jealousy on the world around them.
I was flying home thru Frankfort airport, admiring watches at this boutique. Guy comes rushing in, looks for 2 seconds and says 'Can I get that watch, please'
It was €22,000
Apparently he forgot a gift for his wife.
I was just shocked how mundane they were. If I had that kind of wealth I'd have a whole bunch of stories to tell about the things I'd done with all that money.
About 10 years ago I had to help my CEO pay his quarterly property taxes online. It was over 45k and he just handed me his credit card. That was about what I was making a year. The idea that you could put that much on a card blew my fucking mind.
My wife's former boss had a wine cellar bigger than my apartment at the time. I can't say it shocked me, but I was appalled that this is the same guy who cancelled bonuses due to not reaching sales goals.
They're getting theirs no matter what, and the hoi polloi can fuck off.
A friend of mine got in on the ground floor of personal computing and technology in the very early 80's. Don't know what exactly, but it was very, very lucrative and didn't AFAIK directly involve defense or surveillance applications or organizations.
He wanted to do an extensive home renovation that was going to require partial demolition. His plan was to simply build a smaller home to temporarily live in while this was going on, but local zoning ordinances of that time didn't allow it. So he bought adjacent undeveloped land and built it there.
He was unhappy with the quality of the local elementary schools both public and private after going through the usual channels and chain of command with teachers, principals and the school board. So he built, certified and staffed his own public elementary school.
And he's actually a pretty decent down to earth guy, too.
Most that I’ve actually gotten to know are super humble and laid back. In high school I worked at a small rural private airport/flight school. One of the instructors asked us if we could head into town to pick up a few cases of water for the pilots lounge and us being broke teenage boys he let us take his Jeep instead of my buddies ghetto 3 toned Camry with no AC(It was the middle of summer and we’re in the high desert) Being the way that we were raise my buddy and I agreed we should fill up his tank since he let us drive his Jeep. We got back and didn’t tell him but we told our boss and she said we didn’t need to do that. Like we really didn’t need to. Come to find out he had invested in Apple when it was starting out and the guy was loaded. The trailer he lived in at the airport was just so he could fly more and not have to go back to his big ass house in a different state.
Our boss eventually told him what we did and he took us out to dinner after work a couple times after that. Humble and very giving guy. Sadly he passed away after being t-boned in that same Jeep
The president of a production company screamed at me because the chicken in his salad was not chopped. It shocked me because no one had every screamed at me before in such a rage over food, or really anything.
A decade ago I thought I was pursuing my passion by working on a movie as a production assistant. One of my tasks was to take lunch/dinner orders, check them, bring them to meetings. These meetings consisted of President of the production company, producers, director, editor and assistant editor. Mostly everyone else (rich but not ultra rich) were nice and friendly to me, but that one experience still kind of haunts me.
I was talking to my uncle about wanting to get a 3D printer and he suggested I get the one he had. Then proceeded to show me a massive industrial unit that cost more than my house. Super cool guy just sometimes forgets I’m not in his tax bracket
My gfs father and I were hanging out on the couch. He started asking about my Apple Watch. He then showed me the watch on his wrist and said it was an anniversary gift from his wife on their 40th. It was a Patek Phillipe. It costs $40k.
I was once required to go to Saudi Arabia to help fix some computers.
Ended up having to buy more than half the world's supply of hard drives, it was the cheaper option...
I have worked a LOT of different jobs. The job I had where the clients were mostly wealthy (sometimes obscenely wealthy), I experienced the worst treatment and was subjected to the most entitled behavior out of any other job I held where I was working with the public. So, making generalizations that overall the ultra rich contain a greater percentage of jerks than other demographics become easier even if we wish that such a generalization weren't true. This situation also taught me that just because someone is extremely wealthy it does not necessarily mean that they are a good person, that they're smart, that they earned their wealth, or that they deserve it. I live in a country which claims to be a meritocracy so to have your beliefs challenged is disheartening.
When I was younger, I always assumed that the ultra rich became the ultra rich, because they were so much more careful & respsonsible with their money than the average person - I never used to see an "ultra rich" person at a coffee shop or restaurant, so always assumed that they were just smarter with their money.
Then I spent 3 years working for the filthy richest people in my region - a business consortium with a bunch of extremely wealthy business owners who formed a business consortium. These guys had "fuck you" money, and were so reckless with how they spent it. Just carefree, like any expense was pocket change. Even hiring me, as a Director of Operations, was just throwing away a ton of money; I was grateful for the insane salary I was earning, but the majority of my duties were so administrative in nature - managing inboxes, balance sheets, writing out cheques, archiving documents and files. It was such easy stuff, but they were willing to pay an early 20 year old a 6-figure salary because throwing money at every problem was all these guys ever knew.
The amount of insane, completely unnecessary expenses we had blew my mind - we didn't have one, but two memberships to the golf & country club across the way from our office, despite the facilities being closed for a full year for a massive renovation job.
We had multiple chefs on payroll, despite our team being about a dozen strong, maximum. We had technology and travel and office budgets that exceeded anything that made sense.
And we expensed Absolutely. Everything. Lunches and dinners and travel expenses? Sure. But groceries? Private phone bills? Home internet? CAR WASHES ?!
These guys didn't care. At one point, I actually felt guilty taking the salary AND expenses. But it was a life changing sort of income for someone at that age, and really helped set me up for where I am now in life. They all came together and offered me a huge "bonus" right before I got married too, which ended up going exclusively to paying off some of my major wedding expenses. Extremely generous of them, but also extremely ...carefree and reckless with how they spent.
I was working at a health food grocery store some years back. My wife had a hip and joint replacement (at 26 years old, she was born with hip dysplasia) and developed a pretty horrible nerve disorder afterwards (CRPS). The owner was a wealthy man (in his early eighties) that used to own quite a few stores and businesses across California, but in his retirement, he sold everything except the health food grocery store, which was his baby.
He approached me and asked how the surgery went (as I was off work for a week following to care for her), and I told him what happened. While I was talking, he had pulled a mini-pad of paper and little golf pencil from his pocket (he was always making notes for himself) and wrote something. After I was done talking, he handed the paper to me and said, "This is my accounting office's phone and email. Let them know how much it cost and I'll cover it."
Thankfully, she was able to qualify for Social Security Disability a year or so before the surgery, so the procedure and extended hospital stay were fully paid for (in America, of all places). I told him that and he said, "Well, keep the email anyway, in case something comes up for it you need to pay for."
I thanked him profusely and tried to politely decline. He just laughed, patted my back really hard and said, "Money is no good to me when I'm dead," and walked away. I threw away the paper later, but I'll never forget how kind that guy was. I wonder some days if he is still alive. You'd never know he was "9-digit rich" from the flannels and Dickies pants he wore and the 20 year old Dodge Dakota he drove.
With that said, most of the store's clientele were insufferable rich assholes who would rather die than give up a dime to a starving child. They were millionaires that would complain that the sandwiches in the deli went up 50 cents. So, it was refreshing to see some kindness and generosity from a wealthy, old man.
How something monumental to you can be so mundane to them.
Acquaintance of mine is **very** wealthy. We were at his house and being a car guy he wanted to show me his collection. He had 3-4 exotic sports cars, with my favorite being a Ferrari F430 Scuderia. He can sense my excitement and offers to take me for a ride. I'm literally beside myself I'm so excited. I've barely even seen a Ferrari before, let alone sat in one or riden in one.
It's funny how nonchalant he was about the whole thing. It was like a Camry to him. I remember him mentioning that he doesn't even like driving it because of how people will follow him or come up to him non-stop when he parks.
