has anyone ever interacted with an actual billionaire?

Certainly, and i would expect as much.

But even so, the fact that there are only 540 of these guys (and i bet the vast majority are guys) walking around in this vast country of more than a quarter of a billion people, what's the chance you'd get to actually interact with one of them?

My bet is that many of us who thought we dealt with a billionaire actually dealt with an extremely wealthy individual, but very possibly not a billionaire. Anyway, that's what the actual figures revealed to me - there are very few of them relative to the plentiful ultra-wealthy.

1 out of 77?

As is typical LetsRun style, by the time this thread is over all 540 billionaires will have at one time met someone from LetsRun.

Yep. Close H.S. friend who now owns a minority share in the NY Yankees. Net worth in the $2-3B range. Still fun to hang with, still a bit of a sloppy drunk. But it’s all more than a little surreal...

I had a meeting with a billionaire who acquired his wealth in the energy sector. He wasn't particularly high energy and certainly not flamboyant, but was quite charming and gracious to share information that was very basic to him. A couple years later this person committed suicide after his latest business blew up, and he fell under a federal investigation. It just shows how money (and power/influence) can be a blessing and a curse.

I have met quite a few people who have anywhere from 20-200 million of net worth. Just like any other cross section of society I have come across you have plenty of nice ones and a-holes, humility and arrogance.

Hegevhss wrote:

If you felt intimated then you probably should of punch his lights out and stamped on his throat. No amount of money in the world would prevent his demise.

"should of punch his lights out"?

Jah boi wrote:

Who the f cares? Most wealthy people just have a drive to succeed AND have the skills/smarts/social ability AND were in the right place at the right time. That's it.

Like a poster said before, you could beat them to a pulp in 3 minutes and they would feel immense pain and be a sack of bloody organic matter just like any of us would. We're all just humans. We just eat, sht, fornicate, etc. There's no secret.

Seven posts in and people are talking about murdering them? What is wrong with you?

I can tell you that none of the kids you went to school with were billionaires. One of them may have had parents or grandparents that were, but I am confident that there has never been an 18-22 yo billionaire (who earned it) in U.S. history.

It's the same as meeting the super elite runners. Both classes are usually obsessive about their work and lifestyle, but then cover the full spectrum from nicest in the world to complete $hithole.

This occurred to me a long time ago when I was figuring out how much money Larry David had, and when I heard that Bill Gates makes enough money that if $250 was on the ground, it was not worth his time to bend down and pick it up, as he made $250 per second already.

Someone like Larry David (who was at one time worth $850M), if they had their fortune just making the average stock market return over several years, makes $256,000 per day (on average over time). So he could buy an average house every day for the rest of his life, and still live the high life with the principal.

For Bill Gates (who has a net worth according to the internet of $92.3B), if it was invested at average stock market returns, would make $27,816,438 each day. Or $322 a second.

$27M a day is more impressive than $322 a second. Probably because I had had $322 hundreds of times in my life and I am worth about 2000 times that right now. But I will never get close to $27M.

I bet you're right. But they don't have to "earn it" to be the billionaire.

In technical terms, they probably didn't inherit it formally yet at that age, and when they do, there's likely some other heirs with whom they will likely split it.

They are probably worth in the hundreds of millions category at the time they inherit it.

More money than me wrote:

I met several ridiculously wealthy people through my high school and college years.

I grew up competing in show jumping (horse back riding) only able to afford to do so at a limited level by working my ass off at the farm of a US Olympian. Through him I got to meet and interact with several people who's last names you would recognize.

I also met a lot of people in the $10+ million range.

For what it's worth in my experience the truly wealthy were much nicer than the wealthy people pretending to be truly wealthy.

Maybe horse showing is the easiest way to get to know them. The closest I've gotten to rubbing elbows with real billionaires is through my daughter's horse showing. I'm wealthy enough to afford for her to compete, but not wealthy enough to afford the kind of horse you need to win consistently. The billionaires buy up the top horses for their own daughters.

One billionaire in particular who is in the Forbes top 50 has a daughter that competed against mine several times. He's a household name you would almost certainly recognize. Guess I could have tried to get to know him if I wanted to, but what do we really have in common other than that we both love our daughters?

Funny you should say that. I have a friend who went on a business trip or two with Bill Gates when he (and my friend) worked at Microsoft. He/she said that Bill is actually surprisingly frugal, or atleast was at that time. And that was the commonly accepted impression about him from those that worked with him at the time. He would most definitely pick up cash if the stories are true.

But more importantly, thank goodness he does the charitable, humanitarian work that he and Melanie have dedicated themselves and their fortunes to.

If he's so 'frugal' why does he live on an island in such and outrageously ostentatious house? Give me a Warren Buffet any day.

I drove past his house a weeks ago. His side gate is broken at the upper hinges. Also the yard needs some work.

while black?

1991premilechamp wrote:

I literally have spent hours alone with Sergei Brinn and Tim Cook.

Both were incredibly respectful and nice. I was helping them rehab injuries.

They took interest in my life and remembered details about me when they came back in our clinic.

Both top notch men. Way smarter than the average and they both could analyze things incredibly quickly.

I had an “in” with Cook, both of us Auburn Grads, but I think they genuinely treat “ normal “ people very well. They both knew I was an Olympian, but I don’t think that was much of a factor.

Nothing bad to say about either one.

Other Therapists worked on Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison and Larry Page and had similar experiences. Although Jobs would blatantly steal people’s parking spots.

Does Brin feel any guilt over being given credit for something he didn't actually create?

out of my league wrote:

wineturtle wrote:

Take some of that randomness away and insert some propinquity and the odds improve dramatically.

.

Certainly, and i would expect as much.

But even so, the fact that there are only 540 of these guys (and i bet the vast majority are guys) walking around in this vast country of more than a quarter of a billion people, what's the chance you'd get to actually interact with one of them?

My bet is that many of us who thought we dealt with a billionaire actually dealt with an extremely wealthy individual, but very possibly not a billionaire. Anyway, that's what the actual figures revealed to me - there are very few of them relative to the plentiful ultra-wealthy.

I've worked for two billionaires - one was entertainment and actually sold his share in a "family" business for over 4 billion. Keep in mind not all billionaires are on the Forbes list(s). Since you know so much about monied folk, why don't you tell us what some of the big banking families are worth? Heh.

I've been told that at Stanford meets we have people in the stands and volunteer helpers, who are execs at Google, drive Teslas, fly a fleet of airplanes, have estates on the west side of El Camino Real, etc. I wonder who they are though.

elviejo wrote:

If he's so 'frugal' why does he live on an island in such and outrageously ostentatious house? Give me a Warren Buffet any day.

Chinese Buffet is the best.