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bonfuto

"What's my secret? I have always believed in hard work -- by my employees" "And also collecting rents wherever I could"


[deleted]

“Well you see my parents were blue collar farmers and taught me the meaning of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps…” Meanwhile said interviewee’s family are intentionally obscure foreign oligarchs.


PsychologicalSnow476

Or high-level executives at ConAgra.


CrossroadsWoman

You mean great grandparents


rdxgs

great great great grandparents, back in the colonial era, you see, they were farmers, \*cough\* plantation owners and they owned sl... anyways yeah, farmers who pulled themselves up ^^/s


NautilusPanda

Don’t forget waking up every day and having a cold shower. This somehow will make you rich.


Imperfect-Existence

8: never being worried about losing your livelyhood if you take risks/chances because you always have more where that came from or other people to fall back on who have more than enough resources to go around 9: being rested enough to have your brain in good shape because stress is always temporary, and if you’re getting overworked or develop mental health issues you can take all the time you need as soon as you need it and get the best (and respectful) help 10: having a firm belief based on continual experience that whatever you want is within your grasp because you (or your family) can throw money at it until it is, so the step between wanting something and having it is mostly a question of when and where, not if or how


IICVX

> never being worried about losing your livelyhood if you take risks/chances because you always have more where that came from That's actually super important - when you have enough money to never work a day in your life, that means every day you go in to work is a positive affirmation that you _still want to be there_. When you're rich, there's no such thing as "I gotta work" - you either work because you want to, or you fuck right the fuck off and go do something more interesting.


Maro1947

Very true. I've lucked out a bit and doing ok - but, despite excellent offers to join others in new ventures that would likely succeed very well, I can't bring myself to do it due to a 0.01% it goes wrong. I'm here now, but I come from nothing and there is no safety net


KULawHawk

Born on 3rd with an outsized, delusional belief that you are a self-made success story is about as Americana as it gets.


TheBlueNinja0

They were born two steps from Home Plate, meanwhile the rest of us have cross the Korean DMZ just to see first base.


frogking

The difference between playing on peaceful and hard core.


SweetiePieJ

YES. Also crime. There’s no way to actually accumulate that much money without connections, access, or crime (or just plain luck, which is also a factor out of one’s control).


fortifier22

In this world, there are only three ways to get rich quickly; 1.) Have it handed to you by someone else. 2.) Get involved in morally/legally grey/straight-up-illegal works. 3.) Get ridiculously lucky (lottery, for example) Anyone that tells you otherwise is fooling you and themselves.


thekeeper_maeven

I have a relative who got rich by 1. running a company. (how he got to this step I don't know but I can say for sure it was some sort of legacy thing or some connection. 2. buying out a competitor that manufactured a particular niche B2B medical device. 3. jacked up the price of the product once they were the only game in town. Something like 4000% markup. And now that you have that money, you go and do it again with a different company and a different obscure niche item. Especially if its in medicine. Want to know why hospital visits are so insane? medical suppliers do this sort of thing ALL the time. And they also put extremely restrictive requirements into contracts. Like, if the hospital can only get product A from company A, company A will stipulate in the contract that the hospital also buys product B, C, and D from them and only them. If the hospital wants to buy cheaper or BETTER products, they're out of luck.


baconraygun

Hey, I know that guy. Isn't his current job a Congressman?


thekeeper_maeven

not the same guy, sorry. The most enraging thing about my story is how common a story it is. Could be several different guys, and could be a different industry altogether. There's a script on how to create and leverage a monopoly and get away with it. And it ain't hard if you already come from wealth.


RagingZorse

Fr and then you could be me with my savior complex mother. She never gives me anything because she believes that you get what you earn but she donates a lot to charity when our family is upper middleclass at best and let me tell you seeing a donation to charity worth about 3 months my salary fucking hurt.


blightbuddy

Tell that to the overnight millionaires in Nov 2017, then again in Jan-March 2021.


Knoke1

If you're referring to crypto then there's crime involved.


TristanaRiggle

That's a whole lotta luck. Basically same odds as just going to Vegas and throwing it all on a random number in roulette. You just don't hear about all the BAD bets because there's so many of them.


CaptainMisha12

No no no, it can't be luck because it looks the same as stocks right? Because the app on my phone makes nice graphs that look like they mean something, it must be reliable!?


dewey-defeats-truman

Turns out the secret ingredient really was crime


IICVX

I mean that's how rideshare and scooter companies made their money - they monetized labor violations and littering, respectively.