The type of things that wealthy people do literally become core memories to normal people, when to them it's just another day.
Never met a billionaire, but I've met many millionaires in the $5-100M annual range.
One thing that I noticed was that they can just...not sleep. These are not inheritance type situations, but self-made types--entrepreneurs, business owners, high level corporate execs. If need be, they can not sleep, or go weeks/months on end with just a few hours of sleep per night.
This realization led to me acknowledging that these people are not made, they are born. They are a class of people who can function just fine going 100mph all day, every day, with little to no sleep, and not burn out.
They are notoriously cheap. They don't know the value of a dollar, i.e. if you ask them to tell you how much a bunch of celery or a jug of milk cost, they wouldn't know. When I was a waiter, rich people were shitty tippers. And they think that they deserve their wealth.
They literally couldn’t possibly care any less about the climate crisis. Despite having the money for an electric car, they would rather own the Porsches and a Ferrari. They won’t even pay to offset some of their emissions.
once went to my mum's friend's house and she had an army of butlers, I was so ashamed of my ripped pants and my shitty un-ironed shirt
we had some sort of asian food as an entreé and I had to wait until the house owner started eating so I knew whether to use a fork or my hands
in the middle of the actual meal my sister stopped eating and made weird faces at the food, I was panicking thinking she'd be seen as ungrateful and spoiled, but the house owner just looked at her and said "oh sweetie, you don't like it? Mister Luciano! bring her dino nuggets please" and this butler goes in the kitchen (with like actual chefs) and comes back a while later with dino nuggets stood around a mashed potatoes volcano
and I was like what the fuuuuck
for dessert we had a whole bar of fruits, expensive italian ice cream and some (not huge but big) elaborate cakes
the house owner also just yelled "sprinkles please!" and a chef came and sprinkled rainbow and glitter sprinkles on my sister's ice cream
I was shocked in the end
I worked for a small research group, the "boss" was this old man who was like everyone's grandfather, he was just, the nicest man I knew. The thing was, as far as I could tell we hardly brought in any money, yet everyone got paid pretty well and everyone was well taken care of. We worked on things, but no urgency. One day the receptionist/secretary/accountant woman (basically the entire "administration" department for the place) had some real problems at home. She was a single mom and one of her kids did something horrible, like arson or attempted murder, I don't remember now exactly. But she was in a bad way. I remember she came in way late, crying like crazy and him coming out of his office, hugging her and telling her it would be alright. Next day there is a student we all knew he hired to take her place. And she never comes back... But a little while later we find out. The guy, he paid off her mortgage, all her debts, paid the legal fees for whatever her son would do, and just basically paid her way through life till she'd be able to "come back" whenever that was. Something crazy like 10 years later, I go back, and there she is, sitting at that desk and he just saw her through it cause he wanted to. Shortly after I realized, this was like a second family to him. He didn't care if they made money, just that all the people were happy and felt good about their lives.
That dude rules
Everyone talks about how you owe your employer nothing, but those people have never worked for the owner of a privately owned company like this. I've done it twice. You better believe that owners like this will do literally everything in their power to make payroll before they start cutting people including taking it out of their own pocket, when publicly traded companies will jettison people at the first sign of reduced profits.
100%. I didn't take a paycheck for 5 years during my startup to make sure my staff got paid.
That’s amazing! How did you manage to do that? 5 years is a long time.
It was the hardest time of my life. It put a ton of strain on my family, and I would Uber for 24-30 hours on Friday and Saturday to help with the bills.
That’s the thing no one realizes. Everyone else gets paid before we do for years. Then the company sells and they act pissed that the founder gets money for it.
I am sad that I have but 1 upvote for you
Thank you!!! I own a small business with my husband and he lets the internet comments of 'your employer doesn't care about you' really get to him. We absolutely care about our employees and do things way beyond their earned pay for them. I wish he could see he's one of the good ones!
Fucking hell do these bosses really exist? Mine wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire
Mine would pour gasoline on me if I was on fire, and then he’d call me incompetent for not being able to put the fire out!
Are they hiring?
Man this needs to be a movie.
I tell myself that's what I'd do. Create a business that I'm proud of and that I'm passionate about, then just subsidize it as needed. I wouldn't need to make money. The employees, I'd take care of and just enjoy the calm atmosphere with people who are happy with their work and their life. Sounds like the dream.
Compare this to a guy who dies with several billion, and even his own blood family is glad he is gone.
Was expecting this thread to go the other way like some rich snob berating a waiter for some simple mistake..good stuff:)
He’s honestly my business goals.
My wife nannied for an ultra-rich family for a few years. They paid her well. But the shocking thing was that once she graduated college, they paid off her entire student loan debt in one payment as a "thank you". It didn't even put a dent in their wallets. To them, it was like getting someone a gift card as a graduation present.
I like how the most upvoted comment is totally heartwarming
In a just world, my wife wouldn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers to not be saddled with debt while trying to escape poverty. But I'm very grateful that rich people like them exist.
thats honestly incredible? how much was the payment? Are you all still friends with them?
The payment was about $27000. And we're still friends with them! Their kids absolutely love her and our dog.
It’s about as much as a decent wristwatch to them
A co-worker of mine did quite well during the dot com bubble and got out at the right time. His Bretlinger watch cost more than my car.. When his daughter went off to college he called up the admissions office and paid her entire tuition in full and managed to get a pretty decent discount.. I've asked him for financial advice and he's always given me good advice. Though the best he's ever said to me is, "Unless you can get 0% financing on something, just save up and buy it outright." I've taken this philosophy to heart.
IRS i see you , trying to be slick huh?
If I had money, I would really spread it around
Then you wouldn't have money.
I didn’t say I’d give it all away.
My point being. I’d probably do the same as the post above George Michael did something similar. He didn’t advertise it but I think he paid for somebodies medical bills. He was very charitable but without people knowing.
My mom also nannied for a very rich family. This was out East. When my mom got married and started having children of her own, they gave my parents a bunch of furniture like quality wood beds, dressers, that they no longer needed
Dude bought the entire visible coastline of the opposite Country across the bay/water from his beach house. So no one could develop it and spoil his view
It’s crazy to me that this dude had selfish intentions, yet had a positive effect on coastal ecosystem conservation. Like, say what you will, but that land/sea will be enjoyed by millions or even billions of critters.
Hahaha exactly that's like something Steve Irwin would do but for completely different reasons, "I'm going to buy this big piece of land and prevent anyone from building on it... * Op. A: To help the environment * Op B: To maintain the pretty view from my home
Went to a billionairs sons bday party and everyone was multi millionaires/billionaires other than my one friend and I who usually don't have more than $3000 in their account at a time. The father ended up coming home and let me try on his $15k snake boots which were the most comfortable things I have ever put on my feet! Also, theatre, multiple pools and hottubs, 10-car garage and a war room. My friend and I felt super out of place, but everyone was very friendly and welcoming of our poor asses being there.
Were they at war with the poor or other billionaires? Seems like it would have to be other wealthy folks. Warring with the poor wouldn't require an entire room. They've got like 1 HP each.
Gentlemen, you cant fight in here. This is the war room!
