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Okay, the full title of the book is "All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make, and Spend, Their Fortunes," but that wouldn't fit into the title box. Anyways, this book I found very fascinating, if you have read "Richistan" and loved it, you will love this book as well.
This book is definitely not about slow-lane folk, it talks strictly about the Forbes 400, the billionaires, and how they made their fortunes.
One thing emphasized a lot is the desire to build and create something, and also the willingness to take risks, sometimes HUGE risks, and that includes after becoming a billionaire as well (one billionaire has bet almost his entire fortune multiple times). Now by "bet," I don't mean a pure Vegas-style gamble. I mean they say study their economics a lot to see whether say a market is going to crash or not, for example the one guy did this and came to the conclusion that the oil market would crash. He of course wouldn't know for sure until it did, which it did. But they don't just purely gamble.
Another factor is that usually they make sure they can recover if said bets go south. True, they may lose much, or all, of their wealth, but they are confident that even if a huge blow is dealt, they can recover.
For example, in "Richistan," the author talks about Pete Musser, who lost his entire fortune in the Dot Com boom, which put him to about a negative $13 million net worth. He is like in his 70s. But he started up a few companies to recover, one of them NutriSystem, which seems to be enjoying good success (Larry the Cable Guy is signed up in a commercial for it), so he seems to be recovering okay.
It is this desire to build and create, willingness to take big risks, and confidence they can recover that allows them to build huge fortunes.
The book talks about various areas of fortune-making, from financial (mostly hedge-funds) to technology (Silicon Valley), to "blue-collar" fortunes, for example, one guy owns truck leasing firms, diesel truck engine manufacturing, and auto racing (I think Roger Penske but I might have the name wrong). Another "blue-collar" fortune is the guy who started the 99 Cents store chain (he's worth about $700 million). Despite his mega-wealth, he is like that billionaire roofing guy (who died by falling through his roof!), in that he lives in the same blue-collar home and drives a Prius.
Financial and technology fortunes allow one to earn wealth far more quickly than blue-collar fortunes, but, such fortunes also can be a lot more fickle, particularly in the technology sectors (I would imagine if you make millions or billions from running a hedge-fund and then it blows up for some reason, the money you've earned is safe, just the fund is gone). Technology fortunes are very fickle because the industry is so competitive, you can be a billionaire one day and then poor the next, the Dot Com bust really showing this. For example, if Apple didn't stay on top, Steve Job's net worth from Apple would plummet (most of his net worth is from Disney from the pixar sell, about $6 billion in Disney stock! I think his Apple worth is about $400 million).
Blue-collar fortunes, on the other hand, while taking longer to build, can be a lot more stable. These also can be fickle though, for example if one's entire wealth is tied up in oil and the oil industry crashes, ouch...stuff like the 99 Cents store chain I'd imagine can do good in a bad economy because people will be more inclined to shop there.
The other area for fortune-building of this magnitude is to go work in a company and rise up through the ranks, but this can take a long time. Billionaire status through this method is possible, though.
Going back to building, the book says that the real money actually belongs to the empire-builders, the folks who build the big media and Hollywood and technology and finance and blue-collar business empires; these are the folks with net worth in excess of $500 million and billions.
By comparison, although people like professional athletes, rock stars, movie stars, etc...make huge amounts of money, they still are paid small potatoes in comparison to the empire-builders. Even movie directors, this seems to be the case. Most money athletes make for example is from royalties, and even with that they're still small potatoes to the big empire folk. Such people also do things like start their own merchandise, invest, real-estate, etc...for example, much of Bob Hope's $400 million fortune when he died wasn't from his being an actor or comedian, it was from investments in real estate. 50 Cent just made $410 million recently from his investment in VitaminWater.
Examples of empire-builders would be Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg (the majority of Spielberg's wealth is really from his partial ownership of a movie studio, not directing movies), Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, etc...for example, it is the people who own the sports teams who are the super-rich, the players of said teams are paid highly, and then can make lots more through endorsements. It is the people own the race car teams; the drivers are paid lots and get endorsements, but don't get the super-wealth. And the people who own the movie studios, in comparison to the actors/actresses, who are paid highly, but still don't make the same.
BTW, this isn't saying that if you make $20 million a year from a business, you aren't fastlane, or even fastlane as a actor/actress, just for the REALLY BIG fortunes, you have to be an empire-builder it seems.
It seems to be that this desire to build and create is what drives them to keep becoming more wealthy, not money itself. The money itself is nice luxury, some billionaires live the billionaire lifestyle, and some are like Warren Buffett, staying close to their blue-collar roots, but it seems to be the desire to build businesses and invest that keeps them going, not money, in comparison to most of the middle-class who just desire money and say they'd retire and sit on their rears if they made a billion dollars.
In "Richistan," the author describes this as the "Overachieving Overclass" and "Workaholic Wealthy."
A member here at Fastlane (Peter2
) also described a similar mindset.
And finally the book discusses their involvements with philanthropy and politics. They get a real high from their philanthropy work it says, and an interesting thing the book said is that while on the surface it appears politicans are the most powerful people, that in reality the truly most powerful people are these ultra-wealthy people who sit completely in the foreground, mostly unknown to the public accept to those who follow the super-wealthy, and found things like think tanks and so forth, along with the funding of politicians.
For example, the Koch family (owners of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held company in the world, I think the head of it, Charles Koch's net worth is about $12 billion) are very libertarian, and thus have helped found some very libertarian think tanks, like the Cato Institute. Goerge Soros is another, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, spending much money on his Open Society Institute. There are super wealthy on both ends of the political spectrum.
I found the book very inspirational, like I said, if you liked "Richistan," you will like this book. It is bigger too.
