I never wanted to be a billionaire.
Let me be more specific. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a billionaire. I always knew while I was growing up that I would end up working for myself, and making money for myself somehow. It’s just that the thought of actually making a billion dollars never really occurred to me.
If you’ve never been rich beyond your wildest dreams before, here is how it goes: When you start making a lot a money for yourself, it creates more freedom in your life to an extent. You can spend more of your time doing what you want, travel to exotic places, the whole deal. But if you’re fortunate enough to have that “a lot of money” starts turning into “a shit-ton of money”, the pendulum starts swinging back the other way. Suddenly you have to figure out what to do with all that money. People’s livelyhoods start depending on how it is managed. And not just a few people … dozens, hundreds, thousands of them. If you’re an idiot, or you’re not watching things/partying all the time, people will try to steal from you. It gets harder to figure out who your friends are (although if you’re smart you’ll figure it out). It’s like what happens to celebrities, or lottery winners. You begin to have to shield yourself from the outside world. They want to fawn all over you, or suck your blood and take what you have. So what started as the means to giving you ultimate freedom turns into a prison of your own design.
And when you get anywhere near that billion dollar mark… it’s like a huge weight. An incredible responsibility. Don’t get me wrong — it’s also great in so many ways. It’s great to be able to go where I want, do what I want, buy a fucking island if I want. But I kind of miss being able to go to places without an armed security detail and an armoured SUV because somebody might kidnap me. Sometimes it might just be nice to put on a ball cap and go to Wal-Mart, ya know? (and hey, who’s to say, maybe I do that from time to time — I just hope my head of security doesn’t have the Internets)
So what’s my point? I’m not exactly sure. I guess this is just meant to serve as some kind of an introduction to you. It’s 2010, it’s a new decade, It’s a Saturday afternoon, I’ve been getting kind of restless, and I’ve been looking for something fresh and different to do. So I thought I might use this blog to tell some of my stories (anonymously) about high finance, venture capital, internet marketing, movie stars passed out on my pool table from too much tequila and pot, or whatever else I feel like talking about. And maybe I can share whatever small wisdom I might have about getting incredibly wealthy, being incredibly wealthy, and staying incredibly wealthy. Because I was smart, but also lucky. And if you’ve read this far, you are probably smart, and probably want to make a shit-ton of money like me … and remember, if you’re smart, and you work hard, you can create your own luck.
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