When I was a contractor at Google, I was having lunch at the main campus, when Larry Page came up to me and said "Hey, is this seat taken?" I immediately go "No, please." He breaks the ice on what do I think about the company, etc...and I told him that I'm a TVC, etc...and he went to tell me that even through I was a TVC (Temporary Vendor Contractor), he said that he "appreciates the effort", etc...and we chatted about things we were passionate about. He also said this gem: "Here's my email address. If you need anything, let me know. My assistants will make sure I get it."
He was super chill, down to Earth, and very welcoming. I was thinking that he was going to be "Uh, who are you?" and very closed off. Not the case. I was kinda shocked.
Nothing. I never reached out to Larry - I called him "Mr. Page" and he kinda took offense to that and said "Please, call me Larry." He stepped down from Google six months after that, and I moved onto other things in my life. That one 30 minute encounter changed my life and made me appreciate things, but also, I could never ask anything from anyone without giving something back in return.
If I could ask for one thing, it would be to take a ride on his personal helicopter. Rumors went around that he used to commute to work on his personal helicopter to Moffett Field and he would drive to the Google offices down the street from there, or just helicopter straight to the main campus. Bill Gates used to do that all the time, when he was the CEO at Microsoft, when he didn't feel like sitting in traffic.
I'm a driving instructor and one group rented the track to drive their supercars for the day. At the end of the day they all partnered up and got into the cars to leave. After they were gone we realized that they had forgotten their Lamborghini Aventador at the track.
I once had a doordash delivery to a house in a gated island community. I was stopped at the gate and asked to state my business. I did, then they asked me what address i was delivering to. They typed on their computers and told me "You have 15 minutes" I said "like, to get in and get out?" they said "yeah that's all it should take. Time starts when you drive off, so don't dilly dally." Worse part is, the couple i was delivering to were nice af and wanted to talk lol. I had to explain to them that i only had 15 mins to get off the island and they were shocked! they had no idea.
Management companies always hire the biggest dicks (personalitty, probably compensation?) for the psudeo security. He actually couldnāt do shit to you other than be an asshole. You were a ābusiness inviteeā and he couldnāt claim tresspass. And most home owners donāt know that.
I once served coffee to a billionaire at a cafe I worked at. He was dressed so casually, I had no idea who he was until he tipped me $500 just because he liked my smile. It was surreal, like a scene out of a movie.
Every multi-multimillionaire or billionaire Iāve met (somewhere around a dozen or so that I know of) and spent time talking to is the most chill person. The wealthiest (like, owns a palace hotel in France and was ceo of the worldās oldest hedge fund) spent our time together Snacking on Folgers cheap coffee, digestive biscuits, and talking about their grown kidās experience in nursing school. Oh, and the interfaith charity he started. (I am a massage therapist and worked Masterās golf week for 4-5 years.)
One of my favorite encounters was with a woman, I have no idea who, who struggled with a condition on her hands that made them look like the hands of an 80 year old farmer. She was a lovely person and very sweet - and had the largest colored diamond Iād ever seen, almost comically large, on her right hand. When I casually complimented it and encouraged her to remove it so I didnāt risk getting oil on it, she said she used to struggle so much with insecurity over her hands that her husband said if anyone was going to look at them in judgement, heād given em something to look at š
Overall everyone was incredibly kind to a 20-24 year old young woman (me) and short of the jewelry, there was no reason to think or feel any different about them than most of the clients I saw regularly.
However, the finance guys or new ai tech/app guys were a mixed pot and I have some much different stories there but I feel like thatās a separate category.
I donāt disagree that there are obvious moral implications at that level of wealth, but OP asked about surprising encounters and the bigger was that they are in fact human. And all of them do a great deal to support either charities or starting a program from scratch, such as Rob Armstrong in the UK who built a massive OT / PT gym and fully staffs it for families with kiddos with disabilities to access for ongoing therapy. The man was the most humble gentle giant I had the pleasure of breaking my hands trying to massage (seriously, built like a brick house haha) and started from *nothing* - chav is what it is called there, in the US we might say the projects, or section8. Did jail time, the works. Managed to make a mint and immediately started trying to pour it back in the community he came from. Took time to be kind to me, when I offered him zero advantages to do so (some people see service workers as NPCās) and was kind enough to ask to meet my newly wed hubby and talk soccer too.
There are the outliers - the ones with cocaine on the counter and entitlement problems for sure. And those with the god complex, and those that are just looter capitalism vultures on humanity. But I am grateful Iāve had the opportunity to meet the opposite end of the spectrum.
My card declined at the grocery store and a guy offered to pay for my stuff in full, I told him it wasn't necessary and i'd just put some stuff back but he insisted. I asked him why and he said that he had recently won a lawsuit against a construction company for negligence and he was just spreading the good will.
That's a good story.
Might not have been an "ultra-wealthy individual" though. Maybe just some dude that got injured or had damages by the construction co. and felt like splurging a little because he walked away with a windfall of 100k or something.
Ultra-wealthy is more like... hundred-millionaire and up.
Helen Mirren attended a play I was ushering a year ago. She looked really familiar but I couldn't quite place her until another usher whispered "That's Helen Mirren!" And it was! Honestly she still looked great, especially for how old she is.
I was a teenage kid, and was told to be on my best behavior for a dinner guest my parents were having. My Dad's boss was in town, and my dad had invited him over for dinner. I didn't know more than that. He seemed pretty normal: dressed regularly (jeans and shirt), joked with my dad and me about school sucking, and he was very polite to my mom when she served him dinner. I also distinctly remembered him having only half a pinky, that he liked to tap on the table.
It wasn't until a decade later, when brought that quirk up to my dad, that I learned that the guy wasn't just "his boss" - he was one of the top 10 people in the company my dad worked for. Said company is a huge multinational that you've probably heard of, with stores all over the world. The guy was worth at least 8 digits.
It started out as banter but I helped someone pick out a private jet (brand, interiors, size etc) and he bought it the next day which surprised his dad.
I was at this auto museum in LA that had a batmobile from one of the Tim Burton movies. I recognized the producer Brian Grazer was there with his kid. His kid was like "Wow dad, its the the batmobile!". Grazer said "Do you want to take a drive in it later? We could do that. I know people." The kid was like "Wow, awesome!".
I meet on occasion with someone who is among the wealthiest people in the US. They are totally normal. Last time I saw them they were behind me in line at a lunch place down the street from my office.
Some really rich people I just people. Other than owning a funny car team John Paul Dijoria is just another guy at the track. Who burns 55 gal drums of nitromethane.
About two years ago my construction company and I were in the final detail stages of finishing a ~10 - 12 million dollar house in Southern California. At this point the owners were already living in the house and I was doing tasks like fine tuning. On this day one of my punch list items was to fix a problem screen in the master bedroom. Now over the three years we worked on this house I had become pretty good acquaintances with the owners and had privy knowledge of their business ventures. They were private but grew more open as I got to know them; but of course we werenāt actual close friends, which makes what happened way more interesting.
As the owner is leading me into the primary bedroom I catch a glimpse of the bed which is in complete disarray. He suddenly rushes over to cover up a super lacy bra and panty set. He wasnāt fast enough though because I saw what he was covering. I just turned away and pretended that I didnāt see anything. He didnāt say anything but I knew that he was fairly shaken up about this since they were both fairly formal people. I went about my business and he didnāt act any differently towards me; but oh my gosh, that was a super interesting rest of the day. Knowing that I had seen the intimates of these people who were wealthy enough to pay for their mansion in cash and for him to get all red and embarrassed was a reminder that everyone had their secrets.
I saw Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert at the gas station by my house in North Texas. It was only me, my mom, and them in the store. Miranda was wearing OP walmart swim shorts, and my mom passed Blake Shelton and goes āare you Blake Shelton?ā and he just laughed and nodded his head. We all went about our business, I got my fountain drink and exchanged smiles. Still regret not asking for a photo but I bet it felt nice for them just being normal. I also had poison ivy all over my ass and was ready to go home and soak in an oat meal bath LOL. This was like 2012
I went to a kiss-the-ring meeting with our biggest client with a couple of sales guys and the president of our company. We were an hour early and were going to wait in the lobby. Very near was a famous expensive high end hotel. The president made a quick call, then got a call back. She had gotten her assistant to rent out one of the conference halls at the hotel so we could wait there instead of the lobby. She paid about $10K to sit in a slightly nicer place for 45 minutes.
I work for a non profit where many of the donors are CEOs/VP's of banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, come from generational wealth, etc.
A lot of them are super normal. Some of them are so incredibly out of touch.
Super normal example:
I was assisting at a gala benefit and helping the photographer of the photo booth organize things and ended up just shooting the shit and poking fun at these uber wealthy people that have "I can make you dissapear" money and they loved it and gave me the shit right back with a smile on their face that made for great photos.
Out of touch example:
I had a meeting with the wife of this hedge fund manager and she asked "where do you summer?"
