Redditors who are rich (net worth $1 million+) - how did you get rich? (reddit.com)

So many interesting histories like this

My father worked his way up from the bottom

Started in a bad neighborhood in chicago, lower middle/lower class.

Got one of those high school scholarship deals, where high schools let smart kids from bad districts commute to better public HSs

Got good grades, football scholarship to a top school

Worked nights and weekends to pay his way through HBS

Got a job loading trucks for an up and coming company

Within a few years of hard work and 15hr+ days, was Executive/Senior VP

As Senior VP, because the company was up and coming, and didn't have that much cash, paid most of his salary in stock and stock options

Stock's value has gone up boatloads, and become WTF level since he left (deal he was running got hijacked by the mob, he got blamed, they stopped giving him projects, forced him to quit)

The funny part is, even though they all hate him for that deal 'he' fucked up, they need to pay for plane ticket back to NYC once a year for him, cause he owns so much stock they cant hold the board meeting without him

Theres also money from a lot of other places. Like, in the few years he took off between undergrad and HBS, he founded a record company/recording company using his entire family's savings (parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, bank loans - everything) Paid them back in like 'no time' (less than 2 years I think). We still get $2M a year in royalties from it. For life. He hasn't worked there in over 20 years.

After he 'quit' the company with the stock, he got involved in private equity, and made some awesome investments. At one point, he essentially owned all of Sprint. I think the firm might still - he's moved on. Also, I love to give him shit for my Aircast falling apart on me - he/they owned that for a while as well, and essentially made it what it is

My family is most definitely 1%, but we didn't cheat our way there. It probably sounds ridiculous to reddit, but his goal is to try to live off of 'only' $300-500k a year. Which sounds like a lot, but when you count the $210k mortgage payments on a 3 bedroom, 3500 sqft house, medical treatment for a rare disease my mother has, a nice vacation or 2, living expenses, and taxes - it's much less extravagant than how other people in his position live. I can safely say that he has not fucked over anyone on his way to the level below the top. If he had at any of the many opportunities he's had, you would be seeing his face on those first pages of the forbes 400 list - my mother has never forgiven him for the opportunities he's passed up, but he's content knowing he does the right thing.

The ONE mistake he's made turned up on reddit a few months ago. That foreclosure firm that was illegally foreclosing on people and held that christmas party where they all dressed up as their foreclosed house's homeless ex-tenants - that was sort of him. He was the man on point, who pulled the trigger to give the founder of that firm the money to start it up. He and his partners financed it, i believe 100%, on my dad's (bad) judgement call on the CEOs moral character. When he found out, he was horrified, but admittedly somewhat happy, as it took a very large $50M dent out of a guy who fucked up his life's net worth.

The Power of 10. Look it up.

What's that? a book?

Another good one...


Family. 300± years ago, my dad's family happened to be merchant caste in a city which suddenly went through a massive economic boom. They went from what would be petit-bourgeoisie today to obscenely wealthy over two generations, all the while marrying into further money. My grandfather on that side started a business after the Second World War which took off under him and my dad, so between that and the historical fortune they're somewhere in the 9 digit range.

My mother's family was Campano nobility throughout the Neapolitan renaissance, and they also married into some sort of powerful Ukrainian family. The main splinter of her family succeeded in the US at the turn of the century, then again during the Second World War before emigrating to Romania and getting in good with the communists. Their money matured over the 20th century and she's worth somewhere in the upper 8 digit range if not lower 9 digit.

Both fortunes are largely locked up in long-term investments, with very little being held as liquid assets. The former thinks as a dynasty, which is probably going to unravel with my generation, and the latter is large enough that they couldn't lose it if they tried.

That being said, I live independently of both families and outside of later inheritance in a few years all of my savings, somewhere in the mid-five digits, come from work and buying stakes in nightlife ventures. I'm also planning on becoming a neurosurgeon (albeit in public health), so if all goes according to plan that will put me at least into the 7s by my thirties in self-made money.