<p>Anyone else having flashes of the Winklevoss twins and Mark Zuckerberg popping in their heads?</p>
<p>From the Social Network:</p>
<p>Mark Zuckerberg: Eduardo, itās like a Final Club except weāre the president.</p>
<p>āFor instance, with the current restrictions, you canāt actually buy a Model S from the Tesla store in Austin, Tex. Instead, you have to go online and purchase it.ā</p>
<p>I saw one in a Houston parking lot and it looked really sleek. I could not figure out what it was and so I walked around it to find the name. It looked as big as a Porsche Panamera, equivalent of a big gas guzzler.</p>
<p>It is worth the money in looks compared to Chevy volt at the same price. :D</p>
<p>Dang, the Chevy Volt is 70K?</p>
<p>I circled back to the first post, then took a look at Forbesā list of the Richest People in America.</p>
<p>Many of the Richest People in America made their own fortunes. I expect that to continue. I would not expect the children of the Wealthy and Elite to be (as) Wealthy and Elite as their parents. It takes an unusual combination of drive, ambition, talent, and luck to land on the Forbes lists. A child who grows up in extreme wealth will be less likely to possess those qualities than a child who grows up lower middle-class. The wealthy child may become a doctor, or teacher, or artist, or non-profit executive, but heās not likely to found a new industry. </p>
<p>Many billionaires were not academic heavy hitters. Many entrepreneurs are thought to be dyslexic. [Are</a> Dyslexics Great Visionaries? | Inc.com](<a href=āhttp://www.inc.com/articles/201105/are-dyslexics-better-visionaries.html]Areā>Dyslexia Fosters Entrepreneurs? | Inc.com) So, I believe the wealthy and elite of tomorrow are all over the place.</p>
<p>"Dang, the Chevy Volt is 70K? "</p>
<p>I think they were 46k last year but going for 250 a month in leasing because they could not sell many.</p>
<p>I see 40k+ prices at the moment for 2013 models.</p>
<p>Reuters claimed GM was losing 49k per car (kind of making it a 90k car!).</p>
<p><a href=āhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910[/url]ā>http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/us-generalmotors-autos-volt-idUSBRE88904J20120910</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I donāt know that Iād agree that a child who grows up in extreme wealth is less likely to possess such qualities ā they may possess them, but simply have no need to exercise them, if that makes sense. </p>
<p>Not a US example, but Iāve always been impressed by Stella McCartney ā someone who grew up with extreme wealth, but is by all accounts a sharp, driven, hard-working person who makes full use of her talents. One might say the same about Ivanka Trump. Sure, they were born on third base, but they ran for the plate.</p>
<p>Thanks Periwinkle for that article.</p>
<p>I always felt as if my oldestās dyslexia inoculated her against any of the spoiled stuff. Nothing, and I mean nothing, comes easily to a dyslexic who canāt read until they are 12.</p>
<p>H is dyslexic as well.</p>
<p>hi, could you offer some help to transfer to UofMich last minute, my son is at another Big 10 at UIowa , as pre-med ,now want to transfer to another big 10 or upgrade it a bit with good business schoool</p>
<p>freebens, you might want to post on the Umich board, or I think there is a transfer board? </p>
<p>good luck to your son.</p>
<p>Also, Tex, you couldnāt GIVE me a Chevy Volt. I think you would have to pay me 70K to drive that thing.</p>
<p>My son grew up with a learning disability that affected his grades and test scores. I remember talking with his school counselor about one of the areas in which he struggled. She commented, āI wouldnāt worry too much about that. Heās a big ideas guy. Heāll have an assistant to do things like [his area of challenge].ā I thought that was pretty funny.</p>
<p>Kids with LDs like dyslexia learn early on that they have to work hard to succeed. It becomes an ingrained habit. Kids who are bright and neurotypical are sometimes shocked when they get to college and can no longer get by largely on native intelligence.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Youāre also assuming every wealthy person actually wants to be listed among the wealthiest folks of the world in Forbes. Not necessarily the case. </p>
<p>The ideal for some is to be comfortably middle class and up while preserving anonymity in their lives or at the very least, their financial state.</p>
<p>Hold the presses ā I agree completely with Cobrat.</p>
<p>^ that just does not work. Cobrat will change his mind now. :p</p>
<p>Echoing Sue22 - both my sons grew up with challenges as well - they both were born with profound hearing loss. They often were the only students in their grade with a hearing loss and learned early on to work hard. Also I think itās a plus they know how to ask for what they need. I think many ātypicalā kids havenāt needed to do that so in a sense, my guys are ahead of the game.</p>
<p>āI think you would have to pay me 70K to drive that thing.ā</p>
<p>Come on! Are you saying a car driven by Jimmy Johnson is not good enough for you?</p>