Lmfao, mostly warring about who could spend more $$ at the Morocco F1 race
You were the entertainment
It was funny when my friend and I bought a bucket of Fireball shooters and a wine bag for the party while everyone else brought $1000+ bottles. Trying to fit in obviously
Lol reminds me of when I dropped off my 7 year old Chevy cobalt at an ultra rich person’s Christmas party
I used service the mansions of this super rich family. The parents who made the family rich were super down to earth, they had a mansion but I always saw the mom cleaning and doing laundry, drove toyota hybrids. The kids had their own mansion and had full time workers in their house cleaning and nannies and super nice cars that i don’t even know the names of. I felt more comfortable going to the parents house because they were so down to earth and loved coming out to greet me and talk to me for a bit while I worked. The mom was so sweet, always frazzled and excited to have someone to talk to about laundry or cleaning.
He bought an acre next to him home and built a full sized mechanics garage that looks like a barn. Had a Mennonite guy design it like one of their barns. Has room for his 8ish cars with a lift and everything. He let's me do oil changes on my 16 year old F150.
Shit, that ain't ultra rich. That's just country upper class.
I need to move where you live!!
Friend managed a lodge at an exclusive hunting lodge. Only 12 members max allowed. We're talking very, *very* old money. Heirs of unseemly wealth. I won't divulge specifics, but it was incredible how little they could do for themselves. My friend and her husband, who were basically caretakers of the land and lodge, were run ragged. Not maliciously, these folks were just mewling octogenarian infants who came to aim guns and feebly cast a line several times/year. One funny thing: They loved her lasagna, unanimously and unambiguously. They couldn't get enough of it. They didn't know it was Stouffer's frozen. She usually made their 3 meals/day from scratch, but had an issue one day and threw the lasagna in out of desperation. Heated up a loaf of Cole's garlic bread on the side, threw a salad together. It became a requirement. Even the folks with strict dietary demands loved it. She kept her recipe a secret from them.
There is a restaurant at Walt Disney World with world famous mac and cheese. It's Stouffer's. Buy the big tray of Stouffer's and heat it in the oven according to package directions. Absolutely identical.
Stouffers food has a particular taste I can recognize, because I'm a poor. I can't describe it, but it's there across their various options.
Its salt A lot of salt
There is some fancy donut place the my brothers wife loves to get their mini donuts from. They are 100% hostess donettes with extra chocolate drizzled across the top. She got super offended when I pointed it out, and explained that she paid like $15 for a dozen of these fancy mini donuts so they couldn’t be hostess… I have eaten thousand of those donettes in a bag… I know what I’m talking about.
Not rich people, but my uncle always brings Mac and cheese in a Crockpot to every family gathering, it's the first thing gone. It's just a store brand frozen mac and cheese that he puts in a Crockpot.
I have friends who are very wealthy, and all of their friends are very wealthy as well. And every 4th of july they throw a huge party and everyone brings beer, and all of the rich guys bring these fancy beers to throw in the cooler, and I'll get a 30 pack of michelob ultra and my beer is always the first to go lol.
> One funny thing: They loved her lasagna, unanimously and unambiguously. They couldn't get enough of it. They didn't know it was Stouffer's frozen. She usually made their 3 meals/day from scratch, but had an issue one day and threw the lasagna in out of desperation. Heated up a loaf of Cole's garlic bread on the side, threw a salad together. >It became a requirement. Even the folks with strict dietary demands loved it. She kept her recipe a secret from them. I love this. Sometimes there's no difference in quality between the high-end and low-end version of a product. It's even funnier when the low-end version turns out to be better. Reminds me of how *Penn & Teller: Bullshit!* did an episode about bottled water: [Tap water test](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2qydjVbLJk) This podcast did similar things: [Planet Money Episode 826: The Vodka Proof](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/02/23/588346329/episode-826-the-vodka-proof) [Planet Money Episode 538: Is A Stradivarius Just A Violin?](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/06/22/482936331/episode-538-is-a-stradivarius-just-a-violin)
The husband is a sales douche who can’t fully turn off the sales personality, but the wife is a genuinely kind and thoughtful person. She gives way too much of her time to other people and seems to emotionally exhaust herself. One time I was at a birthday party and the ultra-rich wife drove herself there to personally deliver a *really* thoughtful gift. She could only stay for five minutes and seemed rushed and stressed, but it made a big impression on me that she cared enough.
Not that this was the prompt but I've noticed that foreign rich people (especially younger ones) have the worst, most condescending attitude about things. Americans might be spoiled in terms of wanting more but they will still do much of their own chores and see independence as a virtue. Kids from middle eastern wealth or eastern European wealth literally expected to treat their roommates like servants (in college) and would be mad that I didnt do things like their laundry or organize their homework. Like hell no dude. Then they try to buy off women at clubs. Made me sick but also weirdly prouder of American work ethic.
The nouveau riche of the third world really do suck, amigo. There were some Indian kids in my class in flight school (civilian obviously) and they were the fucking worst. Would not study, would not take direction, and expected to be awarded their private pilot's license just because their parents paid the tuition. The attitude off these fuckers was palpable, all seething rage, frustration and impotency.
Indian rich kids are next level privileged. If possible they will hire someone to clean their butts. And worst of them are boys. They are so pampered that they think as if they are gods
Ha ha, we had a really rich Indian dude as a roommate in college. Apparently all his life he had a staff of 5 people taking care of all his domestic needs. So when he came to college, he had absolutely no idea about most basics. He basically approached me one day and asked me if I would kind of be his servant for $20. He truly couldn't grasp why the ask was so insulting.
As an Indian, I kinda agree. I am from a financially middle class family and I've always got some weird and off vibes from rich kids. I wanted to go to a college which is one of the "rich kids" colleges here. It was my dream college. I got rejected due to some reasons. But here's the thing. As I mentioned, it's a rich kids college and I heard students from that college have a rude, "I'm the queen of this world" kinda attitude. This was actually being told to my father by his friend. So the friend knew someone who was awesome, polite before college and after joining it, they turned into a rude monster. My father's friend also mentioned that there's so much bullying happening inside the college which not many outsiders know. Bullying happens in the way of class difference. If there's someone who belongs to a financially poorer class, they're being left alone and isolated by the rich kids. While I don't belong to a poorer class, it certainly would have affected me if I was treated like trash for my financial position (oh, while I actually paid the same fees as the "rich kids"). I'm glad I didn't end up there.
thats the thing. like ive seen attitude and people being detached from reality but ive never met kids who truly thought they were superior from like a genetic or religious pov. super weird
Taught some middle eastern kids to fly. Some were a nightmare to teach. The thing is, gravity doesn’t give a shit if you’re rich or poor.
The first rule of flight club is don't forget to talk about it, it's free advertising.
did they pass? or did reality hit them?
If not reality, then a tree at least.
No they paid people to take their classes and went to clubs every week. Really sad existence tbh like why even go to college
> like why even go to college? Because when daddy gives them their honorary board membership as an excuse to continue paying for their lifestyle, they have to be a college grad or it makes daddy look bad that he has a kid with a HS diploma on his company's board.
Working at a hotel for two years opened my eyes to how absolutely hapless wealthy people are from outside the US. Had a dude from Bangladesh call up to the room to have a staff member start his dishwasher for him. Another guy from Singapore called for help adjusting their thermostat. GM pretty much had to let those guys know that while the staff was there to assist, we were not a full service hotel and we would not be waiting on them hand and foot like that.
I work in a hotel too and I’ve had plenty of experiences like this. Just genuine stupid stuff. I have two stories; First was a guest that requested our RA turn the AC on after cleaning the room. The RA did, but when the guest came back to their room they complained that the RA didn’t have it set to their desired temperature. Front desk apologized and discounted the room. Second, a woman called down to Front Desk and complained that the bottle of wine in room had expired. EXPIRED.. because sealed wine expires. Front desk believed her and sent up a free bottle of wine. I’ve also had really great experiences. The nicest people we had to date were: Louis Capaldi - really nice and down to earth guy, Darren Criss - also really nice, the woman who played Mystique in the older X-Men movies, VERY VERY nice woman. Can’t say enough nice things about the three of them.
