What do wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about? (2015)
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For example I wish someone told me about the existence of Miele kitchen equipment before I accidentally rented an apartment of a well-to-do woman. She renovated it for herself but then rented out when circumstances changed.
Similarly it took me a long time to realize just how much better the veneer wood furniture and doors are compared to laminated chipwood. Price is 3-4 times higher but it lasts 5-10 times longer and is much more pleasant to use. Unfortunately you need years to notice such long-term differences, unless someone tells you.
And I'm basically learning to be lower-middle class here. I'm sure there are similar things to know in higher stratas and I'm unlikely to live long enough to find out naturally even if I happen to get the money somehow.
Castles are old. And drafty. And need a LOT of renovations to bring them up to a modern standard. So he had immediately set upon this work, hiring contractors, picking out high-end appliances, arranging for the import of Italian marble countertops...
And once the place was looking nice, he threw a housewarming (castlewarming?) party, and invited all the folks from the neighboring castles. And at this party, he was regaling one of the old-money guests with how nice the downdraft range was, and how it really felt special with the new counters.
"Fascinating.", replied Old-money. "I have never been in my kitchen."
English aristocracy really knows how to cut someone to size when they feel like.
Not much in the Reddit reply checks out for me. It's true that the $700M guy socializes with "Senators/Congressmen/community leaders." He travels a lot, and comfortably, but has no ownership in a jet. He retired young-ish and no longer works so maybe that's why. He doesn't flash his wealth around except to women he likes, and it's an absolute magnet for them, he gets pretty much any woman he wants to sleep with him simply by being a decent guy who's also worth $750M. I mean, they know that as long as he's dating them they will have a life of permanent luxury travel and not have to work, so not a surprise.
But beyond that he's pretty unassuming, doesn't flash his wealth, and mainly just likes to talk about finance and give people business advice.
The $10-30M people don't seem much different from me. Their contingencies for dealing with potential financial catastrophes run a lot deeper than mine. Their property is worth more and they do travel a bit more frequently and lavishly than I do. Idk nobody I know is doing this stuff where they're really fixated on getting into the best restaurant in town, or they're totally inaccessible except through their "people" and personal assistants.
I don't know a lot of it sounds like a type of person I don't associate with I guess, maybe I am not flamboyant and rich enough. I know there are rich people out there who spend like this guy describes; I interact with them very occasionally and briefly; I'm sure I am super boring to them; I question whether they remain that rich for very long :)
I don't know anyone who hobnobs with celebrities nor wants to. The comment is 10 years old, maybe Hollywood has lost its cultural cachet. Eureka, that's it: this is probably a post about Hollywood people.
My wife has an uncle that uses his access to wealth and some connections to meet and develop friendships with sports players. It's not even that expensive but you do have to have the personality to be somewhat charming and have the ability to exploit connections. Once you have an in, you can extend that to others. If I had his money, I'd move out to the middle of the woods and never talk to anyone. I just depends on what you like to do.
He seemed a pretty regular guy, very friendly: kids playing in the pool. Nothing out of the ordinary except as many house employees as adult guests (and house employees where calling guests by their name).
I happened to know the artist Jeff Koons: not a big fan of the "inflated balloon dogs" but I do like his ballerinas. Well... Turns out the dude had one house destroyed then rebuilt to accommodate a 3 meters high Jeff Koons sculpture of two ballerinas.
I don't know exactly but I take it that's a $15m sculpture. I'd say most people don't know who Jeff Koons is and most people have no idea that some people shall just level an entire house just to have an architect redesign a new house, at the same place, so that a sculpture can now be admired from the living room, kitchen and garden.
He's got several paintings from Basquiat too. He's actually in the top 200 of the world's top art collectors (I found that out by googling his name after having been to his place).
And he's got his art pieces sprinkled around the world, in his many properties.
> The $10-30M people don't seem much different from me.
Definitely not very different. One little fantasy I saw not one but two people in that range do is buy several times the exact same car. Identical. Same config. Then they use one as a daily, and put the the others at different vacation places they have: so they land, take a cab, then get to enjoy the same car. Weird but I've seen two people do it, so I take it's a thing? One had identical Range Rover, the other identical Lexus.
Not real petrolheads: rich car petrolheads are actually going to own fancy stuff like old Ferrari 250 (even if "just" a GTE), old GT40, old Porsche, etc. which every body expects rich people to have if they're into cars at all.
But yup: buying x times the exact same car when times comes to change cars is kinda just weird.
Don't believe the hype. I got an apartment full with Miele kitchen equipment (from the previous owner, but less than 10 years old). They're nothing special, and I got a lot more random errors on the oven ("please contact service", tried that once, they were as clueless as you'd expect) than in my previous Siemens kitchen.
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. ... A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. ... But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socio-economic unfairness."
That being said, I've noticed that a lot of clothes that I bought 10 years ago or so are of pretty high quality compared to today, (and no, they are not rich man's clothes). Some of them I actually have been wearing for more than 10 years now.
But on the other hand, consider running shoes - most modern ones, even the expensive ones, will wear out in a few hundred kms and are usually non-repairable.
The problem is that if an Ikea furniture lasts 15 years then that's enough. People no longer need 50-100 years furniture, because nobody wants to inherit old stuff anymore.
Life's circumstances change faster and buying quality often isn't worth it. Maybe a Miele dishwasher last twice as long at double the price. But it will become old after 10 years even so.
I'm going to challenge this assertion: did anyone, ever? Looking around in my parents' house (retirement age), there's no furniture from their parents (post-WW2). I don't remember whether my grandparents had any furniture of their parents in use either.
I do recall going to the charity shops and finding older wooden furniture; while I recognize it as better quality as what you can get today, at the same time it's no longer useful today. TV cabinets (with doors) for CRT TVs and video tapes, writing tables, those kinds of things are obsolete. Tables are timeless though.
But also, over time a lot of that old furniture was either destroyed or bought up and exported. What you find in the charity stores near me today is mostly 90's and onwards.
It... won't support the new dishes that come out in the 2030s?
Like, other than energy efficiency (and this is basically already into diminishing returns for appliances like dishwashers), what must-have progress are you expecting?
When we redid our kitchen our fitter had to argue with our whitegoods supplier for us.
The guy in the shop couldn't understand why I wanted a built in Miele fridge-freezer over what ever generic he wanted to off load. His argument was that nobody would be able to see the logo so it didn't matter and we should just take the cheaper item.
My argument was that the Miele was much more energy efficient and would be running 24/7.
Given that enegry costs have risen substantially since then I think I made the correct choice and that the difference in purchase price has more than been offset.
High end furniture is the kind, like goodyear welted boots, where you keep it forever and reupholster it every 10 years.
This is a textbook example of why you can't get a serious answer to anything nuanced on a vote based platform. The low common denominator stuff that is easy to agree with gets everybody clicking the right-think button and to the top it goes. Anything with nuance or controversy gets buried.
