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Comment by throw18374 | Hacker News Reader

Isn’t it possible to become a billionaire without anyone knowing?

What if you just get there quietly through private investment?

Not a billion, but I’ve built up a decent chunk myself and nobody seems to know or even suspect that about me. Nobody begs me for anything more than spare change, no sycophants, nobody trying to impress me. Marketing for luxury goods doesn’t even reach me.

I could easily see myself reaching a billion in a few decades just through private investment, and there must be thousands of people doing the same. I imagine there are many more who have earned millions publicly, then sold their stake and went to a billion privately.

So how does everyone find out about them?

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> Isn’t it possible to become a billionaire without anyone knowing?

Yes, it's possible to do it quasi-quietly. This optometrist did exactly that.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2019/02/19/the-great...

https://outline.com/9H4YAb

"Optometrist Herb Wertheim may be the greatest individual investor the world has never heard of, and he has the Fidelity statements to prove it. Leafing through printouts he has brought to a meeting, you can see hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks like Apple and Microsoft, purchased decades ago during their IPOs. An $800 million-plus position in Heico, a $1.8 billion (revenue) airplane-parts manufacturer, dates to 1992. There are dozens of other holdings, ranging from GE and Google to BP and Bank of America."

"The Microsoft shares he bought during the IPO, which have been paying dividends since 2003, are now worth more than $160 million. His 1.25 million shares of Apple, some purchased during its 1980 IPO and some when the stock was languishing at $10 in the 1990s, are worth $195 million."

The Bloomberg billionaires index does exactly this... Out private billionaires.

First off it's hard being a billionaire and people not knowing. You're going to make a splash somehow. But there's still plenty of billionaires, especially in emerging market countries, that have still to be uncovered.

I find it pretty funny that Bloomberg himself is hidden on that list.

>I could easily see myself reaching a billion in a few decades

So your plan to "easily" become a billionaire is to "follow Warren Buffet" and make decades worth of out-performing private investments?

Wait until you learn that markets don't go up forever, and that paper profits on out-of-touch valuations aren't cash. As they say, "everyone's a genius in a bull market".

Whats your endgoal? I was thinking the other day about fortune, wealth and becoming wealthy. I’d very much prefer to not pursue becoming wealthy and concentrate on a diferent goal. I don’t think I could change the world in a financial sense, I might as well contribute positively from a different angle that is not from a wealthy position. That’s why I am asking you what your endgoal is since you chose anonimity and not to flaunt your wealth. I suspect you don’t need any kind of validation or any other ego tickling so do you have an endgoal that you’d like to pursue through your acumulated wealth?

I plan on following in Warren Buffett’s footsteps. Without his influence, I would be working the graveyard shift at a gas station right now.

End goal career-wise is to amass as much wealth as possible by giving smart and capable people a path to building new things that benefit everyone, and then direct that amassed wealth toward the betterment of humanity before I die.

I’m not sure exactly how I’ll do that.

I actually think most philanthropic organizations do more harm than good. I think an effective non-profit would probably look like a boring faceless middleman, affecting positive change by influencing capitalistic markets to serve the underserved. By serve I mean serve, not provide goods to.

I also have my own idea of what it means to better humanity. I think there are better ways to feed and shelter people than feeding and sheltering them.

Whatever I do, it’ll probably be really boring, won’t provide for any photo ops, and there’s a good chance it might even seem pointless and ineffective to most people.

Alright, I'll bite. How do you feed and shelter people without feeding and sheltering them?

It means enabling them to do it themselves and not make them dependent on someone's aid. Creating such an environment and opportunities, bootstrapping them so to speak.

You mean by creating an economy where everyone is paid sanely, instead of an economy geared to moving wealth from people who don't have it to people who do?

When you say private investment are you just talking opening a vanguard account and putting money into stocks and ETFs?

Both of those methods are accessing the public markets. Private investment means investing in non publicly traded companies. Like venture capital... For example

That kind of investment requires having a large amount of capital to begin with.

There are many websites that cater to private investments. Usually you need to be an accredited investor. But you don't need huge amounts of capital.

https://angel.co/ for example.

Or being a founder / early employee of a company that ends up being successful. You'd invest your time / energy / knowledge in that case.

You can invest in listed PE / VC funds and lots of larger actively managed funds have some PE element.

For example in the UK Electra and III are PE funds and Witan in the UK as 10 or 15 % in private investments.

And that's not including UK specific things like VCT's where you would need to have a few k to invest

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