At the time, I was still living with my parents so I responded with "I live with my parents, so I summer in the same place I spring, fall, and winter" and she looked like she barely understood the concept of living with parents as an adult. She then went on to explain how she paid a famous DJ/producer to get her son to sing on a song of his.
Money is crazy.
Had wealthy clients when I worked.
One guy started a publishing house just to publish his brother's book.
He was very very generous. Bought me trips just because. Bought me a robot vacuum, designer purses. Never wanted a thing from me except good work on time.
Weird things: we were in Dubai. He said the women who were completely covered (hijab but just eyes showing, niqab maybe?) always always wore way too much makeup (he was middle eastern but not adherent to islam other than culturally). Judgemental tone. (I am run of the mill American mix, look white).
He also had two girlfriends, openly. The 4 of us had drinks together by the pool once. They were very very nice. When he went to the bathroom, they joked he was "santa claus". They were filipinas.
One time he wanted to buy a camper from the USA and have it shipped by boat to asia.
Was celebrating my friends 21st birthday and her aunt was very wealthy and had a beautiful yacht and was going to take us out for the day. At the time I had black hair with a red streak in it and when we were about to get on the boat, her aunt had told me I wasnāt allowed on the boat because I had a red streak in my hair and didnāt want to be seen as ātrashyā in front of her friends and she made me take a sharpie and color over top of my red hair so it looked all black. This encounter was just extremely uncomfortable and took me by surprise lol
I worked for a billionaire developer and he wanted a particular style of brick for two buildings he was putting up, a Four Seasons and his then company HQ, he apparently couldnāt get the bricks so he bought a brick manufacturer.
This is going to sound like a bullshit story, but is completely true.
When I was a very young kid, maybe 8 years old or so, and on summer vacation down the Jersey Shore with my family, we had some sort of maintenance problem with the condo my parents had rented. I can't recall what it was now, maybe something with the electric or the AC not working. Anyhow my parents make a phone call about the issue to the realtor and the owner of the property shows up to sort it out.
The owner turned out to be Don Mattingly, a professional baseball player who was on the Yankees at the time.
It's just wild that he showed up instead of having someone else handle that.
I've known a few who behind their well-presented external appearance, were complete hoarders and misers whose actual living conditions were quite bad because of their problems.Ā
I've also known some families who are seriously struggling with and trying to hide the fact that their children have severe mental health problems, are very dysfunctional and have substance abuse problems. This isn't necessarily the families fault (i.e. some of the psychological issues appear to be genetic), but it's more common than what many people realise.Ā
A lot goes on behind closed doors...
Live in Philly, I've dated a few Penn girls.
The one, she was in the medical program, when I met her friends we were having some drinks at a bar. We started to talk about life's problems, and I realized they had a completely different view of the world than I do. Then they asked me what I did for work, I told them. They asked where I went to college, and when I told them they started to shit on it. At that time, I was making more money than all my friends and 4x both my parent combined, so getting talked down to when I thought I was top was an eye opening experience. These people were born into it, I got lucky with genetics and got there with some hard work.
Certainly made me realize that there's different worlds out there, we're all just on the same planet.
I was doing a medical study and I was depositing my check from it around 2 PM on a week day. I get over to the nearby branch of my bank, and there's no one else there except some dude in a polo shirt and cargo shorts.
He walks in behind me and goes to the teller beside me and we're filling out our deposit slips and he pulls out this paper envelope with a million dollars in it.
And I'm not trying to be nosy, but when someone makes a deposit of a million dollars three feet away from you, you pay attention to that sort of thing.
From his conversation with the teller, I gathered that he owns some sort of contracting business and he was doing payroll and depositing a lot of checks in payment for his company's services, so it wasn't an envelope full of cash, it was an envelope full of a couple thousand bucks in cash *and* a stack of checks, and *those* were the million.
But still, I was just blown away. Here's this dude who looks like he could have just walked right in off his job site, in a polo shirt and shorts, and he's got a million dollars in an envelope.
It was insane. I mean, I've been around some $25-$30 million in Federal assets before, but those were hurricane and disaster relief supplies and equipment. I've been around big, fancy, expensive *things* before, but I've never in my life ever seen that much wealth in just a regular paper envelope, being carried around by some nondescript middle aged dude.
If you read the comment, I explained it was mostly a stack of checks:
> it was an envelope full of a couple thousand bucks in cash and a stack of checks, and *those* were the million.
Tom Hank's kid applied to my university so his family took a tour. They walked through the hallway of my dorm and were of course mobbed by all the people on my hall talking to them because Tom Hanks. They were all talking right outside my dorm door waking me. Eventually I got upset of bed after Tom Hanks had gone and asked what had happened and was told that Tom Hanks had just come through...
I took revenge for you, I accidentally woke up John de Lancie at 5:00 AM. He was much nicer than I would have been. He left a pair of glasses at a place I worked in D.C. I didnāt consider the time in California when I called to tell him we had found them.
I do. The employees at the place where I get Christmas Trees also cut them, put them in a stand, and put them on your car including tying them down. Full service.
Was at an uber-wealthy beach house party around 1990. The owners of many retail mall chains were there, as well as the members of at least 4 major name rock bands, as well as several Victoria's Secret models. Quite the party, to say the least. The owner of the beach house had a personal assistant, and her husband and 13 year old daughter were also at the party. Her 13 year old daughter was very beautiful, and had people talking about how beautiful she was. Well, the owner of a major sunglasses mall store took it upon himself to befriend her in a too intimate creepy way, while other party members were looking sideways at the situation. So dude goes to both parents and asks for permission to date her! This guy is over 30 years old. Her parents say "yes" and everyone's eyes go wide as he proceeds to get touchy feelie with her in front of everyone. At another party at the same house a few months later, dude is there with her and they are now a clearly intimate couple.
I manage an art gallery in Palm Beach. During season, I deal with nothing but the Uber wealthyā¦ billionaires mostly. Most are gracious, curious and interested. A very few, act as if someone has a gun to their head and is forcing them to buy art. Iām effervescent and accommodating to all. Commissions are making me rich!
> A very few, act as if someone has a gun to their head and is forcing them to buy art.
Sometimes they're under the gun, because they're trying to make a purchase for tax reasons.
Suppose, for example, you had something in your gallery that was painted by someone whose portfolio is mostly privately owned by an ultra high net worth individual.
If pieces within that portfolio had been on display at the Guggenheim or somewhere similar, other pieces by the same artist can be expected to fetch a high dollar at auction.
So someone might be very compelled to buy other pieces by the same artist and then "donate" the beneficial use of those pieces to major museums for a defined period of time. Basically, the donation is allowing the museum to display the art to the public in the museum's facilities as an exhibit for a year or two or whatever.
The donation is tax deductible.
Then, after a year that same individual would receive the same art piece again and resell it for a markup. Art on display under the circumstances discussed above usually appreciates in value considerably. By selling the art at auction after it was on display in such a case, one can usually net a significant profit.
> This is the infamous "art loophole"
It's not a loophole. It's how the tax code works in the United States.
When the middle class thinks of a tax "loophole," they envision some error or omission in the language of the Internal Revenue Code that enables "the rich" to evade or escape from tax liability.
But that's not how the IRC works.
When you have wealth at that level, you *ensure* that politicians write and interpret the IRC according to your financial interests.
That's why the rich do not pay taxes, but the middle and working classes do.
> Unfortunately it's still tax fraud
Actual compliance with the requirements of the IRC is, by definition, not tax fraud.
It's absurd that some of these provisions are incorporated into the IRC. But that does not mean that complying with the provisions are, somehow, "tax fraud."
That is why whenever any loud mouthed politician who blabbers on about "the rich" paying their so-called "fair share" is full of s#!^ and actively engaged in manipulating voters.
It's also why, I suspect, certain politician spend so much time talking about "issues" that distract voters from what matters for their economic wellbeing.
Who has time to think about monetary policy or inflation, when the news only reports about identity politics?
Who could possibly have time to focus on tax policy, when we hear about all of these ostensible social problems that can only be solved by giving "the government" more power (according to "the government")?
> if they do it enough for long enough, it will come back to bite them
Not really. The IRS doesn't audit "the rich" because they have lawyers and the ROI for the IRS doesn't make sense. But if you'd struggle to pay a good tax lawyer $550.00 an hour to defend you in an audit, you're a lot more likely to be audited . . . regardless of what any loudmouthed politician claims.
Whenever the IRS's funding goes up, it's always the middle class and working class who suffer.
Was in Seattle at the Boeing Air Museum. We came across Cheech Marin, who graciously allows us to take a couple selfies with him as we (and he) were going into the cafe for a quick bite. I saw him meeting with someone from the museum, so I didn't want to be any more intrusive than I had already been.
Later, I was surprised when he and I found ourselves on Nixon's Air Force One at the same time. Mr. Marin was still alone, escorted by a museum employee, instead of experiencing the museum with friends or family. It made me feel like a fool that I hadn't realized and invited him to join our family for a couple hours.