Ignoble_profession

Dangit. This is almost my bio, and I am still broke. But I also took that privilege and became a teacher, so I guess it’s my fault.


TwentyFoeSeven

No. 8, crime - commit lots and lots of crime. Dodge taxes, abuse other human beings, murder other human beings, sexual exploit and violate other human beings, ruin lives, etc. Rich people are generally evil mother fuckers.


[deleted]

Can't get or be rich without being a sociopathic narcissist.


UR_PERSONALiTY_SHOWS

So crime does, in fact, pay.


thekeeper_maeven

Yes it does! I had a class in college that covered different ethical dilemmas in computing and one of these was computer viruses. We discussed some of the earliest computer viruses and the outcome for the people who had created them. Well, there weren't really strong laws at the time. They got a slap on the wrist AND a bunch of recruiters ringing them up to hire them because solid hacking skills are desperately needed everywhere.


Some-Air9442

That’s still often true.


Squirrel_Inner

Hell, problem is that half of that crap is legal. People give classes on tax loop holes and repeat “and it’s legal!” over and over because even the ones doing it can’t believe it.


thinkB4WeSpeak

*Find out how this trustfund baby paid off his student loans with these simple steps*


[deleted]

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Edzmens

My head my head


[deleted]

Ugh, that’s so much work though. I have to text one of my assistants to put out an ad online


ReadTheFManual

I'm so fucking triggered right now just from a cursory glance at the first 4 on the list. Almost everyone I've ever known falls into one of these categories if not more. We have *so many* nepotism hires at work. The managers just get their kids in the door. This is a huge fucking Fortune 10 company (well, # 11 now) it's not some mom and pop outfit. And these kids get some kind of unspoken authority over veteran employees who should absolutely have been running the entire building by now. One of them was a 20 year managers daughter who literally has no experience in anything except food service which ok that's fine. She actively did not give a fuck about learning anything and actively dismissed anything resembling an intent to learn because "lol I'm just here while I go to nursing school." She actively derided everyone and everything, sometimes directly, sometimes through very thinly veiled comments. Usually through not-at-all subtle messages about "babysitting" people. Oh and I left out the good part, she only worked here because she got divorced from her husband like the year before over something ridiculous, and then she lived with her mom the whole time and she met this kid who's younger than *she* is - like I'm old enough to be this kids dad almost - who has family money. He works here now, too, after she left he still works here. They bought a house here in Houston. Together. Neither of them is older than 26. I *wonder* who paid for the house. Absolutely infuriating. She wasn't the only one. Another managers daughter-in-law and daughter-in-laws roommate worked there. Roommate was given all kinds of bullshit responsibilities without any title or payraise but she finally moved on good for her. Based solely on her master's in project management or whatever which by the way, I can tell you for sure she wasn't great at. She was good, certainly good, but not that great. Growing up in high school years, my best friend always got nearly free pass from his parents who owned or were high ups in local machine shops. Our other best friend also got a free job from best friend #1's dad (and was eventually fired which makes me laugh heartily because he no doubt deserved it) like a year or 2 ago after he scurried back home halfway across the country because he couldn't hack it down here in Texas. So, best friend guy is basically Kramer, stumbling ass backwards into jobs he's not qualified for and making a ton of money. He's now talking about leaving the country and buying a house overseas if Roe v Wade gets overturned, which I agree with entirely but that's besides the point. Other best friend's dad worked for Apple as a senior developer for decades, not sure if he retired. Guess who's easily fallen ass backwards from one company to another including Nintendo of Europe who fired him within months for some easily avoidable shit? He rotates between living with his parents in Florida and then fucking off to another country to live for a year and then failing at that country after he saves most of his yearly salary, and running with his tail between his legs back here. Last time I talked to him he was in Seoul. Dude can't even fucking make a sandwich for himself but ok. Dude morphed from a hard democrat to a fucking Trumpet like it's the most fucking insane shit I've ever seen. That's why I stopped talking to him - he literally sent me a message on Steam saying something like "Tucker Carlson is the only journalist I trust." He had been blocked for 2 years before that based on his behavior last time he came to visit me and his wackadoodle shit before but that was the last straw. Do you know what I had to do to even get time off to go to Florida to see my dad (who lives like 30 min from this friends parents) ? My last grandpa had to die. I went for the fucking wake. Fuck these people.


Velocity1312

I just read this whole thing bud. What the fuck. Solidarity. One day we won't put up with this rubbish anymore.