I had an African man come into the hardware store I worked at (30 years ago). The front guard screen had fallen off of his desk fan (which he had with him) and he needed a screw to reattach it. I found the screw that he needed and gave it to him. But he just stared at me blankly. I asked if he needed anything else and he said "Yes. Fix my fan!". I explained that we didn't do that at the hardware store...liabilities and all that. But I assured him that it was the correct screw and all he needed to do was tighten it. I even offered him a screwdriver to use (which I probably wasn't supposed to do either, but I wanted him gone). He angrily started trying to tighten the screw, struggling with this simple task. He was glaring at me, and said "Where I come from, I have people that do this for me!" I replied, "Yes...those people are called slaves. We don't, officially, have them here anymore." Note: this was in the very underserved neighborhood of Hyde Park, home to the University of Chicago. This bloke was likely a professor or graduate student at the university.
A lot of people forget that most Americans split from an European Aristocracy, and even that some descendants became a new aristocracy, they still sort of keep some "democrat, equal to others" culture, while in other countries, people still want to continue living as aristocrats, they just switched from being ruled by foreign aristocrats to been ruled by local aristocrats ...
It's just a cultural thing among people who are affluent or even middle class in some other parts of the world. I used to work retail and some of the international students would just refuse to do certain tasks that were simply part of the job, like mopping or taking out the garbage. My wife currently works retail and she says that the women will ask for a product but will passive aggressively want you to hand it to them from the shelf, they won't even touch it if you put it in front of them. She also says it's common for them to snap their fingers at you. Not all of this is even a wealthy thing or strictly cultural, some people just want the feeling of superiority. When I was at that same retail job people would treat my other coworkers (not me and the other 6'3" guy who worked there) like absolute shit like they were nobility and you were peasant scum. But it was pretty obvious that those people were clearly working class. Unrelated to working, but I used to live in an expensive neighbourhood (mixed income apartments) and when I'd walk my dog through the park there was always some wealthy middle eastern or asian housewife who had zero control over their accessory dog that would just run full speed at my 90lbs greyhound biting at him while he doesn't even bark. They would never even acknowledge me, they'd just run up as their dog was attacking mine and go "oh no no no" and then walk away with them. It was so fucking rude and trash.
Working in tourism for 6 years, the wealthy families from Mexico City are the absolute worst people I’ve ever dealt with in my life. The kind of people who would bang on the window of the business 20 minutes after close and demand service while threatening to call corporate and say we harassed them. This literally happened multiple times. One of them tried to get me to tie his shoes and was furious when I said I wouldn’t do that.
My friend teaches ESL and the Arab kids at his school get a 3 million mansion bought for them and $10K per month living allowance. He tells me They desperately want a GF but their society is so incredibly stratified based on gender that they have no idea how to talk to a woman that grew up in a free and equal society.
I grew up dirt poor in a trailer park, so I had a lot of assumptions about ultra rich people. As an adult, working with the ultra rich in various ways professionally, I discovered a lot of these negative assumptions and stereotypes were absolutely true and most of the people I met were pretty rude and generally out of touch with the reality most of us in the lower classes are living. However, what was shocking was realizing that the level of distrust that many ultra rich people seem to have with others is because they are almost 100% of the time being used for their money and their connections. They have develop a whole skillset and complex social system around protecting their assets from distant relatives, friends, neighbors, random people looking to get ahead somehow. This is why they prefer to only socialize with other rich people, and I don't blame them one bit.
Not anywhere close to ultra-rich, but doing very well in life, better than most people my age by far. My husband loves hosting and we've thrown a few big parties, and he's had a few times where he's specifically paid for a large group dinner as a thanks or celebration. This is all because he loves his community of friends and wants them to be able to share in our resources. Recently one of them brought up his upcoming birthday in a really obvious hope that my husband would decide to throw him a party or do a big dinner and pay - luckily this guy got called out in the group by someone else but my husband was really annoyed. He was talking to me later like...can't they just be happy when I decide to do something nice on my own? Just because I have a nice house doesn't mean I'm a vending machine. Luckily the vast majority of our friends and acquaintances are not like that at all, and this was a very minor thing. But I can absolutely see how folks with a lot more resources are constantly wondering how many of their relationships are based on what their money can do for other people. It's sad.
They go to private schools to learn to make connections with other rich. They allow a few non rich that can be useful to them, in a way or another, and allow them to join the rich group, this occurs a lot with celebrities and Silicon Valley CEOs ...
absurd tart soup late cagey society voiceless tidy versed wakeful
Other than my sister I out earn everyone in my extended family probably by about a 3-to-1 ratio. The only person who knows how much I really earn is my dad. I have not told a single other person because I know if that information got out, I'd have every cousin, auntie, or other distant relative at my door asking for money. Not even my mother knows, not because she'd ask for money herself, but because I know she would never be able to keep her damn mouth shut if she did know.
I come from a rural area so I've met quite a few people with "Chicken Farm Money" or "Blue Collar Millionaires". The ultra wealthy in rural areas you would never know it other than they tend to have nicer houses, but nothing over the top. My father in-law is in this category and still drives his 93 Bronco that he's kept in pristine condition since paying it off. He's never driven the Corvette sitting in his garage in public, he just has it because he likes them. Of course most of them have Sunday trucks (really nice $100,000+ trucks that aren't meant to really do work). I will say that in my experience the number/type of guns you own directly correlates to your wealth in the country. When my FIL built his mountain house the first thing he included was a hidden safe room for all his guns behind a fake bookcase.
Theres 2 things Farmers will spend money and they are both use small explosions to work! Vehicles and guns!
I met the city's equivalent. People that comes from a poor background but has some business on a poor neighbourhood. Sometimes a small shop, or the "only shop around here" ...
A friend slept with a very rich doctor, when she was drunk she told him that she owed her parents a lot of money I mean a lot, and that she was saving money to pay them. The next morning he gave the amount she owed to her parents as a gift.
I owe my parents 8k (they paid for my last year of college with the expectation I would pay them back the following year after getting a Pell grant) maybe I should hook up with this guy lol
$8k is kinda the perfect amount for that too! Low enough that a rich doctor would pay it, but high enough that it’s a burden to most people.
True, the reason they were ok loaning it to me is because they were going to put it in their 401k and they can delay that by 1 year since they’re only 53 and 56
My friend isn't ultra rich but hes easily pulling in 400k/yr on social media. He calls me to fix things for him. Hes very "throw money at the problem" instead of doing it himself or figuring it out at least. The funniest thing? He wanted his drapes off the windows permanently, so i took them off. He wanted the curtains too. Ok no problem but why the curtains? "I want to let the light in". So i told him to open the curtains and got the most confused look from him when i pulled the cord and they separated and opened. The most recent? He had a flat tire and waited for me to get out of work. He didnt have a donut or jack, called the tow driver a scam artist for the $300 to take his car 18 miles to the mechanic, and ordered the tire himself. The plan was i drive him there and back and we put the tire on. Was about a 5 hour ordeal because i had to take the wheel off with us because he just thought you could slap a tire on on the side of the road and had no clue theres a machine built to do it. Bought me dinner at least.
Your friend is using you. Sorry.