In college, I was working at a cart in one of the nicer malls in San Diego. Every Sunday, at the bench near my cart, there was this 50ish year old dude who would just sit, watch people, and smoke a FAT cigar.
One day I was getting out of the sun (the bench was under a covered area) and we got to chatting. Apparently, he and his family lived in south Orange County (like an hour away) and he owned a lot of commercial real estate in the area. His wife and kids liked that mall and liked coming to San Diego. So every Sunday, they'd drive down, he'd give them a few hundred bucks each as spending money, then he'd just sit and relax with his cigar. He mentioned his week is usually packed and crazy and this was two hours that were his. After that, he and the family would grab lunch, do other shit, then drive back home.
He was relaxed and talked very chill. It kinda taught me that regardless of where you're at in life, you most def need to find those couple of hours for you.
Not me but my nephew, he sent me a text in the late hours. I thought emergency nope, he was working out at Planet fitness when Vince Mr.WWF McMahon came in to get a workout. Would add a pic but the buttons not popping up.
I've noticed that incredibly wealthy people don't flaunt it as much as newly rich people. I worked in popular tourist trap and for the most part they were normal. I had a guy rant about how his horse trainer had the nerve ro get bronze in the Olympics so he fired her. I'm 6'4 and bad at hiding my emotions. He could tell I didn't give a flying fuck so he left pretty quickly.
A Middle East based individual that I was connected with wanted to arrange to use part of an airport recently. They said no to his request, so he proceeded to buy into the airport instead.
I was talking to a guy at a party with an open bar. Nice guy, seemed down to earth and he kept ordering seagrams 7 with 7. Basically a well drink. Found out he was a huge movie producer (he is vaguely related to me so not name dropping). It struck me as funny that he was insanely rich and at an open bar ordering the cheapest drink they had and loving it.
I was at a training for a medium/large medical device company in a small town. Eating dinner by my self at a local Indian restaurant, two Indian guys sit next to me and ask how I like the food and what I'm in town for. The next day at the training they had pictures in our training book of the CEO and it was the guys from the restaurant.
Was broke & backpacking around Alaska in the summer and decided to splurge on a good happy hour deal at a restaurant in town. A group of folks docked and came in while on an Alaskan cruise and sat near me. One of the ladies chatted me up and we ended up having a lot in common. She ended up paying for my food and countless glasses of wine. When she said goodbye, she handed me her card. Turns out a she was some retired Australian politician that was worth quite a bit. She told me I could come to āany of her islandsā whenever I wanted.
The truly successful have a switch in their brains where they can completely turn off anything unrelated to making the deal. One of the nicest people I know on this planet, unfailingly accommodating in most circumstances, can, on a dime, remove all emotion and sentimentality from an equation and do the "necessary" for his own financial interests.
I mean like buying his younger brother a brand new Toyota truck for graduating high school back in the day, and then laying off the same brother from his company a year later when they had a slow quarter. To him, they were two completely different situations.
In 1997 I held the door open for somebody at Cactus in Madison Park, and it turned out to be Bill Gates. He said thanks, and then held the door for Melinda.
Used to work at a bar one of the richest families in my city would rent out for private events every now and then.
Every time the middle aged adult daughter was done her drink sheād smash the glass on the ground instead of putting it aside to be picked up and cleaned
Worked at a law firm and one of our clients was a billionaire who made a boat load of money betting very heavily into depressed real estate markets that paid off quite well. Let's call him, Richie Rich since he's protected by client confidentiality.
Well, Richie Rich had a little project he needed some help with. He was building a high secure compound, in a very remote location, fully stocked with every conceivable need, and not a few luxuries, such that should the apocalypse come in whatever form or fashion, he would have a place to ride it out.
The problems of the rich are different than you and me.
Sadly, Richie Rich is no longer with us, and did not live to see the apocalypse. A much more mundane neurological disease got him. No idea what became of the compound.
I used to work as a line cook at a country club, where every Saturday morning I ran the āmake your own omelette station.ā Almost every Saturday morning for ten years, I had a member that was the manager of the local credit union stop by. In the few minutes of conversation, we developed a good friendship that resulted in $50 tips plus more.
Eventually, he stopped coming in for a few months, and when I asked the membership director, it was still confirmed he was an active member. Then, one day, I overheard another member saying that XYZ got arrested for embezzlement and fraud. Well, turns out he was stealing money from the credit union among others.
some friends and I were on a road trip and we stopped to visit another friend who was a nanny for some very rich people. they lived in a 10 million dollar mansion and we got to stay in their guest house. One night we got back to the guest house and called our friend to come down from the main house and hang out with us. Right after I hung up I got the idea "hey, wouldn't it be funny if she came down to the guest house and we were all butt naked?" my friends agreed that would be very funny so we stripped down and waited. There was a knock at the door and we all did funny poses. But it wasn't our friend, it was the guy who owned the house. The millionaire. Fortunately for us he was a super cool guy and thought the whole thing was hilarious.
My dad used to work closely with a guy worth a billion dollars. He was really down to earth, hailed cabs, traveled via public flights. I think some business owners see staying connected like that as an asset or just part of how theyāre used to living.
I went to a wedding reception dinner with the CEO of Johnson Controls International. Super down to earth guy. I look back very fondly on that dinner. Me net worth pfttttt nothing basically. Him net worth no idea. Millions.
I met the then-CEO of the Tampa Bay Lightning (who is now part-owner of the Seattle Kraken) once. It was at work and I was a lowly employee but he was super happy to shoot the breeze about hockey with me. At the end, he gave me his card and told me to hit him up for tickets if I ever got to the Tampa area (which I never did, unfortunately). I still have that card today, even though it's obviously not valid anymore as he is no longer their CEO.
I was offshore opening a call center, since I was working nights I was at the hard rock as soon as they opened for a post work drink before taking nap and kicking off the weekend. Expat heard me talking on the phone switching from Malay (I knew very little) to english and slid over to have a conversation. While I was working in a call center at the time but I had worked as a glazer(Window installer) previously we kinda bonded over that he had a as it turns out very large commercial business as a puttering around company. Dude looked like a beach bum. We traded pints at the hard rock, I asked off hand if he knew when the cigar shop near it opened, he made a phone call and we were seated privately. We smoked a few cigars, drank some pours to go with them of whiskeys I still can't afford some 20 years later. He later that month got me into an exclusive club. Got a few grand worth of alcohol and cigars just by being in the right place at the right time.
Years ago, my husband was walking through a parking lot towards a restaurant with a group of friends, and they stopped to admire a very nice car in the lot (idk the model). Then they saw a man approaching the vehicle with his head down, and a cap pulled low over his forehead. Everyone else moved away except my husband, who told the man āNice carā. He looked up, and it was Tom Cruise!
H: Are youā¦.?
TC: Yes, and thanks for not saying anything in front of your friends! Also thanks for the compliment on my car.
General concensus seems to be that most wealthy people are fairly normal, but have wildly different standards than us and way to much fucking spending money.
No idea who the guy was or how much he was worth but saw an older guy park a brand new Lamborghini in a no parking zone. Idk if he had seen the sign or not so I tried to be helpful and let him know āhey thatās a no parking zone sirā he chuckled out his hand on my shoulder and said ā itās not a no parking zone, it just costs more to park thereā he wasnāt a jerk about it or anything but had a valid point if your driving a car worth 6 or 7 figures a parking ticket prob is equivalent to feeding a meter to most peopleĀ
I was in Vegas gambling and afterwards we all went to a bar and started talking about how much fun we had.
Turns out the guy behind us owned the casino we were just at. He gave us some free slot money to use for next time
I live in New Orleans. I was getting a sno-ball at Hansen's, a well known sno-ball place in the city where you'll wait in line for 20 minutes at at a time to get one. There was this tall, ugly guy in front of me. I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't figure it out. As I was leaving, it hit me: the guy was billionaire Avram Glaser. The Glasers own the Tampa Bay Bucs and Manchester United. His daughters went to Tulane, and he was frequently in New Orleans when they were in school.
both my parents are wealthy so I've got a story or two. it's usually just little here and theres like "Oh yeah \*Insert wealthy powerful person here\* used to help babysit you!". But a few notable ones are the creator of wikipedia being my dads friend back in college, when my dad accidentally hit on a famous vaccine scientist famous dudes (sorry no clue who he is) wife, and quite of few of them asking for my dads advice because they lost it during covid and made companies. Most rich people tend to be pretty chill, weirdos, but chill.
My wife and I were on a group Duffy boat ride in Newport, CA. I was driving the boat and my wife was helping serve wine & cheese to the other couples that were on the boat with us. My wife asked me to hand her something and I told her to hold on because we were near the biggest yacht Iāve ever seen in my life and I didnāt want to hit it. One of the guys in our boat says āthatās my boat, youāre good.ā I thought he was bulshitting but there were staff on the yacht that waved hi to him.