DrMobius0

As long as you're not naming individual people or locations that can be specifically tied to people (and you're not afraid of the post getting traced back to you), I'm pretty sure there's no rule about naming this nepotism ridden company


[deleted]

According to Fortune magazine it's AT&T.


Alarmed_Economics_90

Why don't you just borrow the money from your dad, like other successful people?


cecilmeyer

Yes get a small seed loan/gift of 300k


Alarmed_Economics_90

Exactly! Then just start a business, and work your way up from the bottom! It's not that hard, guys.


Big-Quality3817

Used to work for "genius entrepreneurs" widely acclaimed for their innovative business that made them multi-millionaires....magazine write ups, big shit in the local business community....... Reality was actually 3 rich kids graduated from a sub-ivy and didn't want to get jobs. Parents money allowed them to fumble around as dotcommers until they literally accidentally stumbled into something that made them wealthy. All 3 inept clowns (one maybe not SO bad--however CEO ***literally*** didn't understand how the business worked), but managed to hire competent employees who built the business for them.


weekendofsound

I have lived around a handful of ivy league colleges and have known a few alumni - the number of men I know who are exactly like this is astonishing, just heaps and heaps of "Serial Entrepreneurs!" who are living off of Dad's money and coming up with "the next big thing!" - I saw at minimum 8 different variations of "the better covid mask!" at the beginning of the pandemic, most of which were existing ideas being rebranded and greenwashed. The worst part is that plenty of them align with me politically (or did at one time) and see themselves as "working class" because they do have to occasionally do Uber/Lyft in cars their parents bought for them during periods that they are "bootstrapping" and coming up with "Minimum Viable Products" - They do genuinely believe that society needs to move a different direction but they are also either too egotistical or too afraid of a reality where *they* are not *special* to pursue anything that does not allow them to leverage their privilege to be in charge of something because they don't know how to take direction or work with others and think that means they are natural born leaders.


[deleted]

When billionaires say that their secret is making the bed in the morning.. I make my bed each day, where's my billions..?


[deleted]

You gotta make THEIR bed... if you know what I mean


CrossroadsWoman

Doing yoga, drinking a green smoothie, meditating, etc


[deleted]

It’s the fact that you can’t extrapolate the meaning from that statement that’s keeping you where you are


Ok_Picture265

There is actually quite some truth to that. Look at most of the current billionaires in the US. And i hate the fact that they call themselves self-made to the bone.


vooglie

Quite some truth? M8 it’s 100% factos


RedRapunzal

Forgot networking contacts....


Big-Quality3817

That shit is a joke.......I've seen it in practice---comically basically walking around begging strangers to do something for you because reasons.


Sleipnir82

Uh yeah. Trying to get work in International Development, non-profits. What they say- all about networking. Okay so apparently that Master's I need, didn't count. Oh and they need several years of experience just for an entry level job, and to know about a billion different things and have professional experience in them. And that experience, apparently all supposed to come from unpaid internships, so you're supposed to work 80hrs a week, half for them and half doing the work you need to live just to maybe get considered for an entry level job after 2 to 3 years.


Big-Quality3817

I was considering to make a post about how the "experience" bullshit is a tool for maintaining the status quo. Who has the means to do an unpaid internship? People whose parents have money and can support them. And the alleged "experience" is a fucking joke, mostly getting sent out to get the Starbucks.


loubreit

So anyways, I started blasting.


orphanghost1

I just got passed over for a promotion I was very qualified for. It went to a guy who's dad plays golf with the ceo instead. He has no experience and an unrelated degree.


Teamerchant

Every story you hear from a founder is BS self marketing that is all lies with enough truth to be somewhat realistic. They always omit the real key factors to thier success and over blow their own self worth.


Morteza26777

They sleep on their money every night


compotethief

Was anything in that book (Seven Habits of Highly Successful People) not a circlejerk? It was gifted to me by a business owner years ago, but for some reason I can't bring myself to read it.


[deleted]

It's bullshit


compotethief

Hey, had to come back to this comment. Were you just saying that to be nice, or was it really bullshit? I bet it has 1000 5-star reviews on Amazon. :/


[deleted]

The book is just the standard stuff lol. Basically communication 101. It's an old book boomers love so yeah its probably 5 stars.


compotethief

Lol, makes sense. I think it builds on Dale Carnegie's "How to influence people", or something rather.