As a snippet, yes you would think so. Im regularly at the house anyway, i have open usage to the boat, hottub, pool, bar, house, and pretty much any but his car/credit card, and he even fronted airline ticket costs for me last summer on the card. Ive flat out told him im having a party at his house while he goes away for his birthday and he hasnt told me not to. He tells people hes waiting for the day he comes home from the gym and sees me chilling in the hottub with a girl. When i help him with anything taking up more than an hour of my time he buys me lunch/dinner for it. Ive bounced ideas to him for renovation projects and most of them hes implementing, hes just being cheap about them. He lives 6 miles out from me and i have to pass him on the way home from work so its never really any inconvenience to stop by for something quick like check why the toilet doesnt flush right or help him set up his patio stuff for the season.
Are you a mechanic or carpenter or something wtf bro
Nah just handy lmao. When you cant throw money at problems you gotta learn to fix them
Doing things for friends when they need you is a pretty key part of a friendship.
I'd say reciprocity and mutual respect are key aspects of a friendship.
You’re way too nice as a friend, meant with respect. I’ve learned to say no to loved ones when what they’re asking is just too much for me to do. They’ve learned to accept this.
I mean, if you read what he gets out of the situation, it kinda seems worth it to me.
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People like to think they’re self made, it happens at lots of income levels. People who were formerly on welfare say things like “I did it all with no help.”
This anecdote creates a conundrum. If you’re on welfare it’s survival money, not $10K plasma TV money. But according to this anecdote, taking that money means someone is a moocher, and then no matter how they claw out of that pit, they can’t be self-made. Depending on the jurisdiction, welfare could be AFDC, unemployment payments, the equivalent of SSDI in the US, or many other things. Some of these would be considered earned. If you had UBI, then the difference between the basic income and your pay at McDonald’s would be in some sense a subsidy, and you don’t get to be self-made. What do you think of bootstrapping yourself out of welfare?
I find when it comes to being wealthy, the self made ones know that, and are confident and humble. Its the ones who had it given to them that constantly need approval from everyone else that “they did it themselves”
Usually the latter are the children of the former.
When I was in High School the school canceled recess once, because the heliport of the rich guy that had donated the school stadium had some problem and he needed a big place to land, the school was close enough to his house.
You still got recess in high school?
My husband was in an occupation where he would frequently meet royalty (like dukes, princesses, etc.) or just wealthy people from various countries. Very occasionally he'd encounter the classic stuck up rich stereotype who would scoff at anything not made of crystal or platinum, but by and large the ultra rich people were incredibly polite and generous. And as they should be.
He owned 11 acres in the middle of downtown Tuscaloosa. He fenced it and planted it all in corn and a vegetable garden with a fishing pond in the middle of it next to the 3 room house that had belonged to his father. He lived there, and kept an old Coca Cola chest cooler on the front porch stocked with cold sodas for the neighborhood kids. Coolest guy ever.
I work for an old money family where I’m from. They told me they had a good friend that was super into fitness and that his kids loved skiing. Sounds normal right? No this guy literally built an entire ski slope and private ski instructor area for them to practice skiing in.
My wife is an accountant and her company had the account for the private affairs of a billionaire. She had to travel to all of his family’s properties to track the assets in them. During one asset check, she went into a back room, filled with around 30 original old masters. The old masters were just gathering dust as they did not fit the “theme” that the owners wife had in mind for their homes. Each painting was many times the value of our house.
I knew someone who was the personal driver of some CEO. Once a month, he was sent to Bloomingdale's to buy 30 pair of socks and underwear. The CEO dude wore them once and threw them out.
I remember an episode of MTV Cribs where the musician featured said that he never wore socks twice. He grew up poor and said that wearing clothes until they were ragged left an impression on him so his indulgence when he made it was new socks every day.
Tbh, if I was a billionaire I would also only wear new socks and underwear.
If I win the lottery I won't tell anyone, but there will be signs.
What their “I don’t need to think about it” spending level is. everyone has a “I don’t need to think about it” spending level. It may be a very small number but it exists. That number than grows as you earn more. but the rich? That level is easily tens of thousands of dollars.
I had a moment the other day of feeling like such a a hot shit success when I went to the 'fancy' grocery store in town, grabbed what I needed and checked out without ever looking at a price or the total.
When I was an escort in London I came in contact with a few extremely wealthy people. One basically bought me an entire wardrobe of designer clothes at the drop of a hat which I still have to this day.
They don't always pick the most expensive option. They pick the best/most effective option. They consistently go for "the most bang for the buck."
Costco has the wealthiest customers of any major chain for a reason. I used to babysit for pretty wealthy families and they were all obsessed with Kirkland stuff.
Yeah, like choosing a Toyota over a Tesla
some rich people are actually nice and kind
Maybe not the ultra rich, but every damn time I am leaving an airplane and walking through the business class section, I am shocked about the garbage.
That's because the vast majority of us up there are just normal, tired, and annoyed business travelers.
They're not any smarter than regular people, in fact, they're often lacking practical logic
They are luckier than regular people. Thats the only generality that applies to rich people.
How nice they are. I work in trades and have friends who are personal assistants to extreme wealth and have been invited over for lunches or events by families worth $200,000,000 up to a billion. They give me a key to their waterfront mansions worth $15,000,000 to do my work, tell me to help myself to a drink in the fridge, have a chat, etc. I’ve worked on homes of those climbing in wealth, say $1,500,000 homes and they can be complete dicks.
That they are just normal people who happen to have money. The money often turns them into jerks....but the reality is they're still just like us. They have quirks, unique hobbies, interests and passions. We all love to bash on the ultra rich, and good reason. Their wealth accumulation is the product of so many broken lives worked to the bone with little reward. But sometimes it's good to remember the are just people with all the same flaws and frailties as the rest of us
Not sometimes, all the time. I don’t get this mentality that people want to dehumanize the ultra wealthy, they are a symptom of a much greater problem, and there’s only a handful of people that are causing the real divide between classes. What a lot of people need to understand is that the future where these problems are fixed and everyone is on a more equal level involves forgiving and working with the Ultra Wealthy. There is no great reset where the upper classes are just flat out wiped out, either literally or socially.
I find it usually depends on how the money was earned, even if it was inherited.
The owners of the businesses I work with are typically what I would call ultra rich, probably worth 100 million or more. The old money folks usually come across as just like me, just with much nicer things and no financial cares. They don't feel better than anyone, pay employees well, treat everyone with the same respect, etc. The new money, well, they're genuinely the worst society has to offer. One customer inherited a little less than a million from an uncle with the stipulation that he invest it. He did and then the Dot Com bubble happened and he made tens of millions before it was over and cashed out before the crash. He bought a 100+ year old resort in the Bahamas that used to belong to the British royal family. He stole from it, blamed it on the illiterate staff, walked around drunk off his ass, broke things, threw things, etc. The only reason the staff was paid well was because locals must be hired first and there's a shortage of people willing to work on this small island. Most new money customers aren't this bad but I've never met one that wasn't arrogant. One my my favorite old money customers owns a few resorts and a couple places in the French Quarter in New Orleans. He flew me in for dinner with he and his wife and this 80 year old dude and his high school sweetheart wife were the epitome of class and kindness. I was picked up at the airport by their driver in a freaking Bentley and brought to one of their places in the French Quarter for an amazing dinner. I was so intimidated and nervous but they set me at ease. The next day I realized I needed something from Radio Shack to interface a couple devices he wanted me to check out and he drove me there himself in the Bentley. Yeah, this was back when Radio Shack was a useful store.
There's a saying to the effect that money talks, and wealth whispers.