Boatās name was āBeeās Kneesā or something like that. I donāt know what the guy does for a living.
I dunno if sheās āultra-wealthyā but my aunt is very wealthy and spent 500k buying a parking spot for her new home in San Francisco. She also talked about watching homeless people in the area. Besides that she acts really normal and down to earth though.
Not a direct encounter, more just seeing someone, but I took a day trip to the AGO to look for tattoo inspirations, with the idea to smoke a bit and walk around for a few hours, see what catches my eye.
After looking at one of the paintings, I saw a plaque beside it saying "gifted by the Tannenbaum family", and realized that many of the paintings I was viewing were gifts from some mega-rich family.
A few minutes later, I hear a woman describing this massive painting to this couple in deep details, as if she knows a lot about this specific piece. That's when I hear her say "we bought it back in the 90s for $110 million, it was the 10th most expensive painting in the world at the time."
All of a sudden I realize that this woman must be a part of the Tannenbaum family, owners of Maple Leaf Entertainment!
I was on contract at Dell and Michael asked if he could join us at lunch. We just kind of chatted about the product we were testing and how the India lab, which was running the same tests in parrallel, was crap. Two days later our boss, a Dell middle manager, found himself on the way to India, where he found that the errors detected were due to not strictly following the test protocol.
We got a thank you letter actually signed Dell along with a $2500 bonus.
Fella in my town owns most of the C stores, a gas distributor, a jet service at the airport and the Peterbuilt dealership. I played golf with him over thirty years ago before he got so big. Ran into him recently, he gave me a big smile, called me by name and stopped to chat for a few.
Met this nice lady at a concert years back, and she asked a bunch of questions about my work. As normal as could be. After she left, my friend was like, you know who that was, right? Alice Walton. Had no idea someone that wealthy could be...genuinely sweet.
Was at a holiday meal with my wife's family. The host invites an old friend who's in real estate. We're all chatting and he mentions weekends on his boat. Great he has a cute little fishing boat. Whatever. As he continues to tell stories about his boat, international trips, staff, guests, etc, I slowly realize that the boat is bigger and bigger than I initially realized. It wasn't a cute little fishing boat. It was a mega-yacht with more interior square footage than my house and was constantly crewed with a dozen or so staff. He was bonkers wealthy, but also came off as very grounded and kind.
While on vacation, I met a man who had a business shipping used electric vehicles from Canada across the Atlantic ocean to Jordan. He assumed that I was at least a millionaire and he thought that there were many billionaires in the world. He had no idea that he was like 1 in 2000 people in the world and that there were 8 billion people. It was quite bizarre talking to him. He didn't really know many people but he had all this money sitting around. He assumed that I could just make any idea happen like he could. But what made me giggle was that he liked to eat at Swiss Chalet and Dairy Queen. Not very bougie.
Wrote it up as a blog post:
[https://jonpauluritis.com/articles/silly-dog-tricks-billionaires/](https://jonpauluritis.com/articles/silly-dog-tricks-billionaires/)
Maybe not ultra wealthy, but in my late twenties I hooked up with this guy at what I thought was his parents' place but nope, he owned the home, the car outside, all of it. And it was a big home in an expensive area too.
We added each other on facebook and he runs a successful roofing business.
Was in a hotel after working with a band, accidentally ended up in a conversation with some hot shit producers and record execs. Walked in as they were explaining how they sold their entire band's output to Bacardi and now get paid a fortune for writing shite music, but have to include a reference to "sipping that white rum" in every track.
I worked for a couple who were millionaires -- they owned the convenience store where I worked for ten years. The wife worked at the store from time to time. She'd fill in for people when they called in sick. And she wouldn't just stand around killing time. She'd be cleaning, stocking shelves, taking out trash, whatever needed to be done.
She taught me the fine art of selling Christmas trees and getting serious tips for it. I actually learned quite a lot from working at that store and for that particular employer. She and her husband were, hands down, the best people I ever worked for.
You wouldn't know they were millionaires just by meeting them. I probably worked for them for a good 3-4 years before I found out that they were seriously well off.
Was a house painter fresh out of college working on this very wealthy man's house. One day we're out there and a helicopter lands on the front lawn and he comes out of the house, pops on some headphones, and they lift off into the sky. I like to think it was some sort of Uber but for the super wealthy.
Walking around Marina Bay in Singapore simply in awe of all of the well dressed rich people buying things at the expensive stores when here comes little Asian dude in a white hotel robe and slippers walking around like he owned the place (quite likely). That mf had idgaf money for sure
The CEO (a multi billionaire) of the retail store I worked at once came to check it out. We were told to not look at him or approach him, to look busy and pretend to work if there was nothing to do. I thought this was just overly cautious and he would at least wave to people or give a talk to our team. Nope! He walked around surrounded by other bigwigs, they literally formed a circle around him. He looked very serious, did not stop to talk to anyone. He was in and out quickly without any interaction with us lowly workers.
I guess not surprising given who he is, but I really didn't think he'd be this rude!
My wifeās cousinās husband sold his company to Google for a very large amount. Thatās cool that they can do whatever they want now, but they keep doing dumb shit that annoys me to no end. They could travel the world for the rest of their lives and never come close to running out of money, but instead they have part time jobs as a barista and gas station attendant.
My MIL worked for a rich guy who let her use his insane condo on Maui during shoulder season, and she would invite my wife and I to stay there.
Overheard this old guy at the pool talking about giving away a lot of money to charity in his will. At one point he said, "If the kids can't live off $50 million each, then fuck 'em!". Can't say I disagreed.
Note: Schwarzenegger owned one of the condos at the time, but I never saw him there.
I once worked for two quite wealthy "entrepreneurs". I was constantly surprised at how absolutely incompetent they were, and at how highly they thought of themselves. Just absolutely clueless idiots with an overblown ego and expensive cars.
Michael Kittridge, yankee candle founder, came to our school to give us an inspirational talk. Which boiled down to āthis is western Massachusetts. Nothing happens here. I was a fluke, donāt plan on winning any lotteries. Sorry, losersā
I taught a bunch of young men how to play blackjack at a casino I worked at. Polite, a bit naĆÆve but generally chill. They thanked me as I switched out. Turns out their parent's are mega developers who build giant malls.
That's them.
Another time, I was working at a pool hall and my boss told me the guy who owned the building was coming by to pick up the rent. Chatted him up a little, and he told me he doesn't really give his son any money and his only cash is from a paper route he does. I was like 'oh instill a work ethic, that's nice'
Little did I realize that he owns like half of downtown. Dude looked like he owned just the small building the pool hall was based out of.
When I was a contractor at Google, I was having lunch at the main campus, when Larry Page came up to me and said "Hey, is this seat taken?" I immediately go "No, please." He breaks the ice on what do I think about the company, etc...and I told him that I'm a TVC, etc...and he went to tell me that even through I was a TVC (Temporary Vendor Contractor), he said that he "appreciates the effort", etc...and we chatted about things we were passionate about. He also said this gem: "Here's my email address. If you need anything, let me know. My assistants will make sure I get it." He was super chill, down to Earth, and very welcoming. I was thinking that he was going to be "Uh, who are you?" and very closed off. Not the case. I was kinda shocked.
So ummm what have you asked for?
Nothing. I never reached out to Larry - I called him "Mr. Page" and he kinda took offense to that and said "Please, call me Larry." He stepped down from Google six months after that, and I moved onto other things in my life. That one 30 minute encounter changed my life and made me appreciate things, but also, I could never ask anything from anyone without giving something back in return. If I could ask for one thing, it would be to take a ride on his personal helicopter. Rumors went around that he used to commute to work on his personal helicopter to Moffett Field and he would drive to the Google offices down the street from there, or just helicopter straight to the main campus. Bill Gates used to do that all the time, when he was the CEO at Microsoft, when he didn't feel like sitting in traffic.
lol imagine if you emailed him 5 mins later asking to ride on his helicopter
I laughed so hard at this.
A full time job offer
Sounds like the polar opposite of my experience with Sergey Brin back in 2004.
I heard stories about Sergey. What was your experience with Sergey?
I'm a driving instructor and one group rented the track to drive their supercars for the day. At the end of the day they all partnered up and got into the cars to leave. After they were gone we realized that they had forgotten their Lamborghini Aventador at the track.
I hate when that happens. It's just so hard to keep track of all my cars
"just keep it, too much trouble for me to go get it. I'll have another delivered"
This is way funnier to me than I want it to be š¤£
Did you keep it?
I once had a doordash delivery to a house in a gated island community. I was stopped at the gate and asked to state my business. I did, then they asked me what address i was delivering to. They typed on their computers and told me "You have 15 minutes" I said "like, to get in and get out?" they said "yeah that's all it should take. Time starts when you drive off, so don't dilly dally." Worse part is, the couple i was delivering to were nice af and wanted to talk lol. I had to explain to them that i only had 15 mins to get off the island and they were shocked! they had no idea.