Even this comment I am replying to probably wouldn't have wound up where it is did it not pay homage to the god of groupthink by cheerleading for Meile, though any other brand the upper middle class likes would have fulfilled the same rhetorical purpose.
Sometimes they're overpriced (Miele is), sometimes they're expensive to maintain (try get a stain out of marble), sometimes they're not durable (think of cashmere sweaters). There is no secret sauce that tells you whether the price of something you buy is a proxy for its qualities. And when you buy something expensive, you're kind of pissed when it breaks.
That's why many wealthy people go for the expensive luxury shit at first, like buying a Porsche, or a 30k kitchen remodel, only to go back to good old Toyota and ikea kitchen, cause they're just as fine and a fifth of the price / maintenance.
You usually learn those things the hard way.
Hardly rich, but that "veneer wood furniture and doors" are much better than "laminated chipwood" is common knowledge. But back in the day, poor and rich alike wouldn't look twice at either, but opt for solid wood furniture.
It depends on your background. I grew up in Russia in the 90s, back then it was considered cool to put plastic panels on the walls of your apartment. Fresh and modern look, easy to wash, clearly superior to wallpaper. It was called "euro-renovation" as opposed to soviet-style or "grandma" apartments.
The display luxury category: anything by LVMH, Birkin bags, limited edition sneakers, Ferrari, etc
The "better product for more money" category: Miele, wood furniture, Lexus etc
Also miele has too much marketing hype. Want the ultimate appliances? Buy professional equipment. Like washing machine that are used in hotels.
The dishwasher sanitizes the dishes via very hot water and thorough coverage, but does not really clean anything. It has high temperatures and high throughput - 5 minute cycles. Basically a completely different use case and probably unsuitable for a home.
One, there are things you can do with veneer that you cannot be done in solid wood. You can resaw a board to get a book matched panel in solid wood, but you generally cannot get a four-way match because of either pattern shift, not enough thickness to start with, or basically creating veneer the hard way. This generalizes to radial matches with more pieces. That's the most basic example. There are many other things you can do with veneer that are impossible to execute in solid wood. See here[0] for more examples.
Two: professional equipment is not usually built to the customary dimensions of a private residence. A commercial range is a hell of a lot deeper than standard counter depth (about 24" in the US, probably 60cm or thereabouts in Europe because it's based off of how far you can comfortably reach). I looked into this after getting spoiled cooking on a commercial range once. It's not the cost of the range that kills you; it's the cost of the kitchen renovation to accommodate it.
There are vendors that build closer to professional quality appliances sized to residential standards. We lucked into a used Capital range a year ago for a number of dollars we could afford. It's built a lot better than a strictly residential unit and has a weight to match.
[0] https://ctfinefurniture.com/ I am unaffiliated other than owning his excellent book, which I regularly consult when I'm doing veneer work.
Just what I thought and wanted to add.
I guess if an appliance is used each day for several hours, that will last a lifetime in my home for use once or twice a week.
Downside: Professional kitchen equipment is also optimized for being easy to clean. Could be a problem if you don't like pure stainless steel very much... ;-D
I'm uncomfortably enamored with this dishwasher. (Bought it over a Bosch as the percentage needing repair in the first year was 8% instead of 12% and I was flat done with it.)
The dishwasher is fully enclosed...the typical DW is open at the back with all the guts just barely contained in an open structure.
To balance the dishwasher, you slide it into the nook and turn two bolt heads that have a mechanism that raise the back of the dishwasher after it's set in place.
There are instructions on how to install matching cabinet faces...the buttons are on the top of the door...if you want zero indication you have a dishwasher, they'll accomodate.
While the drawers(?) are well thought out and can take a lot of dishes, it shines when you're entertaining, it flat SOAKS UP dishes and flatware and has cycles to safely wash crystal. We never seem to use this.
It has pucks full of detergent, a load now a days costs about $1.80...more than I'd like, but the simple avoidance of pouring soap and having a sixpack delivered when you need it is a crazy luxury.
5 years in and it's been faultless.
That seems.. fine? Why spend a bunch of money/effort on dressing up something that'd get seen for a few hours max?
>It has pucks full of detergent, a load now a days costs about $1.80...more than I'd like, but the simple avoidance of pouring soap and having a sixpack delivered when you need it is a crazy luxury.
Is pouring out detergent powder really that much of an advantage? At best you're saving a few seconds because you don't have to portion out the soap. Using loose detergent also means you can sprinkle a bit outside of the dispenser, which improves the per-rinse cycle. That means you're getting a worse wash by using tablets, because there's only detergent for the main cycle.
No thanks. I’ll take something that is less so but will work for years without complaint.
Isn't this also down to age? That is, stuff like that built 100 years ago is - in my head - better quality.
However, this may very well be survivorship bias - of course anything built 100 years ago still around today is good, because anything that wasn't as good is long gone. Like my ikea furniture will be as soon as I try to move it.
It's a 100% surviorship bias. The knockoff "ikea" style flatpack dresser that I assembled (incorrectly) when I was 12 lasted 20 years, and only finally went away because I was moving in with my girlfriend and we could afford slightly more "real" and coordinated furniture. It would have continued to work for longer.
The stuff that lasts 100 years is primarily just whatever is bought by people who treat their stuff well. That has vastly more impact than any product design excluding the modern planned obsolescence and negligence with electronics.
Basically any Toyota can make it to 250k miles, but the Million Mile Lexus is still impressive to people because it tells you about the history of the car more than the manufacturer. If you want to know what cars will make it to 1 million miles, you don't look at reliability stats, you look at what was bought by middle aged wealthy men who were good friends with very careful mechanics.
I'm referring to my consistent experience of buying both laminated chipwood and veneer wood things, then seeing the former disintegrate within 5 years and the latter last 10 years with no visible damage.
It's all good now, I just wish it didn't take me 10 years to gain this knowledge. On another hand if I got it much earlier it wouldn't benefit me either because I could only afford cheap stuff anyway.
The referenced reply is dull. It's very pretentious but just reiterates common knowledge, it doesn't convey any useful information.
I disagree strongly - its not a multiple-gold answer that is now being linked to years later for no reason. I read it years ago and have always remembered it - one of those rare internet comments that I think is a classic informational moment, well-written and illuminating.
You also need to be able to afford the higher up front price. Sam Vimes boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness in practice.
I find it such a weird argument. Ok, your furniture from 1900 is still doing great, fantastic. The problems are:
1. Your great-grandfather had a different sense of esthetics, so shit just didn't fit your modern apartment.
2. You moved to a different country, and shipping fees of the furniture were ten times the cost of brand-new chipwood furniture (literally).