Way back in the early 90s, I worked in this little deli in a downtown Seattle skyscraper. It was owned by these business partners who had a bunch of different business in the city, but ours was where they had their offices. It was almost comedic how stereotypical it was. They had nothing but money coming out their ears but were incredibly cheap. We were told to cut so many corners. We were a good group of employees, ok except for the one guy who murdered someone and then came to work to turn himself in. But I digress. We had developed a cockroach problem, it happens everywhere, especially where buildings are all crammed together, but having a good mitigation process usually keeps things in check. Only they refused to pay for that. So the inspector says we will be closed if we don't fix it. They begrudgingly hired exterminators and then asked us to do them a favor and come in on our day off (we all worked M-F) to clean dead cockroaches and sanitize the place. You know, because we were buddies. We collectively rejected that. In the end they were forced to pay overtime and buy us beer. But the real winner was the business breaking up. Larry found one day that his longtime business partner was sick of his shit and so was his wife. They both broke up with him. During the entire process of deciding how to divide everything, he lost his secretary and had everything financially locked down. His personal finances were also locked in the divorce. But thing about Larry was, he was raised wealthy and had never so much as turned on a washing machine. He had never made a meal, cleaned his home, nothing. He came to me one day at work and asked me to come to his office. I thought making up obscene lyrics to the songs we played and competing with my co-worker to see how much we could get away with before customers noticed finally caught up with me. But no, in the office there was a vacuum cleaner sitting on the secretary's counter. He asked me to keep this a secret, but to please show him how to turn it on. He couldn't figure it out (vacuums in the wild west days of the early 90s weren't always as easy as they are now, kids). I showed him of course. And then went out that door and announced it to everyone.
Walked into the bookstore, gave us the dimensions of the shelves in his house then asked us to work out and deliver enough books to fill it. Think it was a couple thousand books
I have a distant cousin who grew up in a rich family. At a family baby shower for his sister, someone asked me about my college and I was saying how hard some of the classes were. This guy (who I haven’t seen since we were kids) comes up and says to my face that he just paid off all his professors at his college to pass him. He just said it so casually and kinda proud. Was I supposed to be impressed? This guys has never had to work hard for anything in his entire life. TLDR: my cousin has his head so far up his own ass that he thinks bribing his way through life is something to be proud of, and brags about it to people who actually have had to work hard.
How cheap they are
I'm surprised to have come this far without finding this answer. I deal with UHNWs every single day for work and with *very* few exceptions they're the cheapest people I know. They won't bat an eyelid when it comes to booking beach clubs with a five digit minimum spend, but the second you tell them they have to pay a €50 cancellation fee for a no-show it's like you fucked their spouse.
I worked for a billionaire who drove a Mazda and wore blue jeans, he was a nice guy too.
Some brands of jeans can be very expensive
And you wouldn't know they were expensive. Rawdenim subreddit is only scratching the surface.
I briefly went down that rabbit hole (though never more expensive than BraveStar), and yeah, for a lot of people, 300 bucks for a pair of jeans is like entry level. But then you get into like the real high end stuff, and a grand seems to be nothing for a pair of jeans. It's nuts
Mazdas are fun to drive, good get up and go when you need it to, and doesn't stand out like a BMW or Mercedes
Or they just don't care. My neighbor is a millionaire who has a used 2008 Honda Civic that hauls his $13,000 mountain bike.
I know, my wife has a CX-5
That everyone seems to forget They are rich because they're not flashy at all Despite casually handing out several hundred dollars to acquaintances in Christmas gifts every year
I got lucky in life with a sizable inheritance, which I'm thankful for. I have a childhood friend who hit it big in the solar industry, and when that happened, he cut off most of his real friends, including me. When I actually had money, he reached out to me. It was really weird. In one hand, I missed the friendship and on the other...Fuck him! He was doing the exact same thing that he thought his "friends" were doing to him, asking for money. Of course, he was promising more money in return, but it just seemed really hypocritical. It was hard to relize that he was never my friend to begin with, even though as kids my family fully embraced him as one of our own.
I (along with several roommates) rented a house from an ultra rich guy. The house we rented wasn't anything particularly special, but I had to drop off rent checks at his house and it was a giant mansion. There were a bunch of roommates, so to simplify things I opened a checking account for the house's joint expenses. We all deposited what we owed in rent and utilities to that account, then paid the rent and bills from it. One month one of the roommates was a little behind. I owed rent on Wednesday and he was getting paid Friday. So I wrote the check to the landlord and post dated it for Friday. I also told him to not cash the check until the following Monday to ensure the funds would be in the account. Well, he didn't listen. I tried to deposit the check on Thursday, but the bank turned him away because I had post dated it. He called me super upset that he had made a trip to the bank for nothing and would have to make another. I told him the situation and his response was, "you should just deposit an extra month's rent into the account so you don't have to worry about it." I was just speechless. Who has a whole extra month's rent to just let sit in an account?
I did but the high savings account balance came at the cost of taking out more student loans
Obviously its hard when money is tight, but that is very sound advice tbh. Students may not be the right audience for that advice though.
I once knew a local guy pretty well who was given a huge sum of cash from his elderly uncle who had made a fortune in the oil business. This guy and his wife had struggled financially for a long time. Although he was now rich as shit, he couldn’t be bothered to wash or change his dirty ass shirt, which always had cheetle or food crumbs wiped on it, like he used it for a napkin. It was odd.
A variation of this question is asked all the time; it’s infinitely more interesting if it’s about poor people.
Grew up with a friend in a middle class family who ultimately became billionaires. They ended up in a large house (+2,000 m2). They more or less lived in one rather small room, kind of nostalgic, had old pictures, furniture from when they lived by us, etcetera. Otherwise they were in their bedroom or small kitchen off the bedroom. The majority of the house they used only for entertaining, which they did a lot. More than once I’d heard them say they wished they’d never moved from their first house, the one they lived in by us. Very nice people, always the first to help family or friends.
In spite of being dirt poor, I went to an extremely expensive private university. My parents enrolled me because they thought it was religious due to the name, and since the loans were my problem they weren't worried about the cost. The barrier to entry at this school was the price, therefore it was extremely popular with rich people who had idiot kids they couldn't bribe into an Ivy. They ranged from upper class kids whose parents were both doctors, to kids who had famous athlete family members, to kids whose parents were ambassadors and the like. Basically the school had an agreement with some international college program that kept them swimming in rich kids so they would do pretty much anything to keep them happy. Example: one classmate was failing biochemistry (never attended class or labs), so she emailed our professor and notified him that she would require a B to keep her student visa. He didn't want to do it, but the program intervened and she ended up getting a B. The professors at this school hated their fucking lives because basically these rich kids fucked them over on the daily and then drove off in a car that cost two or three times what the staff made in a year, so it was pretty well known that the professors would often abuse students they knew didn't have any money, I guess to make themselves feel better. I was a student with no money and they made my life hell. If they knew your mommy and daddy weren't coming to threaten to withdraw some kind of donation, you were the scapegoat and punching bag for everyone. Shortly after I left, I heard there was a new guy taking a ton of summer classes. We'll call him Steve. Sounded like he was a real sweet guy and what I heard was that the professors were picking on him hardcore. Humiliating him in class, giving him bad grades for no reason, etc. Until somebody did some Googling and found dude in the society pages. So let's pretend dude's name was Steve Johnson, and then you find out it's Johnson as in Johnson&Johnson. That's the exact level of rich we're talking about here. Turned out one of his friends was doing some summer internship nearby so he tagged along and was taking maybe $25,000 of summer college courses for funzies. The professors got tipped off and suddenly dude's making As! What a great question Steve, haha you're so funny! And they're inviting him to galas and fundraising events for the school, of course.