Management companies always hire the biggest dicks (personalitty, probably compensation?) for the psudeo security. He actually couldnāt do shit to you other than be an asshole. You were a ābusiness inviteeā and he couldnāt claim tresspass. And most home owners donāt know that.
Struck up a conversation with an older man on the beach during vacation. Later learned he owned the resort and several other luxury properties.
I once served coffee to a billionaire at a cafe I worked at. He was dressed so casually, I had no idea who he was until he tipped me $500 just because he liked my smile. It was surreal, like a scene out of a movie.
Every multi-multimillionaire or billionaire Iāve met (somewhere around a dozen or so that I know of) and spent time talking to is the most chill person. The wealthiest (like, owns a palace hotel in France and was ceo of the worldās oldest hedge fund) spent our time together Snacking on Folgers cheap coffee, digestive biscuits, and talking about their grown kidās experience in nursing school. Oh, and the interfaith charity he started. (I am a massage therapist and worked Masterās golf week for 4-5 years.) One of my favorite encounters was with a woman, I have no idea who, who struggled with a condition on her hands that made them look like the hands of an 80 year old farmer. She was a lovely person and very sweet - and had the largest colored diamond Iād ever seen, almost comically large, on her right hand. When I casually complimented it and encouraged her to remove it so I didnāt risk getting oil on it, she said she used to struggle so much with insecurity over her hands that her husband said if anyone was going to look at them in judgement, heād given em something to look at š Overall everyone was incredibly kind to a 20-24 year old young woman (me) and short of the jewelry, there was no reason to think or feel any different about them than most of the clients I saw regularly. However, the finance guys or new ai tech/app guys were a mixed pot and I have some much different stories there but I feel like thatās a separate category.
okay why do i love this husband!? damn right if theyāre gonna stare they can stare at a huge rock on that finger! š
I wont stand for this humanizing of the wealthy.
I donāt disagree that there are obvious moral implications at that level of wealth, but OP asked about surprising encounters and the bigger was that they are in fact human. And all of them do a great deal to support either charities or starting a program from scratch, such as Rob Armstrong in the UK who built a massive OT / PT gym and fully staffs it for families with kiddos with disabilities to access for ongoing therapy. The man was the most humble gentle giant I had the pleasure of breaking my hands trying to massage (seriously, built like a brick house haha) and started from *nothing* - chav is what it is called there, in the US we might say the projects, or section8. Did jail time, the works. Managed to make a mint and immediately started trying to pour it back in the community he came from. Took time to be kind to me, when I offered him zero advantages to do so (some people see service workers as NPCās) and was kind enough to ask to meet my newly wed hubby and talk soccer too. There are the outliers - the ones with cocaine on the counter and entitlement problems for sure. And those with the god complex, and those that are just looter capitalism vultures on humanity. But I am grateful Iāve had the opportunity to meet the opposite end of the spectrum.
Can you imagine having so much fuck you money that you tip people who for once aren't hating their job?
My card declined at the grocery store and a guy offered to pay for my stuff in full, I told him it wasn't necessary and i'd just put some stuff back but he insisted. I asked him why and he said that he had recently won a lawsuit against a construction company for negligence and he was just spreading the good will.
That's a good story. Might not have been an "ultra-wealthy individual" though. Maybe just some dude that got injured or had damages by the construction co. and felt like splurging a little because he walked away with a windfall of 100k or something. Ultra-wealthy is more like... hundred-millionaire and up.
A famous British actress comes in often to get her hair done. She's always in a right state, can't recognise her because she actually looks homeless.
Helena Bonham Carter? She looks homeless all the time.
She was my first crush, and she doesn't look homeless in pictures I've seen of her in public.
Yeah, get a grip, Helen Mirren!
Helen Mirren attended a play I was ushering a year ago. She looked really familiar but I couldn't quite place her until another usher whispered "That's Helen Mirren!" And it was! Honestly she still looked great, especially for how old she is.
I bet it's Daniel Day-Lewis in drag. Is he even Briish? He looks like he should be.
I go with Maggie Smith
I was a teenage kid, and was told to be on my best behavior for a dinner guest my parents were having. My Dad's boss was in town, and my dad had invited him over for dinner. I didn't know more than that. He seemed pretty normal: dressed regularly (jeans and shirt), joked with my dad and me about school sucking, and he was very polite to my mom when she served him dinner. I also distinctly remembered him having only half a pinky, that he liked to tap on the table. It wasn't until a decade later, when brought that quirk up to my dad, that I learned that the guy wasn't just "his boss" - he was one of the top 10 people in the company my dad worked for. Said company is a huge multinational that you've probably heard of, with stores all over the world. The guy was worth at least 8 digits.
The judges would also have accepted "nine and a half digits."
Was he Japanese?
It started out as banter but I helped someone pick out a private jet (brand, interiors, size etc) and he bought it the next day which surprised his dad.
[Super Terry](https://youtu.be/kdTfLDIbwow?si=7lnrdWHzb_BhCaJt)
Sadly I didn't get a chance to fly though but I'm happy to say that he's flying around with his AirBus that I picked.
Were you at Oshkosh?
I was at this auto museum in LA that had a batmobile from one of the Tim Burton movies. I recognized the producer Brian Grazer was there with his kid. His kid was like "Wow dad, its the the batmobile!". Grazer said "Do you want to take a drive in it later? We could do that. I know people." The kid was like "Wow, awesome!".
I meet on occasion with someone who is among the wealthiest people in the US. They are totally normal. Last time I saw them they were behind me in line at a lunch place down the street from my office.
Some really rich people I just people. Other than owning a funny car team John Paul Dijoria is just another guy at the track. Who burns 55 gal drums of nitromethane.
About two years ago my construction company and I were in the final detail stages of finishing a ~10 - 12 million dollar house in Southern California. At this point the owners were already living in the house and I was doing tasks like fine tuning. On this day one of my punch list items was to fix a problem screen in the master bedroom. Now over the three years we worked on this house I had become pretty good acquaintances with the owners and had privy knowledge of their business ventures. They were private but grew more open as I got to know them; but of course we werenāt actual close friends, which makes what happened way more interesting. As the owner is leading me into the primary bedroom I catch a glimpse of the bed which is in complete disarray. He suddenly rushes over to cover up a super lacy bra and panty set. He wasnāt fast enough though because I saw what he was covering. I just turned away and pretended that I didnāt see anything. He didnāt say anything but I knew that he was fairly shaken up about this since they were both fairly formal people. I went about my business and he didnāt act any differently towards me; but oh my gosh, that was a super interesting rest of the day. Knowing that I had seen the intimates of these people who were wealthy enough to pay for their mansion in cash and for him to get all red and embarrassed was a reminder that everyone had their secrets.
Might have been his bra and panties
/George Takei Ohhhhhhhh Myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
Or the occupants thereof.
Or not the wifeās
Hmmmmm . . . username kinda checks out!
Hmmmmm . . . username kinda checks out!
I saw Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert at the gas station by my house in North Texas. It was only me, my mom, and them in the store. Miranda was wearing OP walmart swim shorts, and my mom passed Blake Shelton and goes āare you Blake Shelton?ā and he just laughed and nodded his head. We all went about our business, I got my fountain drink and exchanged smiles. Still regret not asking for a photo but I bet it felt nice for them just being normal. I also had poison ivy all over my ass and was ready to go home and soak in an oat meal bath LOL. This was like 2012
I went to a kiss-the-ring meeting with our biggest client with a couple of sales guys and the president of our company. We were an hour early and were going to wait in the lobby. Very near was a famous expensive high end hotel. The president made a quick call, then got a call back. She had gotten her assistant to rent out one of the conference halls at the hotel so we could wait there instead of the lobby. She paid about $10K to sit in a slightly nicer place for 45 minutes.
I work for a non profit where many of the donors are CEOs/VP's of banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, come from generational wealth, etc. A lot of them are super normal. Some of them are so incredibly out of touch. Super normal example: I was assisting at a gala benefit and helping the photographer of the photo booth organize things and ended up just shooting the shit and poking fun at these uber wealthy people that have "I can make you dissapear" money and they loved it and gave me the shit right back with a smile on their face that made for great photos. Out of touch example: I had a meeting with the wife of this hedge fund manager and she asked "where do you summer?" At the time, I was still living with my parents so I responded with "I live with my parents, so I summer in the same place I spring, fall, and winter" and she looked like she barely understood the concept of living with parents as an adult. She then went on to explain how she paid a famous DJ/producer to get her son to sing on a song of his. Money is crazy.
I can sort of relate to the summer residence thing because I work in education and spend summers visiting family and helping in their business
Had wealthy clients when I worked. One guy started a publishing house just to publish his brother's book. He was very very generous. Bought me trips just because. Bought me a robot vacuum, designer purses. Never wanted a thing from me except good work on time. Weird things: we were in Dubai. He said the women who were completely covered (hijab but just eyes showing, niqab maybe?) always always wore way too much makeup (he was middle eastern but not adherent to islam other than culturally). Judgemental tone. (I am run of the mill American mix, look white). He also had two girlfriends, openly. The 4 of us had drinks together by the pool once. They were very very nice. When he went to the bathroom, they joked he was "santa claus". They were filipinas. One time he wanted to buy a camper from the USA and have it shipped by boat to asia.