3. The furniture was designed with usage in mind that simply doesn't exist in modern world.
4. It was made specifically to fill a certain room. Your new place has a different layout. Deal with it.
These arguments are even more true in the context of technology. "Look, my grandma's black-and-white TV is still working!"... great? I'd rather have a modern 4k OLED, but I guess that's just personal preference. Not to mention how having expensive things makes you a prisoner of these things. If your cat ruins Ikea cabinet, you'll be angry for a day. If your cat ruins your family heirloom, you'll be pissed.
You don’t want your home to feel like an ikea catalog surely!?
1. OP finds it "much more pleasant to use" which I believe includes the aesthetic side. "your modern appartement" is your take, but is it? and how old modern? There's an universe of different styles that have been implemented in the past, in a multi dimensional sense: it may be influenced by the state of the art of that time (available tools, wood...), the vogue (not necessarily correlated with state of the art) and the context (unique fancy piece for someone wealthy that paid for, unique simple piece for your family, small series by a semi industrial workshop).
2. True, however your old chipwood furniture may not be newish enough for the next householder so A. he/you needs to ditch it B. buy a new one. With a quality furniture you often can re-sell it at almost the same price you bought it, there's no devaluation but only a seller commission if you don't want to bother.
3. I have in front of me a drawer that was build by the gran-gran-gran-pa (yes!) of my wife and... drawers are drawers. Same for stools, bed or tables. I understand your point as there's usages that are lost like furniture-like-clock but some others weird stuff still come back every time because they actually are clever [0]
4. I'm not sure what you're talking about: integrated kitchen (and so) are made to fill a certain room, not the wooden furniture I'm familiar with that you can literally place where you want. New place and not enough space ? Sell it (the the new owner or someone else) and buy another one that fits better. You hardly sell a cheapwood furniture. Moreover, moving to new places have other drawbacks to deal with that you take into account when making the decision. I'm not arguing you sloudn't move, but it's a process that isn't always trivial. For exemple many US residents won't be able to bring their tank-car aboard for legal and/or practical reasons. Or their digged swimming pool. Or whatever if they move to inner Tokyo.
TV => The image quality is wined by the news devices image, however ss you mention "expensive things" I'd like to point out a B&W tv is probably way cheaper and robust that and the 4K OLED one. But there's room for choices in-between, and I a agree the argumentation works better with furniture than electronics.
CAT scratch => That's the beauty of the made-to-last furniture: Wood ? sand it, a bit of varnish and you're done. Fabric ? tear off the piece and nail a new one. They're not museum pieces but day-to-day home helpers.
I do wonder what household appliances these homes have that Enes Yilmazer shows on his YouTube channel. It seems it's always the same huge black/silver color washer and dryer.
But your comment on Meile, nice kitchen cabinets, sounds like you're looking only for what the next tier above you is enjoying. (And go Bosch for the dishwasher, BTW.)
No, not really. These are examples of things I know from N+1 level. I'm curious to hear about N+2, N+3 and so on. Some of the points shared in this thread fit nicely, like "buying identical cars in locations you visit often". Or something like "don't by 488, find a used 458 instead -- it's more fun for lower price" would be appreciated.
The original post instead just rambles like this: "I know rich people, let me tell you how rich they are. You wouldn't believe it. Like, really really rich. Like they have their own island, you know".
I don't see how that's useful.
If you are rich then you can buy something that is 20 times more expensive and lasts twice as long. The efficiency doesn't matter as much when it's chump change either way.
The design itself has some "German overfeatured" idiosyncrasies to me. Like, when the wash is done, a little stick extends out of the top of the machine pushing the door open to vent. But then, when you tug on the door to open it, you can hear a little geared motor spin and retract that stick. Just more stuff to design, add to BOM, and to break.
I bought it because they have a good rep. But I’ve owned this dishwasher for 15 years and it’s still going.
My Fisher and Paykel fridge I’ve had for 20+ years and it’s never needed any maintenance whatsoever. To me that’s pretty amazing.
So they do have perceived quality of being more expensive but more long lasting goods.
I had ikea stuff that:
- bubbled when liquid spilled on it
- scratched easily
- had screws loosen over time. basically all of them
(this was non-kitchen stuff, I just haven't bought a kitchen from them)
That's... pretty standard in Europe
There's a pretty good saying about 10$ boots that last a year or 100$ ones that last 10 years
If you're well enough, you can probably afford more things that you can use anyways, so it makes sense to optimize for those that give you the most kicks for your bucks, even if they're technically more expensive.
Miele are German in fact.
If I were wealthy, I’d be getting solid hardwood…
Central Vac's are easily 4X as powerful for often the same price as the over priced Miele stuff.
i'd pay not to own Miele
What do you do? You convince one of your old running buddies, who now coaches elite runners, to coach your son. The son sets the national high school indoor record for the 800m.
Son decides to go pro after graduating high school.
Then Covid19 hits. Access to outdoor 400 tracks is limited. What do you do?
You build an 8 lane 400m track with running surface to match the quality at the site of the Word/US track and field championships. Cost: ~$4M
You hire the best coaches for your kids. Coach needs a place to stay nearby - no problem, buy a townhouse for him to stay at. etc.
see https://www.letsrun.com/news/2025/05/how-josh-hoey-went-from...
Suppose you have more than enough money for you and your family to live out their lives without needing to worry about that. Now that's solved, you can move on to what you actually want to happen in your life, such as helping your kids become pro athletes.
By putting in the same level of extreme effort into any classicaly well paying profession you would highly likely become very rich and successful.
In this case, it might seem to be "what trick can I use that ultra-wealthy use?" or "how can I be prosperous on a budnget" but it really is "what is it like to be rich?"
I think the conclusion is probably that they don't buy anything we don't know about.
> Title: What do insanely wealthy people buy, that ordinary people know nothing about?
> Text: I was just spending a second thinking of what insanely wealthy people buy, that the not insanely wealthy people aren't familiar with (as in they don't even know it's for sale)?
The comment just plain and straight doesn't answer the question being asked.
It's kinda amazing how much more it is upvoted than comments with relevant answers. Maybe because emotions from dreaming of what it's like being rich (that's what it actually goes about) are so strong, the interpretation of the question is getting bent towards experiencing them.
Money can't buy happiness but nether could the absence of money. It's not really a good argument against money.
This is a symptom of societal unfairness. In this case there are different ways to react, but this is one of them. Tennis isn’t oppressing anyone, so no one is getting emotional about the pro tennis players knowing all the tips.
But the story since the 70s has been that you can have anything you want if you just work hard enough and are skilled enough (particularly in North America and the UK). Which means that if you don’t have something you want, then it is no one’s fault but your own.
Except in realty there are a whole host of external factors that influence once’s ability are accrue nice things.
It’s hard to reconcile these two things in our minds. We don’t have any narrative except the current one. So either we accept that we’re simply not good enough, or we accept things are broken with no solution. The former is often the most emotionally tolerable.
So when people see people with more than them, they don’t think, “good for them, we all choose how much we want to work for and I’m happy at my level”. Instead there is a collision of irreconcilable thoughts, and what comes out is, “they’ll never know what true love is”.