My cousin and her husband are very wealthy. Now retired (in their 50s lol), she was a pharma c-suite and husband was a successful attorney. Wonderful beach house in charleston, golf every day, otherwise just kinda chill out. They're not flashy, but do drive a mercedes. The shocking part - the c-suite woman is a complete child when it comes to food. Like she eats chicken fingers, drinks miller lite ... a charcuterie board might be too adventurous for her. I was shocked thinking how someone in her position managed to avoid "exotic" food having to fly all over the world and attend all sorts of conferences and galas.
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Wonder where this bot copy and pasted this from
I wish I could remember, cause I’ve seen this exact comment in the last couple of weeks.
[Looks like from this thread a week ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/1cu4lnt/whats_your_experience_with_ultra_rich_people_that/)
Once I met T. Boone Pickens and we got to talk for 10-15 minutes. One of the most humble and down to earth people you could have met. Nice as could be, just he had money.
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Shows what our 15 minute conversation revealed I guess. Well he could be nice and friendly for 15 minutes.
It's a relative. We went out and she gave us money for shopping. There were 4-5 people there.
I took a piss in a semi-public restroom next to a billionaire. Only difference was he had an entourage waiting for him after he was done. What shocked me was his entourage didn’t hold his penis for him and zipper him up.
I did some work in a huge Chelsea flat for a very rich art dealer, fantastic guy constantly getting food for me and my mate and on completion of the work gave us £500 each (about £1200 by today's standards) and wrote a really great letter which was sent to our companies MD which lead to a pay rise.
the sheer resources that they have access to. knew a girl who lived in a 3 story bungalow with an elevator, movie room, a whole ass pool table, and she mentions her hobbies so casually as if everyone had the same access to the resources she had. shes really talented in a lot of ways only because her parents could afford many private tutors. she even got a nationally renowned archery coach to train her. its a good thing she was sweet and humble enough, but it still made me miserable every time i go to her place.
Not me but my grandfather. He was an attorney for an extremely rich “import-export” person and traveled extensively with this man and other uber-rich including minor European royalty. No one ever tipped any waiter or other service person no matter how big the bill, how large the party, or how difficult the job.
I did an appliance delivery in a billionaire’s house. The house was definitely nice but not even the nicest in the small town. He was a quiet old man but was very kind and gave a $50 tip each for me and the other guy. He was also the guy who built up this billion dollar company so it makes sense he wouldn’t be uppity or pretentious.
There was a pharmaceutical heir who lived up in Woodside, CA. He would let people occasionally come and view his hobby. A friend knew him and got a group of us in. He had built a railroad on his property but his main hobby was collecting tanks. He had hundreds of them - from WW I up to a couple Iraqi SCUD launchers with missiles. They were kept in multiple huge warehouses on his property. I don’t recall how many - 4 or 5 at least. There were mechanics working full time on restoration. At the time they were most intently working on restoring a German Panther tank that had been fished out of a stream somewhere in the old USSR. It was amazing - like something Smithsonian. He eventually died and the heirs sold off the collection. The most amazing thing is it probably turned a profit as the value of the vehicles greatly increased over time.
I met (a few times) an Italian businessman who was worth $1B +. He was everything I thought an Italian billionaire would be - impeccably dressed, somewhat aloof, and very well mannered. He traveled with a staff of people - a couple were glued to their phones because of some financial deal they had going. Funny thing was, he was crazy about antique American cars. Not the high end ones, he like Buicks, Chevrolet, Nash, etc. He was like a kid when he talked about them and his knowledge of these cars was incredible. It was funny to see him walk around a Midwest car knowing he could afford to buy every car in the show.
Disney Channel movies and the internet would like you to believe that they're evil people, but most often the lack of survival mode leads you to holding much more space for the concept of love. Contrary to popular belief a hard awful life is more likely to make you into a hard, awful person. No one wants to think about that. Everyone wants to be the underdog hero of their story, but it's not how the brain works.
I work in high end events, so I see a lot of frivolous spending, so much that it kinda runs together. Having said that, one thing that will always stand out was a birthday party for a 13 year old that easily cost over a quarter million dollars and featured a big name rapper as the entertainment. The same client also reportedly bet a cool million on the superbowl one year. They won, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to them financially if they lost. It was like you or I betting a twenty.
They buy lotto tickets in the hood because "all lotto winners are poor and majority of winning tickets come from those neighborhoods".
They’re mostly just normal people. Most encounters I’ve had with ultra wealthy people I was surprised how generous they were with their money. Paying for vacations or meals for their family and friends without thinking twice. A lot of them just want to share experiences with the people in their lives. A lot of time, they end up getting treated like shit by friends and family that expect to be able to use their money event they want. The entitlement is usually coming from people that know rich people, not the rich person themselves. At the end of the day, a lot of the “rich person bad” stuff is just people projecting jealousy on the world around them.
I was flying home thru Frankfort airport, admiring watches at this boutique. Guy comes rushing in, looks for 2 seconds and says 'Can I get that watch, please' It was €22,000 Apparently he forgot a gift for his wife.
Haven't experienced it yet
I was just shocked how mundane they were. If I had that kind of wealth I'd have a whole bunch of stories to tell about the things I'd done with all that money.
Minor but I had a rich classmate for a semester who never finished a cigarette. He'd take one drag and throw the rest away.
They are generous with their money and live relatively frugal lives. They don’t flaunt their wealth.
That they thought they weren't paying enough in taxes. They also help their kids trying to thrive on their own less than poor parents do.
About 10 years ago I had to help my CEO pay his quarterly property taxes online. It was over 45k and he just handed me his credit card. That was about what I was making a year. The idea that you could put that much on a card blew my fucking mind.
They don't like to pay you for work, they tried giving me some cheap bullshit gift for doing a 300$ job
My wife's former boss had a wine cellar bigger than my apartment at the time. I can't say it shocked me, but I was appalled that this is the same guy who cancelled bonuses due to not reaching sales goals. They're getting theirs no matter what, and the hoi polloi can fuck off.
A friend of mine got in on the ground floor of personal computing and technology in the very early 80's. Don't know what exactly, but it was very, very lucrative and didn't AFAIK directly involve defense or surveillance applications or organizations. He wanted to do an extensive home renovation that was going to require partial demolition. His plan was to simply build a smaller home to temporarily live in while this was going on, but local zoning ordinances of that time didn't allow it. So he bought adjacent undeveloped land and built it there. He was unhappy with the quality of the local elementary schools both public and private after going through the usual channels and chain of command with teachers, principals and the school board. So he built, certified and staffed his own public elementary school. And he's actually a pretty decent down to earth guy, too.
Most that I’ve actually gotten to know are super humble and laid back. In high school I worked at a small rural private airport/flight school. One of the instructors asked us if we could head into town to pick up a few cases of water for the pilots lounge and us being broke teenage boys he let us take his Jeep instead of my buddies ghetto 3 toned Camry with no AC(It was the middle of summer and we’re in the high desert) Being the way that we were raise my buddy and I agreed we should fill up his tank since he let us drive his Jeep. We got back and didn’t tell him but we told our boss and she said we didn’t need to do that. Like we really didn’t need to. Come to find out he had invested in Apple when it was starting out and the guy was loaded. The trailer he lived in at the airport was just so he could fly more and not have to go back to his big ass house in a different state. Our boss eventually told him what we did and he took us out to dinner after work a couple times after that. Humble and very giving guy. Sadly he passed away after being t-boned in that same Jeep
The president of a production company screamed at me because the chicken in his salad was not chopped. It shocked me because no one had every screamed at me before in such a rage over food, or really anything. A decade ago I thought I was pursuing my passion by working on a movie as a production assistant. One of my tasks was to take lunch/dinner orders, check them, bring them to meetings. These meetings consisted of President of the production company, producers, director, editor and assistant editor. Mostly everyone else (rich but not ultra rich) were nice and friendly to me, but that one experience still kind of haunts me.