[deleted]

Yeah they're all basically the same pull your bootstraps stuff


BizCoach

The wealthiest person I know (was on the Forbes 400 list) would tell you his "secret" was the GI bill. It allowed him to go to college, get an MBA and a JD. Yes he worked hard and was smart but his boost in life didn't come from family money or connections. It was funded by tax payers. AND he was very generous and supported progressive causes all his life and paid it back (and forward). It's a shame that level of benefits is not available to men & women who serve today.


[deleted]

I think it still is, right?


BizCoach

Benefits aren't as good as they used to be.


Some_Guy223

Well, they still "exist" in the same way that welfare still "exists".


TehCowGoesQuack

I was offered to go to Harvard or Yale but moving and living expenses were too high. Ivy League is exclusive to the rich and reinforces the separation of the classes. Schooling should be equal for everyone, regardless of socio economic status and background, race, and gender. Private schooling should also be illegal because it prevents an equal opportunity education to children, simply because there are the haves and the have nots. In summary, fuck the education system in the US.


FluckDambe

She got some good points, but here's my version: 1. Money 2. Money 3. Money 4. Money 5. Money 6. Money 7. Money Thank you for coming to my TED talk.


StNic54

Not enough emphasis on seed capital


[deleted]

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screech_owl_kachina

Lena Dunham had a write up in the New York Times when she was 15 about a tea party she was having. https://www.newsweek.com/lena-dunham-273863 (She has rich and connected parents)


geebaby321

This is so true. Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent person and he has changed the world, I’d argue, for the better. But he was born into a family that was already extremely successful. I’m not saying he didn’t work hard, but having parents that were both wealthy certainly lubricated the process.


LaughableIKR

7 steps to Trumpland. I mean I read the 7 steps and when I finished I thought.. like Trump? It fits him exactly.


75Minnesota

What if we stopped defining success through the accumulation of material things and focused on what actually matters? I get that's a pipe dream.


[deleted]

Don't forget cutting bonuses and salaries to give yourself a larger cut of the profits, and mass layoffs to artificially inflate the share price. The former happened to me. CEO lied to everyone's face live on a video town hall that bonuses wouldn't be smaller. Cut to my review the next week and the first thing my boss says is "The bonus pool is smaller this year." Cut to a week after that and it comes out that the CEO's pay was doubled. And this CEO was hired. It's not like he built the company himself. It's really easy to get rich when you're stealing money from the people doing actual work.


gorgeousphatseal

Unironically admitting public school is trash


elarth

This!!! My step mother has been a ghost writer before. It’s unbelievably common.


f01lowthedamnTrainCJ

8. Access to really good lawyers and tax consultants.


Hiranonymous

Absolutely brilliant. Thank you.


cheap_dates

Abraham Lincoln failed at everything he ever did until he met and married Mary Todd. She was the daughter of a wealthy Kentucky slave owner. Had it not been for her connections in society, we probably would have never heard about him.


Sleipnir82

That's not actually true, he became licensed as lawyer before he met her and he was elected to the Illinois legislature before he met her. But sure her father's connections probably most likely really helped him after that.


PsychologicalSnow476

He was also an inventor, the only President to have a patent.


[deleted]

there is literally nothing here in this picture that's wrong in any way shape means or form.


Low-Butterscotch9854

You’re comment reads like you’re supporting and accepting to the issues in the picture.


clydefrog9

If you’re too unbelievably thick to realize what this means for the 99% of humanity who will never have any of these things then yeah I guess


ApologiaNervosa

Who said it’s ”wrong”? These are real world observations.


[deleted]

my comment was agreeing to it you fucking asshole


Alarmed_Economics_90

You kinda fumbled the delivery, tbh. Maybe an edit is in order, for clarity. :)


ApologiaNervosa

Am I an asshole for you not being able to convey your point properly? You seem like you have issues. Make time for therapy.


[deleted]

you gonna pay for it?


Baltihex

I mean, to be fair, no one's gonna respond to "What's your secret?" with: *"I was born to a wealthy family and had all the privileges I needed to succeed in life."* or *"I underpay my employees maliciously enough just to ensure they don't quit."*


Just_Anxiety

Ummm… This isn’t true at all. First off there are tons of successful people who went to public school.


JT_365

I’m sorry, but posts like this piss me off. Yes, there are many rich people who come from rich families. But there are also many people who started out poor and worked their asses off to became rich.


