What’s it like to wake up rich

Do you ever put yourself in the shoes of a truly successful person? I don’t mean in the sense that you want what a rich person has, which you think is everything they want, or a rock stars life. I mean trying to really understand what it’s like to be a successful person.

Successful rich person

Actually the rock stars lure sounds pretty good. Someone told me a story recently about One Direction, which was that after a while they got so jaded on tour that instead of getting the roadies to bring in the latest version of pert breasted, fully depilated pneumatic beauty on offer, they would actually ask for the ugly ones to get a bit of variety! It’s a nice story, I hope it’s true. Anyway, what I am thinking about is that when you are, let’s say, a self made billionaire, do you completely untether yourself from normal human interaction? After all, the power that comes with that kind of role is such that it must make you think that pretty much everyone you meet is a complete loser, and it must be difficult to not become a complete misanthrope.

Judging by some hedgefund founders of my acquaintance, the weirdness starts to accumulate as your AUM (Assets Under Management) passes about 5bn, and if you get to 10bn then it’s far far too late.
It’s also funny to see how the weirdness is expressed in terms of style. In my experience, many wealthy people in finance come from mathematical if not nerdy backgrounds. And so they tend to go in two directions: one way is the proverbial hedge fund hair (shoulder length, plenty of gel), Brioni suits and Gucci loafers. These are usually the ones who are mid ranked in terms of success and bore people at their 10 year class reunion with how many houses they own. The other one is the kind of person who almost makes a fetish of how little money they spend, turning up for work in socks with holes in them and frayed cuffs on their 10 year old shirts from Thomas Pink. These are almost always the founders who will never be able to spend all the wealth they have accumulated.

I’m guessing that most people reading this blog are successful in one way or another so you will know what I mean. Once you have your job in the city you find it hard to not be condescending to those of your friends who became accountants, but you don’t realise that although your starting salary gets you into the top 5pc (£70k) of uk earners, you are really the lowest of the low in the industry you are in, and the senior person you work for looks at you with a mixture of envy for your youth and bafflement about how kids these days refuse to work hard.

I think the point I am making is that as you become successful, stay rooted. We all go through the same things in life, we are born, we have children, sometimes we get sick, and finally you can’t take it with you. It’s probably that alienation of the top levels of society from the human experiences of hunger, financial stress and frustration which has caused solidarity to shrivel. I’m not talking solidarity as in making a big charity contribution to impress your friends at an auction, I’m talking solidarity in paying a progressive rate of tax because it narrows the inequality in our societies. I think unless we bring that solidarity back, we are all, and in particular those of you who are big fashion and jewellery, at risk of re-experiencing the French Revolution. Once the elites start saying “L’Etat ces’t moi”, you can start hearing the gulllotine blades getting sharpened in the distance.

 

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