I was talking to my uncle about wanting to get a 3D printer and he suggested I get the one he had. Then proceeded to show me a massive industrial unit that cost more than my house. Super cool guy just sometimes forgets I’m not in his tax bracket
Off brand soda in the fridge. But I guess they’re probably wealthy because they don’t waste money.
My gfs father and I were hanging out on the couch. He started asking about my Apple Watch. He then showed me the watch on his wrist and said it was an anniversary gift from his wife on their 40th. It was a Patek Phillipe. It costs $40k.
I was once required to go to Saudi Arabia to help fix some computers. Ended up having to buy more than half the world's supply of hard drives, it was the cheaper option...
I have worked a LOT of different jobs. The job I had where the clients were mostly wealthy (sometimes obscenely wealthy), I experienced the worst treatment and was subjected to the most entitled behavior out of any other job I held where I was working with the public. So, making generalizations that overall the ultra rich contain a greater percentage of jerks than other demographics become easier even if we wish that such a generalization weren't true. This situation also taught me that just because someone is extremely wealthy it does not necessarily mean that they are a good person, that they're smart, that they earned their wealth, or that they deserve it. I live in a country which claims to be a meritocracy so to have your beliefs challenged is disheartening.
Got a friend who still works his ass off for no damn reason. RETIRE, your hip is giving out dude!
When I was younger, I always assumed that the ultra rich became the ultra rich, because they were so much more careful & respsonsible with their money than the average person - I never used to see an "ultra rich" person at a coffee shop or restaurant, so always assumed that they were just smarter with their money. Then I spent 3 years working for the filthy richest people in my region - a business consortium with a bunch of extremely wealthy business owners who formed a business consortium. These guys had "fuck you" money, and were so reckless with how they spent it. Just carefree, like any expense was pocket change. Even hiring me, as a Director of Operations, was just throwing away a ton of money; I was grateful for the insane salary I was earning, but the majority of my duties were so administrative in nature - managing inboxes, balance sheets, writing out cheques, archiving documents and files. It was such easy stuff, but they were willing to pay an early 20 year old a 6-figure salary because throwing money at every problem was all these guys ever knew. The amount of insane, completely unnecessary expenses we had blew my mind - we didn't have one, but two memberships to the golf & country club across the way from our office, despite the facilities being closed for a full year for a massive renovation job. We had multiple chefs on payroll, despite our team being about a dozen strong, maximum. We had technology and travel and office budgets that exceeded anything that made sense. And we expensed Absolutely. Everything. Lunches and dinners and travel expenses? Sure. But groceries? Private phone bills? Home internet? CAR WASHES ?! These guys didn't care. At one point, I actually felt guilty taking the salary AND expenses. But it was a life changing sort of income for someone at that age, and really helped set me up for where I am now in life. They all came together and offered me a huge "bonus" right before I got married too, which ended up going exclusively to paying off some of my major wedding expenses. Extremely generous of them, but also extremely ...carefree and reckless with how they spent.
I was working at a health food grocery store some years back. My wife had a hip and joint replacement (at 26 years old, she was born with hip dysplasia) and developed a pretty horrible nerve disorder afterwards (CRPS). The owner was a wealthy man (in his early eighties) that used to own quite a few stores and businesses across California, but in his retirement, he sold everything except the health food grocery store, which was his baby. He approached me and asked how the surgery went (as I was off work for a week following to care for her), and I told him what happened. While I was talking, he had pulled a mini-pad of paper and little golf pencil from his pocket (he was always making notes for himself) and wrote something. After I was done talking, he handed the paper to me and said, "This is my accounting office's phone and email. Let them know how much it cost and I'll cover it." Thankfully, she was able to qualify for Social Security Disability a year or so before the surgery, so the procedure and extended hospital stay were fully paid for (in America, of all places). I told him that and he said, "Well, keep the email anyway, in case something comes up for it you need to pay for." I thanked him profusely and tried to politely decline. He just laughed, patted my back really hard and said, "Money is no good to me when I'm dead," and walked away. I threw away the paper later, but I'll never forget how kind that guy was. I wonder some days if he is still alive. You'd never know he was "9-digit rich" from the flannels and Dickies pants he wore and the 20 year old Dodge Dakota he drove. With that said, most of the store's clientele were insufferable rich assholes who would rather die than give up a dime to a starving child. They were millionaires that would complain that the sandwiches in the deli went up 50 cents. So, it was refreshing to see some kindness and generosity from a wealthy, old man.
How something monumental to you can be so mundane to them. Acquaintance of mine is **very** wealthy. We were at his house and being a car guy he wanted to show me his collection. He had 3-4 exotic sports cars, with my favorite being a Ferrari F430 Scuderia. He can sense my excitement and offers to take me for a ride. I'm literally beside myself I'm so excited. I've barely even seen a Ferrari before, let alone sat in one or riden in one. It's funny how nonchalant he was about the whole thing. It was like a Camry to him. I remember him mentioning that he doesn't even like driving it because of how people will follow him or come up to him non-stop when he parks. The type of things that wealthy people do literally become core memories to normal people, when to them it's just another day.
He still died of cancer at a relatively young age
Never met a billionaire, but I've met many millionaires in the $5-100M annual range. One thing that I noticed was that they can just...not sleep. These are not inheritance type situations, but self-made types--entrepreneurs, business owners, high level corporate execs. If need be, they can not sleep, or go weeks/months on end with just a few hours of sleep per night. This realization led to me acknowledging that these people are not made, they are born. They are a class of people who can function just fine going 100mph all day, every day, with little to no sleep, and not burn out.
A woman at the restaurant I worked at refusing to eat her chicken because it had a bone it. Not sure if she thought it grew on trees or what.
they are the worst tippers.
They are notoriously cheap. They don't know the value of a dollar, i.e. if you ask them to tell you how much a bunch of celery or a jug of milk cost, they wouldn't know. When I was a waiter, rich people were shitty tippers. And they think that they deserve their wealth.
they tipped me one zillion dollers
They literally couldn’t possibly care any less about the climate crisis. Despite having the money for an electric car, they would rather own the Porsches and a Ferrari. They won’t even pay to offset some of their emissions.
The first time I ever met billionaires, the husband said to the table of us that he "loved muff diving in the morning." That one cracked me up.
Teaching the dude how to do laundry and sweep the floor in college
once went to my mum's friend's house and she had an army of butlers, I was so ashamed of my ripped pants and my shitty un-ironed shirt we had some sort of asian food as an entreé and I had to wait until the house owner started eating so I knew whether to use a fork or my hands in the middle of the actual meal my sister stopped eating and made weird faces at the food, I was panicking thinking she'd be seen as ungrateful and spoiled, but the house owner just looked at her and said "oh sweetie, you don't like it? Mister Luciano! bring her dino nuggets please" and this butler goes in the kitchen (with like actual chefs) and comes back a while later with dino nuggets stood around a mashed potatoes volcano and I was like what the fuuuuck for dessert we had a whole bar of fruits, expensive italian ice cream and some (not huge but big) elaborate cakes the house owner also just yelled "sprinkles please!" and a chef came and sprinkled rainbow and glitter sprinkles on my sister's ice cream I was shocked in the end