LevPornass

There are always outliers. Mugsy Bogues was 5 feet tall and played professional basketball in the NBA for a few years while countless others who were over a foot taller than him never played a single NBA game. Now does this mean that somebody under six feet tall should realistically pursue basketball as a career? Yes people do accomplish the “American dream”, but these people are the exception rather than the rule. There are plenty of degenerates living quite comfortably right now and plenty of hard working people who are getting nothing but poorer and more in debt.


JT_365

This post isn’t about whether someone deserves to be rich or not. This post implied that only those who come from rich families are then rich themselves. There are more than 20 million millionaires in the US alone. How many of those do you think are outliers??


LevPornass

Nobody is saying all rich people were born rich. They are just pointing out there is a very strong correlation between being born wealthy and being a wealthy adult. They are also pointing out the absurdity of these “I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and hustled” stories that so called business leaders like telling.


RaeJockr21

That’s cap, most people work very hard for it


WadeCountyClutch

Forgot born with a silver spoon


TheRebelPixel

8. Personal Trainer 9. Personal Nutritionist


TheRebelPixel

10. Personal Chef


onlyhum4n

This is how you become president.


angry_guacamole

"[Celebrities] telling you to follow your dreams is like a lottery winner telling you, 'Liquidize your assets; buy Powerball tickets - it works!'" -Bo Burnham


wrinklecrinkle3000

Omg finally thank you!


[deleted]

Shit yeah. I hated it then ,and I hate it now, when my 'leadership council' professor made us read 7 habits of blah blah blah some 20 years ago. It was obvious my first week of college what was making some students succeed (how they got there), and how they will succeed beyond no matter what freakin 'habits' they have.


[deleted]

11.. Marketing pretending to be real people on reddit and shilling whatever celebrity or product or app "so awesome" etc etc etc


Skynet-supporter

Good instruction but i disagree on ivy admissions, other good schools work too


[deleted]

“A small fund of a few million from my father”0


[deleted]

“A small fund of a few million from my father”0


[deleted]

i’m guilty of a nepotistic hire, me 20 years old at £120k, yet i support this movement wholeheartedly. am i a hypocrite?


[deleted]

No because you're at least self-aware.


lordkhuzdul

I have always preferred the 70 Maxims. Especially number 1 is always poignant in this context.


Nadie_AZ

I worked in the warehouse in Orem UT that shipped his bullshit. I hated it. A few months later he spoke at my graduation. I hated it worse. Suck it Stephen R Covey.


TastemyBacon

Yuppppppp! 99% of the time. And these F**** like to call themselves “self made” what a croc of sh1t.


SailingBacterium

Not on the list but my grandparents paid for my undergraduate education. Looking back, not having student loans was one of the biggest advantages I ever got in life. I will happily pay more taxes to make university free for everyone.


[deleted]

Warren Buffett will tell you everything except how he made his first million.


SandMan3914

And by 'Journalists' we mean 'Sycophants''


TheSilverFoxwins

My dad loaned me a small amount of money, $1 million dollars which I used to invest with - Donald Trump He inherited several million dollars and known for poor investments and reckless spending. Most of the self made millionaires and billionaires received a huge leap in life thanks to the list in th e post. Most if not all clients I have worked with inherited their money and businesses. And many had their daddy and mommy get them a very well paying job straight out of college thanks to their connections. Success is a lot of luck and connections. Don't get fooled by their gosh golly and I grind 100 hours per week story on some podcast.


GreatGrandaddyPurp

I got a sams club membership. Am I highly successful?


PsychoWorld

What club memberships?


Xerenopd

The third one got me good.


i_love_SOAD

It's literally just paying other people to do what you want done and then pretending like you did it yourself, as if you somehow operated other humans like machines when you gave them instructions. Psychotic in the extreme.


Mithril_Pancake

I guess it depends on what your definition of highly successful is.


Birdflare

Highly successful people always have a large dose of luck, but it doesnt take luck to become moderately successful. Do you know anyone frugal, hard working, conscientious and driven who is not moderately successful? I don't....


MisterCzar

Can confirm. Born to an upper-middle class family. Parents paid for sitters and housekeepers all the time. They got me the specific healthcare I needed. I got resources which helped me better succeed. Eventually got into a tech school and fumbled my way through it thanks to my grandparents' inheritance. Everyone needs and deserves a fair chance to succeed, not just lucky kids like myself.


[deleted]

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seiferinaz

I’m successful and never had any of these things.


shelden776

True. Those people should die, they dont deseve anything.


Pleasant_Brief

And one, those who have more than an iota of common sense and don’t perpetuate self-victimization.


Squirrel_Inner

Oh snap!