The life of the rich, other than status, is very much like the life of upper middle class. The same phones, the same digital entertainment, the same appliances in their homes.
We have very few items for the rich to buy. Honestly, it is a problem it breaks incentives and it drives the rich more towards status goods which help no one since they are zero sum.
We should have expensive products which actually improve lives.
That's why a lot of poor people who unlock large amount of money go broke quite fast, they still think like poor people
Perhaps my sample pool is skewed, but the billionaires and centimillionaires I know live pretty modest lives in general - yes, they fly first class, stay in the best hotels, and all that jazz, but they’re unpretentious, and you wouldn’t know them from the upper middle class family sat at the next table. In fact, one I know regularly gets weird looks because he’ll be in some elite country club in his coffee-stained slacks and threadbare jumper - but there’s the rub - he doesn’t care. The guy who looks rich is probably up to his eyeballs in debt. The guy who looks like the janitor probably owns the place.
I think the single biggest thing wealth buys is not giving a shit what other people think. You don’t have to play status games when you know you’re the big dog in the room, even if nobody else knows it. I mean, I take perverse joy in showing up at places looking like I just crawled out of a gutter, because I know it doesn’t matter - my money is good.
The very wealthy are going to fly private. Upper middle class could swing this on a case-to-case basis, but not regularly and especially if not if they frequently travel
Other than that, the main difference is the very wealthy having a mentality of getting people to "take care of problems" to a much larger extent. For example, routine tasks like cleaning. An upper MC person might have a weekly cleaner at best. But they still have to load/unload dishwasher, do their own laundry, etc. A very rich person has a full-time housekeeper.
The very rich have circles of people they rely on to take care of problems. Like having "a lawyer" who they go to for and have known for years. There seems to be much more of a sense of personal relationships / loyalty. Almost like the old feudal oaths.
At the higher levels, there's a "family office" which takes care of such things. All bills go there, and anything that needs to be done, they take care of. The first big one was the Rockefellers', which was in Rockefeller Center in New York. (That turned into a business. Now it offers Being Rich as a Service.)
So does any middle class family living in a developing country with high economic inequality.
That has more to do with owning business interests than wealth. The guy who owns a small chain of a mundane business, has stake in another business via investment, etc, etc, his social circle looks roughly the same.
Pfft... amateurs. I've solved the same problem by just living in filth.
like
>Access. You now can just ask your staff to contact anyone and you will get a call back.
Funnily, my parents always call back within 60 seconds even midnight, while a certain someone get disowned by their kids.
>For a donation of $100k+ to his charity, you could probably play a match with him.
For a donation of 16k you can have a 1 on 1 zoom call with Keanu Reeves. He advertised this pretty well, so "ordinary people" should know this.
At this point, all the riches and riches are on SNS flexing their wealth, I don't think there is anything left that ordinary people just couldn't browse SNS and see what can you buy with those money.
Signalling Status plays a big role in group formation/group maintenance/social cohesion etc.
The larger groups grow, the more complex the group dynamics get, keeping groups of people together and preventing them from disintegrating is one of the most complex problem we face, given all the differences in culture, religion, language, class, personalities, ambitions, values, needs, intelligence, skill, education level, interests etc etc
A short cut frequently used (cause its easy) is using Leisure and Luxury (see Theory of the Leisure Class).
"So you like what I wear, where I stay, what I eat, who my friends are, what toys I have and want to be like me or hang out with me then do what I say". This works pretty well. In fact Veblen's prediction in Theory of the Leisure Class was that since Tech has a tendency to eliminate waste, tech would eventually eliminate the need for a Leisure/Status signalling Class that keeps large groups from unraveling.
But social cohesion of large groups is such a complex problem, society even today requires all kinds of Status Signalling to keep the groups together.
If you find ways to keep groups together without status signalling you are onto something special.
The people I know with a net worth over 10m do not display it. Why would they want to. It only has downsides and no upside. Same applies to other forms of status/rank/belonging.
(Not contradicting your points, merely adding to them.)
If you want to experiment with that, try to NOT match other people’s style AND radiate a deep sense of security/belonging/entitlement. Do not hide your (other) insecurities; those with status don’t have to hide their authenticity. This may sound like a contradiction at first, but you can develop an universal sense of belonging that remains authentic. You will be surprised which people will suddenly find you to talk with you, once you stop seeking their attention.
We should strive to remove ourselves from these games as much as possible and not to lean into them as LVMH would like.
Rejecting such superficial signaling only enhances one's life, IMO.
There might be reasons for high prices, like costly manufacture, but no one is going to refuse to expand their market by 10000x if they are able to bring costs down.
They have Miele appliances, but having "same appliances" doesn't make justice to the fact that there are deeper differences. Yes, they're status goods, but I think one's life might greatly improve by being very wealthy - even if your life can still be shitty as a wealthy person
The oven is mediocre at best, my Annova Precision Oven is much much better, much better control of temperature, heats up much faster, has more features, infinitely cheaper.
The range hood needs to be repaired because it makes a lot of noise. Repair of Miele appliances are super expensive.
The only appliance I'm impressed with is the wine cave but that's a white labeled Liebherr
You aren’t alone
Goods, yes. Services, fuck no. Look at the Four Seasons and Amangani yacht and jet programmes for a <$10mm example of the sorts of experiences wealth opens up.
The four seasons isn't materially better than the hilton next door. The rooms are basically the same, the fixtures at the four seasons are fancier, the bedding is prettier, some random furniture may be sourced from a different supplier. The four seasons will be in a location which has somewhat better views.
The four seasons has prettier and more attentive staff, and there are less "less well off" at the four seasons. And you get to brag that you went to the "four seasons" but it really isn't that much better.
It's almost all status.
I have nothing bad to say and everything good about how they handled our stay. Whether it was worth the price is (as this whole topic is about) relative to your means. I would say that it was more than we would have paid, but now that we've experienced it it's on my radar as a reasonable value. Their signature "Butler" service was beyond amazing; traveling with my son is difficult at the best of times and they handled everything.
They essentially allowed me to have an actual vacation vice allowing me to handle a series of challenges and let the rest of my family have a vacation (which is the normal way things go).
So... More plus influence.
I think the only thing listed that people with less money don't really "know about" is how much perspective changes with staff. You know people have people, but not necessarily how it changes things.
I'm on the very low end of that - I run a small DevOps consultancy and can, now employ a few people in low cost countries, and though I've managed large teams before, having unilateral ability to set people to work on things because I want them is a game changer, and it's hard to get used to asking for things instead of doing them.
The rest feels like things everyone knows, if not directly then from TV and movies.
Those are called philanthropic charities - research institutes or the like. Some of the very rich have them.
Edit: the town I was born in had a Carnegie Library[1].
Edit 2: the point being that the very rich buy social status and respect.
