How a Millionaire's Brain Works | Hacker News Reader

How a Millionaire's Brain Works

fortunewatch.com

40 pointsnickb24 comments

This is not how any millionaire I know's brain works. Maybe I know an unrepresentative sample, but most focus their ingenuity on novel ways to create wealth rather than novel ways of avoiding expenditure.

novel ways to create wealth + novel ways of avoiding expenditure = novel ways of get rich & stay rich!

I have a client that drives a $130,000 car, but won't stock paper towels in the rest room.

Another sends clerks home when it gets slow, but will have me spend 50 hours (at substantially higher rates) chasing down a 23 cent imbalance in his books.

Another shares a corporate jet, but won't let his people eat at their desks to save on cleaning crew expenses.

I know one who will make his lunch companion get out of the car to find a parking meter with time already on it. Really.

I could go on and on...

Many people say, "Thats how they got rich." Bull. They're just stupid and cheap.

I know many millionaires of both kinds. IMO, it boils down to this: How did you get your money and, if you lost it all, how would you get it back?

The confident ones are not cheap. The inheriters are.

Unless they inherited their money and are on the path to lose it all..

Many versions of that story have been floating arund the web for a long time...It's clearly straight from a comedian's mind, and was not meant to be taken seriously.

I presume many of your friends and associates you are referring to made their money from technology startups in MA and CA. Do you have any reason to believe they are a representative sample?

An oldie but goodie.

Like the one about the millionaire who asked "How much for these shirts?"

"Two for $25."

"How much for one?"

"$15"

"I'll take the other one."

I've heard that a lot of billionaires are extremely frugal. They'll do things like drive three hours to save a couple hundred bucks on a new car. Apparently because they get solicited for money all the time, a lot of them get very paranoid about being taken advantage of.

That's a good idea if your time is worthless. "Penny-wise and pound-foolish"

It's not really to save money though. It's more like after getting dozens of emails a day begging for money, some percentage just develop a complex and have trouble trusting others.

If it had to do with emails, then this wouldn't just apply to rich people, it would apply to everyone with an email account. Have you never seen spam?

I've already got one of those, and I'm nowhere near rich...

See the "Millionaire Next Door" for an elaboration on this. That or another one of the books in the series has a long chapter on automobile purchasing habits.

A millionaire doesn't even have his own private parking space? Sounds fishy :)

What if a millionaire lived in some other city and drove to New York City to get to the air port?

then have the butler drive the car back

Parking spaces in NYC can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. As a mere millionaire you can expect to spend 10-20% of your net worth on a parking space.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/12/us/12parking.html?ex=11899...

NY may not be the best place in the world to start your startup, but it will certainly cause you to reevaluate your notion of what it means to be a millionaire. Less valuable, maybe, but also much more achievable.

the story has a good point, but the example is weak.

if you're willing to pay for a ferrari, one would think you'd be willing to buy a regular parking spot for it.

and why would you drive it to the airport in the first place if you're planning on going out of town for a couple weeks? why not get a ride from a millionaire friend in their ferrari?

i'm not a millionaire, but it seems like being a good planner is at least as important as being a penny-pincher if you want to make serious money.

An insight into how billionaires think in NYC comes from Mayor Bloomberg who takes the subway to work. That's way cheaper than parking in Manhattan.

John.

You mean how Bloomberg has his SUV motorcade take him to the express subway that is 20 blocks from where he lives.

He rides subway to appeal to people. He's a politician.

Possibly he also rides subway to catch the mood of the passengers, which makes him a politician with a clue.

that story is either fiction or that specific millionaire is dumb. it takes a significant amount of time (i.e. several minutes to hours to days) to get a loan. a person driving a ferrari would not invest the time for that amount of money.

This story makes lots of sense. Most of these millionaires live on a month to month basis, there4 they need to save every little dollar. To me money buys time. Forget a Ferrari, get a prius. besides, the new millionaire means 5M+

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