<p>On a side note, I hear we received all our tax funded money back from Tesla. That is a real success story.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Many, but not all, of the richest people in America are self-made. Four of the top 10 are Waltons, heirs to the Wal-Mart empire created by Sam Walton. Another three of the top 20 are named Mars, heirs to the Mars candy empire. Thatās more than a third of the 20 wealthiest people who inherited their wealth instead of making it themselves.</p>
<p>These people are mostly in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, however. The next generations of their families likely will not make the top 20 in most cases. Several reasons for that. First, if there are multiple children, the family fortune gets divided. Henry Ford and John D. Rockefeller were among the richest Americans of their day. Four or five generations later, and the family wealth is spread across dozens of family members, most quite wealthy, but few ranking among the wealthiest. (I count only one Rockefeller and no Fords among the Forbes 400).</p>
<p>Compounding that, estate taxes take a substantial bite, either directly or indirectly, e.g., by creating powerful incentives to give away much of the accumulated wealth in charitable contributions. Itās no accident that the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation are two of the nationās wealthiest charitable foundations; you can thank not only the benefactors but also the Internal Revenue Code for that.</p>
<p>Third, inheritors of great wealth tend to be more risk-averse in their investment strategies than the founding generation of entrepreneurs, who often start with nothing more than a visionary idea and sweat equity, and consequently have little to lose by banking everything on a high-risk, high-reward new technology or innovative business model. And that only makes sense. If you inherit, say, $1 billion, your first thought is going to be how to preserve that capitalānot what kind of high-risk investment might parlay it into $10 billion. So youāll probably make more cautious, āsafeā investments, and hope to grow your $1 billion slowly, without exposing it to too much downside risk. And you likely will not end up with $10 billion, but if you preserve your $1 billion, you probably wonāt mind.</p>
<p>But Iām not persuaded that the children of the wealthy are inherently less likely to have ādrive, ambition, talent, and luckā than the children of the lower middle class. They may be less likely to be big risk-takers, because theyāve got more to loseāand being a successful entrepreneur often requires a stomach for risk, a willingness to stake everything on an unproven technology, business model, or contrarian idea, and then the good fortune to be proven right. But I think there are plenty of examples of scions of great fortunes who exhibit just as much ādrive, ambition, talent, and luckā as their entrepreneurial forebears. </p>
<p>By all accounts, Henry Ford II, who served as president for Ford Motor Co. from 1945 to 1960 and CEO from 1960 to 1979, was a driven, ambitious, and talented business leader who brought in a team of āwhiz kidsā to transform Ford into a truly modern car company, took the company public, ushered in innovations in automobile financing that transformed the industry, and on and on. His tenure was not an unbroken string of successes, but then neither was that of his entrepreneurial grandfather; yet both met far more business success than failure. The difference is that the grandfather essentially founded a new industry, revolutionized manufacturing technology, established a wildly successful company which he operated as sole proprietor (and therefore reaped all the profits), and in the process popularized and made accessible a revolutionary new technology that radically changed the way we transport ourselves; he started with nothing but a toolbox and a vision, and parlayed that into one of the greatest fortunes of his time. The grandson was essentially a successful steward of an already-established business of which he was only part owner along with numerous other family members and, once Ford went public, millions of other shareholders. The grandfather had new worlds to conquer; the grandson had a family empire to protect, and to grow prudently under the watchful eyes of other family members, and eventually other shareholders, to whom he was accountable. Very different roles, involving very different risk-reward calculations. But I donāt think you can say the grandson was any less driven, ambitious, talented, or lucky than the grandfather; just less entrepreneurial.</p>
<p>
Only the Top 20 are the true wealthy elites.
The rest of the Forbes 400 are second tier.</p>
<p>cobrat is correct - there are many billionaires missing from the Forbes wealthiest and the editors estimate the total wealth based on whatever information they can find which is often not correct. Like ranking of colleges, there is a lot of misinformation.</p>
<p>Someone here recently posted something about a Saudi prince suing Forbes for underestimating his wealth. </p>
<p>I also recalled reading some articles a few years back about wealthy families/individuals who wrote letters/threatening lawsuits because they didnāt want to be listed on Forbes top wealthiest lists at all.</p>
<p>Wouldnāt surprise me if some of the latter felt being listed on Forbes was the equivalent of having a giant neon target sign with a āRob meā, āraid/crash my partiesā, or āKeep badgering me for more money for your supposed cause/need du jourā.</p>