Many years ago, I came across an article about a local news story in the Midwest. There was an elderly woman who had donated nearly 8 million dollars to a local college upon her death. She was over 100 years old, had worked for nearly half a century in a then-rising blue-chip Fortune 100 company, never married, and lived frugally her entire life.
One thing that struck me the most was the photo of the modest and slightly weathered house she once lived in (similar to the one I found in the free photo pool). I remember staring at that photo for a long time, imagining myself in her shoes, in that small space which probably cost me less than $1,000 a year to maintain, while knowing there were 8 million dollars sleeping in my bank.
She did not have any siblings and was not active in social life. She did venture into the wild world and traveled solo to many places but always felt most comfortable returning to her small house, surrounded by friendly local townspeople.
The company stock she had invested in during her 20s kept splitting and growing to the point where she didn’t know what to do with it. Time after time, she stared at the numbers with disbelief and felt alienated and unentitled to touch any piece of it. It was a financial monster she had raised, and she only felt comfortable giving it away in her will. She was such a simple, quiet person who did not want to attract any attention to herself in any way.
I totally get it. Breaking mental barriers and the status quo requires much more courage than you usually anticipate, especially in a small Midwest town.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I accidentally crashed a dinner gathering and met a lady. Within a few minutes, I realized how wealthy she was. A near billionaire for sure, and a very successful businesswoman.
She had a unique last name, which I couldn’t help poking fun at and confirmed. That name belonged to a dynasty of a Chinese family business, super low-profile with deep pockets and worldwide connections. Over hundreds of years, the family had maintained close but highly low-profile connections to emperors and rulers. They usually only stepped in to assist the rulers in times of dire financial crisis upon request. In return, the family obtained the much-needed immunity from the political turmoil that emperors frequently executed to weaken ever-growing rivals near and far. Her family was among a handful of such legendary super-opaque families.
What struck me the most was how normal, humble, and low-key she was.
“That’s the ultimate motto of my family — stay as low and anonymous as possible,” she smiled good-temperedly when I commented on her family’s glorious history.
While I enjoyed the good food she had ordered for us, I listened with amusement to her banter and frustration about the daily headaches she faced with a talented but somewhat lazy food artist she was relying on for one of her most expensive pet projects. This project was costing her nearly two and a half million US dollars a year just for the lease of the commercial property.
On the other hand, she was making a boatload of money seizing great opportunities in the US EV industry thanks to her close connections with friends in the right places.
However, she couldn’t get through the thick-headedness of that single foodie designer to do things her way.
Hence, the dinner with my friend and me happened to be at a place just a two-minute walk away.
So, I got to witness a very amusing moment.
There are no richest people in the world; there are only people richer than you could imagine.
Still, these rich people may be frustrated, or even more so, by some simple obstacles in life that money cannot work its magic on.
I once had a direct reporting boss who suddenly became 500 million US dollars richer overnight due to a startup acquisition of his. He immediately grew ill-tempered about many things in life.
One day he was driving to San Francisco with his bosses for a VC meeting and got stuck in the notorious 101 traffic. Later, he fumed to us, “we are worth a total of 2 billion dollars, yet we still couldn’t get the rights to have all the cars pulled aside to allow us to drive through as quickly as we wanted.”
While we all laughed, I couldn’t help but think, thank goodness this boss of mine wasn’t in politics. He’s better off staying in his Quantum Physics postdoc degree obtained from Cal Tech and dirty poor as he used to be with three kids and one Ivy League med school trained but staying home wife.
Sure enough, soon the stock price had a nose dive and my boss’ wealth dwindled ten times down. Nevertheless that actually calmed him down quite a lot and he morphed back into the old better self and made peace of his life going forward.