I remember a few years ago Mark Zuckerberg announced that he was donating 99% to charity. The internet got very angry about it, based on flimsy reasoning: https://qz.com/564805/5-criticisms-of-billionaire-mega-phila...
Bill Gates has saved millions of lives through his philanthropy, and the internet is full of malicious rumors about him. Other billionaires who do far less good, but keep a lower profile, get much less hate.
A common meme on the internet is "if your intent was truly charitable, you wouldn't care whether anyone said thank you".
But this is a false dichotomy. Many people find the idea of charity appealing to some degree, but most of us aren't die-hard saints either. When we see the good deeds of others get devalued or even punished, that makes us less enthusiastic about doing good ourselves.
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." Punishing do-gooders is one of the most anti-social things you can do. On the other hand, praising do-gooders is a very cheap way to incentivize people to do more good in the world.
I believe that once you get to a certain level of wealth, you start caring more about your personal reputation than your material goods. Sadly, there is so much reflexive skepticism towards billionaire philanthropy at this point that it's not even clear to me whether doing philanthropy is reputationally net-positive.
We do. It's just that "wealthy" is far past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to buying high-quality expensive items.
No, we don't need to come up with things for the rich to buy just to fix their incentives. We should be asking ourselves how to decrease wealth inequality, not how to make it more fair to those on top.
This stuff isn't life, it's just the random trinkets we fill our lives with. Time is life. The rich can do with their time what they please.
That's quite enough actually.
IMPACT. Your money can literally change the world and change lives.you can even buy people to make more money for you, so you don't have to do it yourself, either through your "family office" investment firm, or through venture capital. You don't have to do anything but ask for what you want and there it is.
Maybe the super rich should take up training LLMs as a hobby.
In case you want to look those up, I know for sure that FaceGym masks were popular with the affluent demographic for a while.
- how to buy stocks, what ETFs are, what a 401(k) is, etc.
- hiring people to clean your house, do yard work, etc.
- traveling out of the country, or in many cases, how to take a plane to a part of the country that's too far to drive
- how financing works, ranges from personal credit cards to mortgages, and thus what TCO means. The number of people I grew up with who were fine with 12% on a car loan and what that meant to the final cost of the car is flabbergasting
- how to buy high-quality (expensive) stuff vs brand recognition (expensive) stuff
some anecdotes:
- a friend of mine recently did retire after 30 years in the government, wanted to buy stocks, had no idea what a brokerage was
- another guy I know, an airline pilot who grew up in a broken home and ended up with a business degree, figured out how to buy stocks, but didn't know what index funds were or that they exist outside of his 401(k)
- perfectly middle class people who will spend all weekend cleaning their house and doing yard work, and hate it, who thought hiring a cleaning person and lawn mowing guy would be too expensive ($35k-50k/yr)
- a lot of people I know are afraid to travel to non-English speaking countries even if they've been outside of the U.S., they can't fathom that you can get by in most places with English, a translate app, and pointing and smiling. Even tourist friendly places with plenty of English signage and English speaking help like France or Japan are unfathomably exotic
I think the main problem now is that these are "unknown unknowns". People don't even know to know what a 401k or similar is and thus don't know that there's something to dive deeper into there. That missing piece is very hard to solve.
I've had it myself where I run into something in my career, for example, where I'm introduced to a concept I wasn't aware of that I now use to underpin serious decision making about something like application architecture. Had I never had the opportunity to initially find out about a problem/solution, it would've made it notably harder to get better.
All the things you lists are things I personally associate with familial education. Most of those things were taught to my by my family, having grown up in a middle class home. If my parents hadn't had the opportunity to learn about those, neither would I. It's a familial/potentially class (depending on the situation) based learning opportunity, purely based on the education your family was able to receive (whether formal or not).
School is also a place to inject these concepts (personal finance specifically), and I did have a great experience with the personal finance elective at my high school when I was in 9th grade.
Tangentially, I don't think that's a perfect solution (but still important) because teenagers will absolutely ignore/tune in the info out. When people say they wish that had learned how to do their taxes in high school, I agree in principle and I do think it should be taught, but I also believe most teenagers (at least around me growing up) wouldn't have payed any attention. It doesn't mean we shouldn't teach it, but educating a teen is hard.
I've seen this before, and I remain incredulous.
We learned about stocks in 4th grade and did a mock exercise picking stocks and tracking their performance over a few weeks. We did calculations on mortgage interest and investment returns in middle school math class. Every news source has a finance section and talks about stocks regularly. There are advertisements for brokerages on every TV commercial break and everywhere else ads are found. Every company I've ever worked for had a mandatory training about the 401k as part of employee onboarding and usually ongoing mentions at least once a year. There are a zillion personal finance websites, podcasts, blogs and youtube channels.
It seems like if an alien landed in the US or a time traveler arrived here, they'd learn about ETFs and 401ks within the first 24 hours whether they wanted to or not.
People have to be actively, intentionally avoiding learning these things or actively tuning it out or forgetting, because they're dead simple and information about them is incredibly easy to find.
I could easily hire people to do it, but I sweat bullets everytime I am guilt tripped into letting a neighbor kid mow the lawn because I know if he gets hurt I'll lose everything (renter's/ homeowners insurance usually doesn't cover unlicensed contractors).
The two that were most interesting were the travel-related (guided trips in exotic locales w/ profiles and resumes of the local guides), and oddly specific and highly-focused catalogs (gardening, specific types of home goods). The one that really stands out was a catalog with hundreds of different brushes-- each with a very specific purpose (and many with carrying cases and other accessories). I had no idea there were so many different brushes.
Like, when buying a new bicycle I have to spent lots of time figuring out the tradeoffs between what I want, what I can get a different price points etc, as buying something wrong will set me back and be a while until I can try again. But for a reach person, they can just buy the top spec of everything, and if they don't like it just buy from a different brand.
Of course, since I'm interested in cycling, this nerding is a bit fun. But for loads of stuff it's just a hassle. Like our oven recently broke down. Then I had to spend a few evenings researching what to buy, how to get it delivered, what to do with installation etc. If I had more money, I could just tell someone to fix it, and "get me the best one".
Ultra-wealthy people also do that but they're trawling through Sothebys or Christies - eg: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/luxury/books-&-manuscripts/b...
They don't have time to read - say - a lengthy biography about a Civil War general but they can purchase their diary or letters - people who are interested in wealth preservation, especially across generations, are trained to disdain the ephemeral. They like primary documents and depending on their age/interests, cool stuff like first edition comic books or vintage niche Chanel clutch bags.
As impulsive or indulgent as it may seem - eg: I just saw a counterfeit version of Dante's Le Terze De Rime on there for $159,000 USD - the purchase are all investments and as such treated as a tax deductible by your team of accountants. If you purchase a bottle of Romanee St Vivant as an investment but (whoops) drink it - that $16,000 is a business loss. Or maybe a trust fund loss.