Definitely recommend it!
This book is definitely not about slow-lane folk, it talks strictly about the Forbes 400, the billionaires, and how they made their fortunes.
One thing emphasized a lot is the desire to build and create something, and also the willingness to take risks, sometimes HUGE risks, and that includes after becoming a billionaire as well (one billionaire has bet almost his entire fortune multiple times). Now by "bet," I don't mean a pure Vegas-style gamble. I mean they say study their economics a lot to see whether say a market is going to crash or not, for example the one guy did this and came to the conclusion that the oil market would crash. He of course wouldn't know for sure until it did, which it did. But they don't just purely gamble.
Another factor is that usually they make sure they can recover if said bets go south. True, they may lose much, or all, of their wealth, but they are confident that even if a huge blow is dealt, they can recover.
For example, in "Richistan," the author talks about Pete Musser, who lost his entire fortune in the Dot Com boom, which put him to about a negative $13 million net worth. He is like in his 70s. But he started up a few companies to recover, one of them NutriSystem, which seems to be enjoying good success (Larry the Cable Guy is signed up in a commercial for it), so he seems to be recovering okay.
It is this desire to build and create, willingness to take big risks, and confidence they can recover that allows them to build huge fortunes.
The book talks about various areas of fortune-making, from financial (mostly hedge-funds) to technology (Silicon Valley), to "blue-collar" fortunes, for example, one guy owns truck leasing firms, diesel truck engine manufacturing, and auto racing (I think Roger Penske but I might have the name wrong). Another "blue-collar" fortune is the guy who started the 99 Cents store chain (he's worth about $700 million). Despite his mega-wealth, he is like that billionaire roofing guy (who died by falling through his roof!), in that he lives in the same blue-collar home and drives a Prius.
Financial and technology fortunes allow one to earn wealth far more quickly than blue-collar fortunes, but, such fortunes also can be a lot more fickle, particularly in the technology sectors (I would imagine if you make millions or billions from running a hedge-fund and then it blows up for some reason, the money you've earned is safe, just the fund is gone). Technology fortunes are very fickle because the industry is so competitive, you can be a billionaire one day and then poor the next, the Dot Com bust really showing this. For example, if Apple didn't stay on top, Steve Job's net worth from Apple would plummet (most of his net worth is from Disney from the pixar sell, about $6 billion in Disney stock! I think his Apple worth is about $400 million).
Blue-collar fortunes, on the other hand, while taking longer to build, can be a lot more stable. These also can be fickle though, for example if one's entire wealth is tied up in oil and the oil industry crashes, ouch...stuff like the 99 Cents store chain I'd imagine can do good in a bad economy because people will be more inclined to shop there.
The other area for fortune-building of this magnitude is to go work in a company and rise up through the ranks, but this can take a long time. Billionaire status through this method is possible, though.
Going back to building, the book says that the real money actually belongs to the empire-builders, the folks who build the big media and Hollywood and technology and finance and blue-collar business empires; these are the folks with net worth in excess of $500 million and billions.
By comparison, although people like professional athletes, rock stars, movie stars, etc...make huge amounts of money, they still are paid small potatoes in comparison to the empire-builders. Even movie directors, this seems to be the case. Most money athletes make for example is from royalties, and even with that they're still small potatoes to the big empire folk. Such people also do things like start their own merchandise, invest, real-estate, etc...for example, much of Bob Hope's $400 million fortune when he died wasn't from his being an actor or comedian, it was from investments in real estate. 50 Cent just made $410 million recently from his investment in VitaminWater.
Examples of empire-builders would be Bill Gates, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, George Lucas, Stephen Spielberg (the majority of Spielberg's wealth is really from his partial ownership of a movie studio, not directing movies), Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, etc...for example, it is the people who own the sports teams who are the super-rich, the players of said teams are paid highly, and then can make lots more through endorsements. It is the people own the race car teams; the drivers are paid lots and get endorsements, but don't get the super-wealth. And the people who own the movie studios, in comparison to the actors/actresses, who are paid highly, but still don't make the same.
BTW, this isn't saying that if you make $20 million a year from a business, you aren't fastlane, or even fastlane as a actor/actress, just for the REALLY BIG fortunes, you have to be an empire-builder it seems.
It seems to be that this desire to build and create is what drives them to keep becoming more wealthy, not money itself. The money itself is nice luxury, some billionaires live the billionaire lifestyle, and some are like Warren Buffett, staying close to their blue-collar roots, but it seems to be the desire to build businesses and invest that keeps them going, not money, in comparison to most of the middle-class who just desire money and say they'd retire and sit on their rears if they made a billion dollars.
In "Richistan," the author describes this as the "Overachieving Overclass" and "Workaholic Wealthy."
A member here at Fastlane (Peter2
) also described a similar mindset.And finally the book discusses their involvements with philanthropy and politics. They get a real high from their philanthropy work it says, and an interesting thing the book said is that while on the surface it appears politicans are the most powerful people, that in reality the truly most powerful people are these ultra-wealthy people who sit completely in the foreground, mostly unknown to the public accept to those who follow the super-wealthy, and found things like think tanks and so forth, along with the funding of politicians.
For example, the Koch family (owners of Koch Industries, the largest privately-held company in the world, I think the head of it, Charles Koch's net worth is about $12 billion) are very libertarian, and thus have helped found some very libertarian think tanks, like the Cato Institute. Goerge Soros is another, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, spending much money on his Open Society Institute. There are super wealthy on both ends of the political spectrum.
I found the book very inspirational, like I said, if you liked "Richistan," you will like this book. It is bigger too.
Definitely recommend it!
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