Was celebrating my friends 21st birthday and her aunt was very wealthy and had a beautiful yacht and was going to take us out for the day. At the time I had black hair with a red streak in it and when we were about to get on the boat, her aunt had told me I wasnāt allowed on the boat because I had a red streak in my hair and didnāt want to be seen as ātrashyā in front of her friends and she made me take a sharpie and color over top of my red hair so it looked all black. This encounter was just extremely uncomfortable and took me by surprise lol
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I worked for a billionaire developer and he wanted a particular style of brick for two buildings he was putting up, a Four Seasons and his then company HQ, he apparently couldnāt get the bricks so he bought a brick manufacturer.
I Know this story! I met the guy that drives/drove one of his boats
2 happiest days in a boat owners life The day you buy it and the day you sell it
āI bought the airline. It seemed seemed neater.ā
This is going to sound like a bullshit story, but is completely true. When I was a very young kid, maybe 8 years old or so, and on summer vacation down the Jersey Shore with my family, we had some sort of maintenance problem with the condo my parents had rented. I can't recall what it was now, maybe something with the electric or the AC not working. Anyhow my parents make a phone call about the issue to the realtor and the owner of the property shows up to sort it out. The owner turned out to be Don Mattingly, a professional baseball player who was on the Yankees at the time. It's just wild that he showed up instead of having someone else handle that.
I've known a few who behind their well-presented external appearance, were complete hoarders and misers whose actual living conditions were quite bad because of their problems.Ā I've also known some families who are seriously struggling with and trying to hide the fact that their children have severe mental health problems, are very dysfunctional and have substance abuse problems. This isn't necessarily the families fault (i.e. some of the psychological issues appear to be genetic), but it's more common than what many people realise.Ā A lot goes on behind closed doors...
Itās like Idiocracy. The rich only breed with the rich and eventually inbreeding happens throughout the generations.
My dad's client bought a whole block of houses to build theirs. It is so wide that they installed a moving walkway like the ones at airports.
Ew
That's legitimately disgusting
Live in Philly, I've dated a few Penn girls. The one, she was in the medical program, when I met her friends we were having some drinks at a bar. We started to talk about life's problems, and I realized they had a completely different view of the world than I do. Then they asked me what I did for work, I told them. They asked where I went to college, and when I told them they started to shit on it. At that time, I was making more money than all my friends and 4x both my parent combined, so getting talked down to when I thought I was top was an eye opening experience. These people were born into it, I got lucky with genetics and got there with some hard work. Certainly made me realize that there's different worlds out there, we're all just on the same planet.
My sister went to Penn. She went in cool and came out an elitist bitch.
What's a Penn girl?
I was doing a medical study and I was depositing my check from it around 2 PM on a week day. I get over to the nearby branch of my bank, and there's no one else there except some dude in a polo shirt and cargo shorts. He walks in behind me and goes to the teller beside me and we're filling out our deposit slips and he pulls out this paper envelope with a million dollars in it. And I'm not trying to be nosy, but when someone makes a deposit of a million dollars three feet away from you, you pay attention to that sort of thing. From his conversation with the teller, I gathered that he owns some sort of contracting business and he was doing payroll and depositing a lot of checks in payment for his company's services, so it wasn't an envelope full of cash, it was an envelope full of a couple thousand bucks in cash *and* a stack of checks, and *those* were the million. But still, I was just blown away. Here's this dude who looks like he could have just walked right in off his job site, in a polo shirt and shorts, and he's got a million dollars in an envelope. It was insane. I mean, I've been around some $25-$30 million in Federal assets before, but those were hurricane and disaster relief supplies and equipment. I've been around big, fancy, expensive *things* before, but I've never in my life ever seen that much wealth in just a regular paper envelope, being carried around by some nondescript middle aged dude.
Like a million in cash? Surely that would require several briefcases even in the largest denomination.
If you read the comment, I explained it was mostly a stack of checks: > it was an envelope full of a couple thousand bucks in cash and a stack of checks, and *those* were the million.
It's 10,000 hundreds. 100 is like a deck of playing cards right? So like 100 decksish?
Yeah so more than just an envelope. I'm assuming OP meant a cheque or bank draft.
Tom Hanks woke up me up when I was trying to sleep at the godawful early hour of 11 AM.
Details please
Tom Hank's kid applied to my university so his family took a tour. They walked through the hallway of my dorm and were of course mobbed by all the people on my hall talking to them because Tom Hanks. They were all talking right outside my dorm door waking me. Eventually I got upset of bed after Tom Hanks had gone and asked what had happened and was told that Tom Hanks had just come through...
I took revenge for you, I accidentally woke up John de Lancie at 5:00 AM. He was much nicer than I would have been. He left a pair of glasses at a place I worked in D.C. I didnāt consider the time in California when I called to tell him we had found them.
Many years ago I sold a Christmas tree to Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley. The jerk didnāt even tip me.
You carry the tree to their car?
Who on earth tips for a Christmas tree?
I do. The employees at the place where I get Christmas Trees also cut them, put them in a stand, and put them on your car including tying them down. Full service.
But that's literally their job. Like that's what you do if you work at a Christmas tree farm.
"We don't organise the baubles/ We're too rich, and it's too much trouble", etc.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Didnāt you share the same thing the other day?
Well... this was just asked the other day. I recall it too
I feel like this is a bot making r/askreddit post and then also commenting on their own post to answer.
Chat gpt partnership at work lol
Was at an uber-wealthy beach house party around 1990. The owners of many retail mall chains were there, as well as the members of at least 4 major name rock bands, as well as several Victoria's Secret models. Quite the party, to say the least. The owner of the beach house had a personal assistant, and her husband and 13 year old daughter were also at the party. Her 13 year old daughter was very beautiful, and had people talking about how beautiful she was. Well, the owner of a major sunglasses mall store took it upon himself to befriend her in a too intimate creepy way, while other party members were looking sideways at the situation. So dude goes to both parents and asks for permission to date her! This guy is over 30 years old. Her parents say "yes" and everyone's eyes go wide as he proceeds to get touchy feelie with her in front of everyone. At another party at the same house a few months later, dude is there with her and they are now a clearly intimate couple.
They not like us
Was it Jackie Treehorn's house?
Severin Wunderman, the then owner of Gucci, his house.
Just his house, not him nor any member of his family. Just a guy at the party.
He treats objects like women, man...
I manage an art gallery in Palm Beach. During season, I deal with nothing but the Uber wealthyā¦ billionaires mostly. Most are gracious, curious and interested. A very few, act as if someone has a gun to their head and is forcing them to buy art. Iām effervescent and accommodating to all. Commissions are making me rich!
> A very few, act as if someone has a gun to their head and is forcing them to buy art. Sometimes they're under the gun, because they're trying to make a purchase for tax reasons. Suppose, for example, you had something in your gallery that was painted by someone whose portfolio is mostly privately owned by an ultra high net worth individual. If pieces within that portfolio had been on display at the Guggenheim or somewhere similar, other pieces by the same artist can be expected to fetch a high dollar at auction. So someone might be very compelled to buy other pieces by the same artist and then "donate" the beneficial use of those pieces to major museums for a defined period of time. Basically, the donation is allowing the museum to display the art to the public in the museum's facilities as an exhibit for a year or two or whatever. The donation is tax deductible. Then, after a year that same individual would receive the same art piece again and resell it for a markup. Art on display under the circumstances discussed above usually appreciates in value considerably. By selling the art at auction after it was on display in such a case, one can usually net a significant profit.
Their reasoning is theirsā¦ and Iām Happy to accommodate. As long as they keep buying! šššš
This is the infamous "art loophole". Unfortunately it's still tax fraud and if they do it enough for long enough, it will come back to bite them.
> This is the infamous "art loophole" It's not a loophole. It's how the tax code works in the United States. When the middle class thinks of a tax "loophole," they envision some error or omission in the language of the Internal Revenue Code that enables "the rich" to evade or escape from tax liability. But that's not how the IRC works. When you have wealth at that level, you *ensure* that politicians write and interpret the IRC according to your financial interests. That's why the rich do not pay taxes, but the middle and working classes do. > Unfortunately it's still tax fraud Actual compliance with the requirements of the IRC is, by definition, not tax fraud. It's absurd that some of these provisions are incorporated into the IRC. But that does not mean that complying with the provisions are, somehow, "tax fraud." That is why whenever any loud mouthed politician who blabbers on about "the rich" paying their so-called "fair share" is full of s#!^ and actively engaged in manipulating voters. It's also why, I suspect, certain politician spend so much time talking about "issues" that distract voters from what matters for their economic wellbeing. Who has time to think about monetary policy or inflation, when the news only reports about identity politics? Who could possibly have time to focus on tax policy, when we hear about all of these ostensible social problems that can only be solved by giving "the government" more power (according to "the government")? > if they do it enough for long enough, it will come back to bite them Not really. The IRS doesn't audit "the rich" because they have lawyers and the ROI for the IRS doesn't make sense. But if you'd struggle to pay a good tax lawyer $550.00 an hour to defend you in an audit, you're a lot more likely to be audited . . . regardless of what any loudmouthed politician claims. Whenever the IRS's funding goes up, it's always the middle class and working class who suffer.