And once you start spending at a certain level on sites like those and others, there are extremely nice people who would like nothing more than to invite you to private showings, arrange a private briefing to bring you up to speed with whatever topic you'd like to learn more about or help you select the right gift with which to blow the mind of a business rival or someone you're courting.
I thought that reddit piece was weird. Why would the ultra-wealthy mess around with 'masstige' kitchenware appliances? They wouldn't even have a brand on their dishwasher - it would be commissioned by an architect or interior designer quietly maintained at regular intervals by an appliance engineer who has been either supplied-by your core op-secs team or thoroughly checked out by them etc etc.
I'm not sure that I buy this. It's not simple to make a bespoke appliance like a dishwasher that's better than a very high end mass produced one. Where did you get the idea that this happens from?
I _absolutely_ do not buy that very rich people have custom dishwashers. Like, _why_? There's no way it could be as good as a mass-produced unit; you benefit from massive economies of scale on the design, there, along with lessons learned from previous models.
If theres one thing all the wealthy people in my life have it is in fact _time_, which in turn means that they take their leisure activities really, really seriously.
"Contemplate the objects of this people's praise, survey their standards, ponder their ideas and judgments, and then tell me whether it is not most evident, from their very notion of the desirable and the excellent, that greatness, and goodness, and sanctity, and sublimity, and truth are unknown to them; and that they not only do not pursue, but do not even admire, those high attributes of the Divine Nature. This is what I am insisting on, not what they actually do or what they are, but what they revere, what they adore, what their gods are. Their god is mammon; I do not mean to say that all seek to be wealthy, but that all bow down before wealth. Wealth is that to which the multitude of men pay an instinctive homage. They measure happiness by wealth; and by wealth they measure respectability. Numbers, I say, there are who never dream that they shall ever be rich themselves, but who still at the sight of wealth feel an involuntary reverence and awe, just as if a rich man must be a good man. They like to be noticed by some particular rich man; they like on some occasion to have spoken with him; they like to know those who know him, to be intimate with his dependants, to have entered his house, nay, to know him by sight. Not, I repeat, that it ever comes into their mind that the like wealth will one day be theirs; not that they see the wealth, for the man who has it may dress, and live, and look like other men; not that they expect to gain some benefit from it: no, theirs is a disinterested homage, it is a homage resulting from an honest, genuine, hearty admiration of wealth for its own sake, such as that pure love which holy men feel for the Maker of all; it is a homage resulting from a profound faith in wealth, from the intimate sentiment of their hearts, that, however a man may look,—poor, mean, starved, decrepit, vulgar; or again, though he may be ignorant, or diseased, or feeble-minded, though he have the character of being a tyrant or a profligate, yet, if he be rich, he differs from all others; if he be rich, he has a gift, a spell, an omnipotence;—that with wealth he may do all things."[0]
There is a reason that money specifically, and not sex or knowledge or socializing or other good things that can get out of hand, is worshiped as a god by so many.
[0] https://www.newmanreader.org/works/discourses/discourse5.htm...
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/10651136-at-a-party-given-b...
You won, you can provide for you and for your whole bloodline if you so choose. You can choose your adventure, go fully epicurean or fund Humanity impacting projects. Yet they keep going and going unable to exit the carrousel.
I mostly can't because I have to work and getting 4-8 weeks off at a time is impossible.
There are only 100 U.S. senators at a time. In contrast, Forbes estimates there are about 900 billionaires in the U.S. alone this year.
And it is extremely difficult to become a Senator. Many very rich people have tried and failed to win election to the U.S. Senate. It’s not as straight forward as success in business. Politics is somewhat like magic. It’s extremely difficult to predict what is going to attract votes when. A lot of very confident rich people have been humbled this way.
Politicians are also demonstrably popular in ways the very rich are not. You only become a Senator if hundreds of thousands, to millions, of individual citizens vote for you (depending on the state). Congress overall is unpopular, but individual politicians are fairly popular to their own constituencies. Again, this is not something you can just buy, and many very rich people are thirsty for this kind of public validation.
Finally, Senators have real power, at least collectively. If enough Senators agree on something, the police will make you do it. Rich people want to shape those decisions if they can, yes, but many also like the feeling of being “close” to that kind of power. Since most will never have it themselves.
The above goes for the president even more. And for many state governors too.
Having friends in high places can also help if you happen to run into legal issues. Though there is growing scrutiny around this.
Most of the difference in lifestyle is the quantity and quality of housing they can afford, and having people to take care of problems for them. But they ALL universally have messed up personal lives with multiple messy divorces, embarrassing affairs, NYPost Page Six appearances, etc.
The one thing you'd think it gives them is freedom, but they all pretty much end up working til they die so I don't know. I'm not sure if the money breaks something in their brain, or their broken brain is what leads them to chase the money. Likely some of both!
There's some level where you can afford 2-3 nice residences, flying private, and not lose your damn mind. I've seen some of the billionaire's lieutenants achieve this balance. Basically being able to be fabulously rich but anonymous. Like the Bill Murray quote about people who want to be rich & famous should try just being rich first.
I think these guys I've seen are probably in the bucket the reddit OP marks "Net worth of $30mm-$100mm". Adjust that upwards for inflation and also to account for many of these people being in VHCOL areas so maybe it's like $50-200mm.
From "Requiem" by Robert Heinlein, 1940 <https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v24n05_1940-01_dtsg03...>:
>"What? You are old D. D.? But, hell's bells, you own a big slice of the company yourself; you ought to be able to do anything you like, rules or no rules."
>"That is not an unusual opinion, son, but it is incorrect. Rich men aren't more free than other men; they are less free—a good deal less free. I tried to do what you suggest, but the other directors would not permit me. They are afraid of losing their franchise. It costs them a good deal in—uh—political contact expenses to retain it, as it is."
>"Well, I'll be a— Can you tie that, Mac? A guy with lots of dough, and he can't spend it the way he wants to."
I was having this conversation about this colleague a few weeks back about another colleague we knew who made it big working at a start up. You would expect he has lots of free time and mental space at hand to do whatever he wants, instead it turns out he has to now worry about managing that money.
And its not exactly a easy job. Managing big money can be hard as any loss even a small percentage is a lot of money. And that begins to weigh heavily on you in form of stress as there is a lots at stake.
>>Like the Bill Murray quote about people who want to be rich & famous should try just being rich first.
Absolutely there is big difference between 'comfortably rich' and 'having to worry day and night for your money'. You would expect more of a thing make things awesome as you go, but as it turns out there is a counterintuitive aspect to this.
Plus announcing your success to friends and family can bring unexpected complications. People begin to think you owe them things, and they are entitled to it. And saying no can be quite tricky, and make you look evil.
But I'm curious what the answer would look like if every strata in it was not "things you can buy" but "things you can do with the money" ... if the "IMPACT" section was delineated at each level.
One of the things I envy the most about my rich friends is their capacity to be generous. They can materialize their compassion on a regular basis without having to balance their budget.
I'd like to see what that looks like at each of these wealth levels.
(One funny thing I noticed is that I have multiple friends with virtual personal assistants now, at middle class levels of weath/entrepreneurship... definitely not a rich man's thing anymore.)
When you are rich, you get a real person who speaks your language well and has the authority/power to get things done.
*https://npr.org/2025/04/01/nx-s1-5345950/forbes-billionaires...
To me that suggests rich people buy privacy and the only info available is some random reddit comment
The top comment mentions some things wealthy people buy, but nothing ordinary people don't know about.
Even if you don't already live in a high-corruption society, you can either spend some of your wealth introducing that corruption (which pays dividends), or you can just go somewhere else that's already high-corruption and bribe your way into immediate permanent residence.
Live in a democracy? Just buy public opinion by leveraging your wealth into a highly-profitable propaganda network, which will also give you an appealing platform for opportunist would-be government officials, who will then owe you, making your bribes cheaper. Maybe you can even just directly blackmail or entrap them along the way, so you don't even have to pay.
Live in an autocracy? Buy enough weaponry and PMCs to insulate yourself or even rival the government itself, or just buy the autocrat's favor directly.
Live in an oligarchy? Psh, your work is already done. Just use the system as it's designed: to be exploited by your vast wealth.
As an example, there’s a culture among what people refer to as "old money" families in the US northeast (with generational wealth from long ago), wherein they tend to avoid seeming outwardly wealthy or really talking about money at all…generally aiming to project an unpretentious vibe, eschewing designer clothes and driving 20 year old Volvos, but still spending vacations at long-owned family getaways worth tens of millions, flying first or charter, and send their kids to specific, expensive schools to socialize with others of similar backgrounds.
That isn’t true for your local plumber.
The next generation are mostly good people. They're involved in politics at the state level and have some philanthropic organizations that really do good work with zero strings attached.
The grandkids, who all have known nothing but having immense wealth are garbage humans. They're entitled, awful, mean spirited assholes. Every. Last. One. They frequent local businesses, and the number of times I've heard, "don't you know who I am" is astounding.
The business mostly runs itself at this point, but I genuinely fear for the future in this area. There's already undercurrents of the family using its connections to bail out one of the grandkids when he was drunk driving. I believe the first murder will happen within the next decade.
The grandparents would be absolutely horrified if they saw what their family was turning into.
Not saying I am "super wealthy" but we've paid a lot (but no obscene amounts) for a few things that felt kinda like "rock-star" treatment. Anyone can pay for these.
One example is my wife and I flew to Venice for a long weekend and hired a speed-boat to transfer us from the airport to our hotel. We literally walked up to the pier, threw our carry-on bags in the back, jumped in and roared off. I have this enduring memory of seeing some of the people who were on the same flight as us lining up and waiting for the water-bus thing as they watched us just speed off into the literal sunset. It wasn't crazy-expensive but totally worth it.
Another was we paid for an "escort" at an airport in Peru - they met us at our hotel, took us to the airport in a taxi, basically pushed us past the huge lines of people waiting for check-in, argued in Spanish with someone behind a desk, and then pushed us past more lines of people until we got to the front of the line for security where we said goodbye and waited for our cattle-class flight. Again, this was not a huge amount of money but saved a bunch of time and stress.
Generally speaking, tl;dr, I find paying a little extra for not having to wait for things at airports and hotels and theme parks and that sort of thing is what makes the every-day difference for me.
Getting wafted past the lines of people waiting for things or someone just sorting shit out for you so you don't have to are the day-to-day things that being in the top 95-98%ile of the population wealthwise makes all the difference. You save the time, and get that little zing of excitement/awkwardness as you are taken past the lines of others waiting.
Not as fancy, but my wife and kid met some friends in chicago, and the friends sprung for a water taxi to get them all from one side of town to the other. It's not even that expensive, but not something we'd just spend money on vs walking a bit and taking a train or bus.
Another example is how inheritors of the Walton fortune helped build tons of biking infrastructure in an Arkansas City [1].
I wish more ultrarich people would compete on building thriving communities, instead of maximizing their own personal luxuries and walling themselves off from the world. Silicon Valley is a bit of a deranged version of this, where different companies create their own little kingdoms of community for employees, while the broader community ends up being rather dull and uninviting.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_animation
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/13/us/how-an-arkansas-city-b...
Relevant Andy Warhol quote: "Sometimes you fantasize that people who are really up there and rich and living it up have something you don’t have, that their things must be better than your things because they have more money than you."
https://core100.columbia.edu/article/excerpt-philosophy-andy...
Also worth pointing out that we are commenting on reddit posts. Reddit is the last place anyone should seek advice beyond how to do something or find info about hobbies.
I seen and lived this until I got my wake up call.
I was regular upper middle class, I would laugh at people who thought I was poor for having an Android because I could easily afford a $1000 iphone, I just didnt want it.
Then I got into philosophy and inevitably Stoicism, where I found happiness within.
Then I read too much philosophy and realized the promises of such ethical philosophy were harmful to my own well-being. I went full Nietzsche and realized that spending money was a demonstration of power. As Thomas Hobbes says: 'Fame makes more fame, power makes more power.'
Thus, pointless lavish spending does have a point, its to demonstrate power, which grows power.
I genuinely feel like 30+ years of my life I was tricked into a religion of modesty against my own interests. Meanwhile, the people I mocked, rappers/rich people/etc... had the right idea. Or at least right in my current set of Values.
(And if you disagree with my values, prove I'm wrong, best of luck, there is nothing backing pure reason, and if you want to be an empiricist, we have peacocking)
Ultra rich should make giving back a structural part of their lives and businesses.
But I think I am self conscious enough that I am always asking if I should really be doing or buying stuff that I can perfectly afford. Do I really need that new phone? I have a perfectly serviceable phone, what do I really get from these stuff that is totally within my mean.
However, it is more nuanced than that. For example, I think VVIP SHOULD be taking private flights instead of commercial ones. Should CEOs of big companies really be sharing flights with literal whos across the Atlantic? Probably not. But should these private jets have indoor tennis court or whatever it is they have? Also probably not.
I always wonder how rich I'd need to be to just buy a new phone. I always get the step down models and use them for years, only upgrading when they stop working well or I get forced to upgrade when they change network technologies. I could afford to buy any phone I wanted right now, but it seems like such a financially dumb decision.
If you're in the Los Angeles area, you can visit the bakery yourself or if you're in the USA, you can order a cake from them - https://www.goldbelly.com/restaurants/doans-bakery/white-cho...
N.B. No affiliation with Tom Cruise, Doan's, or Goldbelly.
For example, things like handmade leather shoes, solid wood furniture, or even high-end kitchen tools like Miele or Sub-Zero appliances can feel like overkill until you’ve actually used them. Then you start to appreciate the craftsmanship, the reduced hassle, and the longevity they offer.