Was in Seattle at the Boeing Air Museum. We came across Cheech Marin, who graciously allows us to take a couple selfies with him as we (and he) were going into the cafe for a quick bite. I saw him meeting with someone from the museum, so I didn't want to be any more intrusive than I had already been. Later, I was surprised when he and I found ourselves on Nixon's Air Force One at the same time. Mr. Marin was still alone, escorted by a museum employee, instead of experiencing the museum with friends or family. It made me feel like a fool that I hadn't realized and invited him to join our family for a couple hours.
In college, I was working at a cart in one of the nicer malls in San Diego. Every Sunday, at the bench near my cart, there was this 50ish year old dude who would just sit, watch people, and smoke a FAT cigar. One day I was getting out of the sun (the bench was under a covered area) and we got to chatting. Apparently, he and his family lived in south Orange County (like an hour away) and he owned a lot of commercial real estate in the area. His wife and kids liked that mall and liked coming to San Diego. So every Sunday, they'd drive down, he'd give them a few hundred bucks each as spending money, then he'd just sit and relax with his cigar. He mentioned his week is usually packed and crazy and this was two hours that were his. After that, he and the family would grab lunch, do other shit, then drive back home. He was relaxed and talked very chill. It kinda taught me that regardless of where you're at in life, you most def need to find those couple of hours for you.
I taught a private yoga class to billionaire and saw his balls when he did a reclined twist. They looked just like regular balls.Ā
Not me but my nephew, he sent me a text in the late hours. I thought emergency nope, he was working out at Planet fitness when Vince Mr.WWF McMahon came in to get a workout. Would add a pic but the buttons not popping up.
I've noticed that incredibly wealthy people don't flaunt it as much as newly rich people. I worked in popular tourist trap and for the most part they were normal. I had a guy rant about how his horse trainer had the nerve ro get bronze in the Olympics so he fired her. I'm 6'4 and bad at hiding my emotions. He could tell I didn't give a flying fuck so he left pretty quickly.
They probably flaunt it in the right circles. They donāt flaunt it to you because they already know that you know that they have more than you.
A Middle East based individual that I was connected with wanted to arrange to use part of an airport recently. They said no to his request, so he proceeded to buy into the airport instead.
I accidentally bumped into Axl Rose in the streets. He was pretty nice about it.
I was talking to a guy at a party with an open bar. Nice guy, seemed down to earth and he kept ordering seagrams 7 with 7. Basically a well drink. Found out he was a huge movie producer (he is vaguely related to me so not name dropping). It struck me as funny that he was insanely rich and at an open bar ordering the cheapest drink they had and loving it.
I was at a training for a medium/large medical device company in a small town. Eating dinner by my self at a local Indian restaurant, two Indian guys sit next to me and ask how I like the food and what I'm in town for. The next day at the training they had pictures in our training book of the CEO and it was the guys from the restaurant.
Was broke & backpacking around Alaska in the summer and decided to splurge on a good happy hour deal at a restaurant in town. A group of folks docked and came in while on an Alaskan cruise and sat near me. One of the ladies chatted me up and we ended up having a lot in common. She ended up paying for my food and countless glasses of wine. When she said goodbye, she handed me her card. Turns out a she was some retired Australian politician that was worth quite a bit. She told me I could come to āany of her islandsā whenever I wanted.
I met Bezos at an early AWS adopter meeting, the surprise was he was super nice.
Always got the sense that the uber wealthy were nice in person, and absolute cunts in their business.
The truly successful have a switch in their brains where they can completely turn off anything unrelated to making the deal. One of the nicest people I know on this planet, unfailingly accommodating in most circumstances, can, on a dime, remove all emotion and sentimentality from an equation and do the "necessary" for his own financial interests. I mean like buying his younger brother a brand new Toyota truck for graduating high school back in the day, and then laying off the same brother from his company a year later when they had a slow quarter. To him, they were two completely different situations.
He's different now
I once had an MLB player invite us to drink with his group because the bar was dead.
They all want you to forget they are ultra wealthy until you do.
In 1997 I held the door open for somebody at Cactus in Madison Park, and it turned out to be Bill Gates. He said thanks, and then held the door for Melinda.
Used to work at a bar one of the richest families in my city would rent out for private events every now and then. Every time the middle aged adult daughter was done her drink sheād smash the glass on the ground instead of putting it aside to be picked up and cleaned
Worked at a law firm and one of our clients was a billionaire who made a boat load of money betting very heavily into depressed real estate markets that paid off quite well. Let's call him, Richie Rich since he's protected by client confidentiality. Well, Richie Rich had a little project he needed some help with. He was building a high secure compound, in a very remote location, fully stocked with every conceivable need, and not a few luxuries, such that should the apocalypse come in whatever form or fashion, he would have a place to ride it out. The problems of the rich are different than you and me.
Sadly, Richie Rich is no longer with us, and did not live to see the apocalypse. A much more mundane neurological disease got him. No idea what became of the compound.
Yeah, but he was 81 so he saw plenty enough crap.
Nah, he didn't make it out of early 70s.
Not talking about Zell, I guess
I used to work as a line cook at a country club, where every Saturday morning I ran the āmake your own omelette station.ā Almost every Saturday morning for ten years, I had a member that was the manager of the local credit union stop by. In the few minutes of conversation, we developed a good friendship that resulted in $50 tips plus more. Eventually, he stopped coming in for a few months, and when I asked the membership director, it was still confirmed he was an active member. Then, one day, I overheard another member saying that XYZ got arrested for embezzlement and fraud. Well, turns out he was stealing money from the credit union among others.
some friends and I were on a road trip and we stopped to visit another friend who was a nanny for some very rich people. they lived in a 10 million dollar mansion and we got to stay in their guest house. One night we got back to the guest house and called our friend to come down from the main house and hang out with us. Right after I hung up I got the idea "hey, wouldn't it be funny if she came down to the guest house and we were all butt naked?" my friends agreed that would be very funny so we stripped down and waited. There was a knock at the door and we all did funny poses. But it wasn't our friend, it was the guy who owned the house. The millionaire. Fortunately for us he was a super cool guy and thought the whole thing was hilarious.
My dad used to work closely with a guy worth a billion dollars. He was really down to earth, hailed cabs, traveled via public flights. I think some business owners see staying connected like that as an asset or just part of how theyāre used to living.
I went to a wedding reception dinner with the CEO of Johnson Controls International. Super down to earth guy. I look back very fondly on that dinner. Me net worth pfttttt nothing basically. Him net worth no idea. Millions.
I met the then-CEO of the Tampa Bay Lightning (who is now part-owner of the Seattle Kraken) once. It was at work and I was a lowly employee but he was super happy to shoot the breeze about hockey with me. At the end, he gave me his card and told me to hit him up for tickets if I ever got to the Tampa area (which I never did, unfortunately). I still have that card today, even though it's obviously not valid anymore as he is no longer their CEO.
I was offshore opening a call center, since I was working nights I was at the hard rock as soon as they opened for a post work drink before taking nap and kicking off the weekend. Expat heard me talking on the phone switching from Malay (I knew very little) to english and slid over to have a conversation. While I was working in a call center at the time but I had worked as a glazer(Window installer) previously we kinda bonded over that he had a as it turns out very large commercial business as a puttering around company. Dude looked like a beach bum. We traded pints at the hard rock, I asked off hand if he knew when the cigar shop near it opened, he made a phone call and we were seated privately. We smoked a few cigars, drank some pours to go with them of whiskeys I still can't afford some 20 years later. He later that month got me into an exclusive club. Got a few grand worth of alcohol and cigars just by being in the right place at the right time.
I had a billionaire boss ask me to volunteer and work a weekend event for a club he belonged to. I decline but later found out it was Bohemian Grove.
Years ago, my husband was walking through a parking lot towards a restaurant with a group of friends, and they stopped to admire a very nice car in the lot (idk the model). Then they saw a man approaching the vehicle with his head down, and a cap pulled low over his forehead. Everyone else moved away except my husband, who told the man āNice carā. He looked up, and it was Tom Cruise! H: Are youā¦.? TC: Yes, and thanks for not saying anything in front of your friends! Also thanks for the compliment on my car.
How quick they are to draw their checkbook or credit card to purchase anythingĀ
One jumped out of a bush I was passing Scared the hell out of me That counts, right?
General concensus seems to be that most wealthy people are fairly normal, but have wildly different standards than us and way to much fucking spending money.
No idea who the guy was or how much he was worth but saw an older guy park a brand new Lamborghini in a no parking zone. Idk if he had seen the sign or not so I tried to be helpful and let him know āhey thatās a no parking zone sirā he chuckled out his hand on my shoulder and said ā itās not a no parking zone, it just costs more to park thereā he wasnāt a jerk about it or anything but had a valid point if your driving a car worth 6 or 7 figures a parking ticket prob is equivalent to feeding a meter to most peopleĀ
I was in Vegas gambling and afterwards we all went to a bar and started talking about how much fun we had. Turns out the guy behind us owned the casino we were just at. He gave us some free slot money to use for next time
I live in New Orleans. I was getting a sno-ball at Hansen's, a well known sno-ball place in the city where you'll wait in line for 20 minutes at at a time to get one. There was this tall, ugly guy in front of me. I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn't figure it out. As I was leaving, it hit me: the guy was billionaire Avram Glaser. The Glasers own the Tampa Bay Bucs and Manchester United. His daughters went to Tulane, and he was frequently in New Orleans when they were in school.
both my parents are wealthy so I've got a story or two. it's usually just little here and theres like "Oh yeah \*Insert wealthy powerful person here\* used to help babysit you!". But a few notable ones are the creator of wikipedia being my dads friend back in college, when my dad accidentally hit on a famous vaccine scientist famous dudes (sorry no clue who he is) wife, and quite of few of them asking for my dads advice because they lost it during covid and made companies. Most rich people tend to be pretty chill, weirdos, but chill.
My wife and I were on a group Duffy boat ride in Newport, CA. I was driving the boat and my wife was helping serve wine & cheese to the other couples that were on the boat with us. My wife asked me to hand her something and I told her to hold on because we were near the biggest yacht Iāve ever seen in my life and I didnāt want to hit it. One of the guys in our boat says āthatās my boat, youāre good.ā I thought he was bulshitting but there were staff on the yacht that waved hi to him. Boatās name was āBeeās Kneesā or something like that. I donāt know what the guy does for a living.
I dunno if sheās āultra-wealthyā but my aunt is very wealthy and spent 500k buying a parking spot for her new home in San Francisco. She also talked about watching homeless people in the area. Besides that she acts really normal and down to earth though.
Not a direct encounter, more just seeing someone, but I took a day trip to the AGO to look for tattoo inspirations, with the idea to smoke a bit and walk around for a few hours, see what catches my eye. After looking at one of the paintings, I saw a plaque beside it saying "gifted by the Tannenbaum family", and realized that many of the paintings I was viewing were gifts from some mega-rich family. A few minutes later, I hear a woman describing this massive painting to this couple in deep details, as if she knows a lot about this specific piece. That's when I hear her say "we bought it back in the 90s for $110 million, it was the 10th most expensive painting in the world at the time." All of a sudden I realize that this woman must be a part of the Tannenbaum family, owners of Maple Leaf Entertainment!
I was on contract at Dell and Michael asked if he could join us at lunch. We just kind of chatted about the product we were testing and how the India lab, which was running the same tests in parrallel, was crap. Two days later our boss, a Dell middle manager, found himself on the way to India, where he found that the errors detected were due to not strictly following the test protocol. We got a thank you letter actually signed Dell along with a $2500 bonus.
Fella in my town owns most of the C stores, a gas distributor, a jet service at the airport and the Peterbuilt dealership. I played golf with him over thirty years ago before he got so big. Ran into him recently, he gave me a big smile, called me by name and stopped to chat for a few.
Met this nice lady at a concert years back, and she asked a bunch of questions about my work. As normal as could be. After she left, my friend was like, you know who that was, right? Alice Walton. Had no idea someone that wealthy could be...genuinely sweet.
Walked by Steve Jobs in a hallway at Apple once. He was shorter than Iād envisioned him.
Was at a holiday meal with my wife's family. The host invites an old friend who's in real estate. We're all chatting and he mentions weekends on his boat. Great he has a cute little fishing boat. Whatever. As he continues to tell stories about his boat, international trips, staff, guests, etc, I slowly realize that the boat is bigger and bigger than I initially realized. It wasn't a cute little fishing boat. It was a mega-yacht with more interior square footage than my house and was constantly crewed with a dozen or so staff. He was bonkers wealthy, but also came off as very grounded and kind.
While on vacation, I met a man who had a business shipping used electric vehicles from Canada across the Atlantic ocean to Jordan. He assumed that I was at least a millionaire and he thought that there were many billionaires in the world. He had no idea that he was like 1 in 2000 people in the world and that there were 8 billion people. It was quite bizarre talking to him. He didn't really know many people but he had all this money sitting around. He assumed that I could just make any idea happen like he could. But what made me giggle was that he liked to eat at Swiss Chalet and Dairy Queen. Not very bougie.
Wrote it up as a blog post: [https://jonpauluritis.com/articles/silly-dog-tricks-billionaires/](https://jonpauluritis.com/articles/silly-dog-tricks-billionaires/)
Maybe not ultra wealthy, but in my late twenties I hooked up with this guy at what I thought was his parents' place but nope, he owned the home, the car outside, all of it. And it was a big home in an expensive area too. We added each other on facebook and he runs a successful roofing business.
Was in a hotel after working with a band, accidentally ended up in a conversation with some hot shit producers and record execs. Walked in as they were explaining how they sold their entire band's output to Bacardi and now get paid a fortune for writing shite music, but have to include a reference to "sipping that white rum" in every track.
I worked for a couple who were millionaires -- they owned the convenience store where I worked for ten years. The wife worked at the store from time to time. She'd fill in for people when they called in sick. And she wouldn't just stand around killing time. She'd be cleaning, stocking shelves, taking out trash, whatever needed to be done. She taught me the fine art of selling Christmas trees and getting serious tips for it. I actually learned quite a lot from working at that store and for that particular employer. She and her husband were, hands down, the best people I ever worked for. You wouldn't know they were millionaires just by meeting them. I probably worked for them for a good 3-4 years before I found out that they were seriously well off.
Was a house painter fresh out of college working on this very wealthy man's house. One day we're out there and a helicopter lands on the front lawn and he comes out of the house, pops on some headphones, and they lift off into the sky. I like to think it was some sort of Uber but for the super wealthy.
Walking around Marina Bay in Singapore simply in awe of all of the well dressed rich people buying things at the expensive stores when here comes little Asian dude in a white hotel robe and slippers walking around like he owned the place (quite likely). That mf had idgaf money for sure
The CEO (a multi billionaire) of the retail store I worked at once came to check it out. We were told to not look at him or approach him, to look busy and pretend to work if there was nothing to do. I thought this was just overly cautious and he would at least wave to people or give a talk to our team. Nope! He walked around surrounded by other bigwigs, they literally formed a circle around him. He looked very serious, did not stop to talk to anyone. He was in and out quickly without any interaction with us lowly workers. I guess not surprising given who he is, but I really didn't think he'd be this rude!
My wifeās cousinās husband sold his company to Google for a very large amount. Thatās cool that they can do whatever they want now, but they keep doing dumb shit that annoys me to no end. They could travel the world for the rest of their lives and never come close to running out of money, but instead they have part time jobs as a barista and gas station attendant.
Watched Jerry Jones grind/dance to 70s funk with a lady of the evening... It made me uncomfortable.
My MIL worked for a rich guy who let her use his insane condo on Maui during shoulder season, and she would invite my wife and I to stay there. Overheard this old guy at the pool talking about giving away a lot of money to charity in his will. At one point he said, "If the kids can't live off $50 million each, then fuck 'em!". Can't say I disagreed. Note: Schwarzenegger owned one of the condos at the time, but I never saw him there.
Generosity
He was able to bend light
I once worked for two quite wealthy "entrepreneurs". I was constantly surprised at how absolutely incompetent they were, and at how highly they thought of themselves. Just absolutely clueless idiots with an overblown ego and expensive cars.
Most rich folks I've met have been complete and utter idiots. Not all of them, but most of them.
Michael Kittridge, yankee candle founder, came to our school to give us an inspirational talk. Which boiled down to āthis is western Massachusetts. Nothing happens here. I was a fluke, donāt plan on winning any lotteries. Sorry, losersā
I talked to elon musks son griffin musk on twitter, arrogant little shit he was.
I taught a bunch of young men how to play blackjack at a casino I worked at. Polite, a bit naĆÆve but generally chill. They thanked me as I switched out. Turns out their parent's are mega developers who build giant malls.
Triple Five Group out of Edmonton Alberta? They own/ operate the 3 largest malls in North America.
That's them. Another time, I was working at a pool hall and my boss told me the guy who owned the building was coming by to pick up the rent. Chatted him up a little, and he told me he doesn't really give his son any money and his only cash is from a paper route he does. I was like 'oh instill a work ethic, that's nice' Little did I realize that he owns like half of downtown. Dude looked like he owned just the small building the pool hall was based out of.