Curious if others have had similar experiences – what’s one “expensive” item that genuinely changed your perception once you owned it?
Anyway:
1. Good midrange Japanese cooking knives. I got one on a steep discount, and now I understand why people pay a premium for them. I even bought a second one.
2. Good brands of Chinese engineering equipment. I bought a Siglent oscilloscope instead of a Hantek / Uni-T one. Before that, I had only bought the cheapest tool sufficient for the job.
I found as I've reached middle-age, I just have a bit less energy to spend struggling with things I use daily. So in these roles I appreciate something that's better quality than I strictly need. I don't come from wealth, and am a notorious cheapskate even by local standards -- but those two things were able to change my mind!
I had to purchase appliances for apartments and the first wave of products were breaking within a couple of years. I ended up purchasing appliances from high-end European companies in the second wave of appliances and haven't had issues for 3 years. The original ovens had 3 out of 5 failures before people moved in. 2 of them broke because the flimsiest plastic door latch protruding about 1" from the door broke. The doors of the oven could be removed with no tools. The company said they could send me new doors for a cost and that I could schedule a video call with the factory to learn how to re-install an oven door.
Also these things are not really that expensive compared to 5-10M person.
Try Bora coocktops
see https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-jordan-sells-massive-...
The tech billionaires don't wear anything branded or flashy besides their $1M watches, just good and well fitting clothes.
This was the one that made me question the whole post. I don't for a second believe this respect is genuine. This isn't about the person you are, but the money you could spend on whoever's kissing your ass.
I mean if you can delude yourself into thinking it's genuine I'm sure it can be enjoyable, but I for one am confident anyone "up there" is scheming something. Political and economic chess. I'd rather just be wealthy enough but unknown.
They have a current star singer perform a private concert for them (so this was probably a corporate event, but I'm sure centi-millionaire/billionaire have hired her to perform) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyonc%C3%A9_2023_Dubai_perfor...
> Chuck Rhoades: Walk away.
> Bobby Axelrod: I should. But then again, what's the point of having fuck you money, if you never say, fuck you.
True wealth is being able to spend all your time doing things with and for people you love. It sounds trite, but the truth is many people miss the opportunity to jump off the train and enjoy their life while they can.
I would love to have a private yacht, or whatever other symbol of wealth you can dream of. I have plans for what I would do with a house more than double my current house in size. However it isn't worth going into upper management to get those things.
This is from 10 years ago. Multiply all values by some factor that I am too lazy to estimate, but a good bet would be to try to follow asset inflation rather than consumer prices inflation.
Damn, that's me, and I am not even worth a million.
That, and being surrounded by fawning yes-people, and the drugs?
In the worst cases (and there are a few, currently), you decide that you should be in charge of everything, democracy is a mistake, and that you are the person to destroy it.
Who has time for love, when there's so much ego to give.
Nearly 10% of Americans are millionaires (at least at the household level, not necessarily per-person). It's around 6% for UK and France.
Anthony Pratt is worth a few billion dollars and acknowledges the above with his quote "being rich is my superpower".
[1] https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/being-rich-is-my-...
No, because Batman isn't a real person with real constraints.
Sure, I mean, if you have a $1B, then you get to have a lab with gadget people making cool shit and you can buy a fighter jet and a personal submarine and you have the detective agency too.
But you don't get the rogues gallery of super villains. You don't get new knees every week. You don't get to save your local city, because the problems are mostly the problems that the people cause themselves. And solving all those problems makes you a tyrant, not a hero. And even then, the problems are the same we've had since before history.
This is why in the real world, we have philanthropy mostly aimed at education and the alleviation of extreme poverty and diseases as the main outlets for the billionaires. Because it's the only thing we think that works at all.
I guess, if you really wanted to be Batman, you could fund yet another study that would state how best to give away dollars. But, without even having to look, I know that there are a few dozen of them out there already and they all pretty much say the same thing: that it's muddy and hard to discern, but maybe if you squint, education and making sure people have food and shelter.
To be Batman, you already can do it. It's mosquito nets for the poor, it's giving that bum a $100 and an hour, it's volunteering with prisoners to get them to read, it's making sure your kids' classmates have a snack before the test, etc.
So yeah, the real world Batman is a boring stressed-out Mom that's active in the PTA, her church/community-center, and local politics. Real World Bruce Wayne is Steve Rogers before the serum.
Just like the rest of us.
... I mean, I think your _needs_ are met at a far, far lower level than that.
I feel like Elon is finding this part out the hard way lately.
- schedule beauty appointments to fix how you look
- go on coaching sessions to increase your confidence and how you socialize
- take people out on dates without thinking "oh that's a bit expensive"
- buy dating coaches who understand the psychology behind dating and successful relationships
- buy therapists to heal your past traumas
Love is still not guaranteed, but you can do a lot to increase your odds.
btw does anyone know if places like Fermi lab, CERN receive donations from the super-wealthy?
Other than that there are foundations that issue grants to individual researchers, e.g. Gates also has a foundation. There are others such as Burroughs-Wellcome, Clayton Foundation, etc.
The private foundations are generally very stingy with "Facilities and Administration" fees, which was in the news recently as the fight over NIH/NSF funding which can go in the 50-60% range. Private generally doesn't go over 15%, frequently its much less.
One famous chap who is nailing it is Shatner. Strive to be spreading joy like that guy, whatever your means.
PERSPECTIVE. The wealthiest person I have spent time with makes about $400mm/year. i couldn't get my mind around that until I did this: OK--let's compare it with someone who makes $40,000/year. It is 10,000x more. Now let's look at prices the way he might. A new Lambo--$235,000 becaome $23.50. First class ticket internationally? $10,000 becomes $1. A full time executive level helper? $8,000/month becomes $0.80/month. A $10mm piece of art you love? $1000. Expensive, so you have to plan a bit. A suite at the best hotel in NYC $10,000/night is $1/night. A $50million home in the Hamptons? $5,000.
My issue with this level of 'earning' is, it feels entirely like stealing from them would be justified since they're most obviously stealing a whole lot from the rest of the world.
What products can I buy that don't filter up some percentage into these billionaires bank accounts?
What definition of “stealing” are you using here?
It seems like it somehow includes owning a large equity stake in a profitable or rapidly growing company since that’s how most people that “make $400mm/year” are actually gaining wealth.
Claiming that is stealing is pretty dumb considering it’s how everyone that holds equity gains wealth. So when does it become stealing?
Very little, that's why wealth tends to increase in the 8-10% a year increase but income doesn't.
I wake up every day with my best friend. We have been together for so long, we have regularly similiar thoughts on things.
If i even want to know this, i want to hear the real people using their money in a way that i'm envy.
There was a documentary on netflix about a guy who was diving in the ocean in front of his house and befriended an octopus.
Besides this story (its well made), i had the feeling this person made it. Beautiful house, self care routine and the opportunity (which he actually uses) to use the ocean every day.