1. Three basic conditions for becoming a rich man: good early education + hard work + luck
Willingness: There are 1,226 rich people in the United States, 840 of them belong to the "self-made" category. Indeed, today's top rich are rarely born into poverty and have no access to opportunity - a good early education is a prerequisite, and having a wealthy, full-time father also helps - but their Great wealth usually comes from hard work, intelligence and a good deal of luck. Generally speaking, they are not aristocrats, but economic elites; they are not only focused on consuming wealth, but also on creating wealth
Education: John Quiggin, an economist at the University of Queensland, in a recent paper Speaking of, according to his statistics, the total number of first-year freshmen in the Ivy League (about 27,000) only accounts for nearly 1% of the U.S. college-age population (about 3 million). In an education-driven, winner-take-all economy, these 1% of 18-year-olds have a huge advantage in joining the next 1% of adult wealth.
"It's no surprise that competition for admission to elite schools is so fierce," Quiggin writes. "Even though tuition has been rising steadily and is much more expensive than it was a generation ago, parents and students still feel that attending a ' The right university is a matter of life's success.
The globalization of the super elite begins as early as school. You don't need an exclusive passport to get to the top rich circles, but you do have a way, and that is your alma mater - the Ivy League schools in the United States, plus Stanford, Oxford and Cambridge universities, as well as the world's top business schools.
In this world, where you get your MBA is more important than what country you are from. Many of the top billionaires were educated in their home countries—remember, this is a largely self-made group—but their children are almost exclusively attending these top global schools.
Today, 4 out of 5 Chinese entrepreneurs would consider sending their children to study abroad. "Chinese billionaires prefer to send their children to high schools abroad, and private boarding schools in the UK are a popular choice. Chinese millionaires send their children to foreign universities so that their children can integrate into the plutonomy. The Ivy League schools in the United States gather the largest number of elites.
Surround yourself with great people. In a 1968 study of Nobel Prize winners, sociologist Robert Morton found that a strikingly common characteristic of Nobel Prize winners is that they were gifted at a young age and focused on field, and then be able to enter the laboratories of famous scientists in their research fields - "34 of the 55 American laureates were qualified to work under 46 Nobel Prize winners when they were young."
< p> 2. The circle of the top tycoons is becoming more globalized and homogeneousThe top tycoons are forming a transnational community, and they have more in common with each other than with their compatriots in their hometowns. There are more similarities. Whether they settle in New York or Hong Kong, Moscow or Mumbai, these contemporary top tycoons are banding together to form a new world.
Ultra-high-net-worth individuals (those with investable income of at least US$50 million) are mainly concentrated in specific countries and regions, and their lifestyles are more similar. Even high-net-worth individuals scattered in other regions will participate in the same world markets and purchase high-yield consumer products. Their wealth portfolios are also very similar, consisting mainly of financial assets, especially equity holdings in listed companies traded on international markets.
Director Wang Huiyao, founder of the China and Globalization Research Center, told me, "We have experienced the globalization of trade, we have experienced the globalization of capital, and now, we are experiencing the globalization of talents."
"The owner of the land must be a citizen of the country where the property is located. But the shareholders are actually citizens of the world and do not necessarily belong to a certain country."
3. Contemporary philanthropic capitalists ’s appeal: to change the world
Marx famously said: Previous generations of philosophers tried to describe the world, but he intended to change the world. Gates and other top billionaires are having a similarly huge impact on the world of philanthropy. They don’t want to fund social sectors, they want to change them. Their impact on American education is one example.
These philanthropic capitalists build businesses in a way that produces maximum impact with minimum effort (capitalists use leverage, technologists use scale), and they believe philanthropy should do the same.
Transforming education: Gates and other education-focused billionaires are leading a data-driven revolution by focusing on measurable results. The first step is to put testing at the center of education so that the output of student learning can be measured; the next step is to make teaching and learning more data or reward-driven.
Change the direction of state funding. Foundations tend to fund more cutting-edge research, and we serve as partners in distribution, but government funding still accounts for the lion's share. It's a measure of the financial and intellectual power of the world's richest people, who are aiming to Leading the entire country
Changing ideology: Some of the most far-sighted and wealthy people not only try to use their wealth to become government officials, but also use their wealth to change the existing ideologies of regions, countries and even the world.
Soros' Open Society Foundations had a powerful influence on the emergence of democracy and the emergence of pluralism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
4. Inequality in the circle of the rich
Low tax rates: In 2009, among the top 1% of the rich, the richer you were, the lower the actual tax rate was. The income tax rate for the top 1% of the rich is 23%, and the income tax rate for the top 0.1% is only 21%. The tax paid by the top 400 taxpayers accounts for less than 17% of the total tax revenue. Capital gains are an important source of income for the very rich, but the lower you go on the income chart, the less important they become—the capital gains tax rate in 2012 was just 15%. Winters believes that the reason America's oligarchs enjoy such low effective tax rates is because they are served by a team of professional lawyers, accountants and lobbyists. He calls this group of “courtiers” “income defense practitioners.” They must have reaped the benefits of spending the past few decades crafting anti-tax proposals in think tanks funded by the very rich.
Low proportion of women: 2012 Forbes billionaire list. Only 104 of the 1,226 billionaires are women, and the number is even smaller if you exclude the wives, daughters and widows of billionaires. Most notably, the lack of female billionaires is inconsistent with trends in other segments of society. Among the 99% outside the top 1%, women are making more and more money, receiving higher and higher education, and gaining more and more power.
Although the number of women in the 99% group is growing steadily, the top 1% of the rich are still a men’s club. The gap between others and the top 1% can be understood this way: the world is divided into a middle class dominated by women and a wealthy class dominated by male elites.
Once Harvard girls graduate, the probability of entering the top wealthy circles becomes smaller because of the jobs they choose. Finance and management are overwhelmingly the most lucrative industries, with financiers earning the 195% wage premium mentioned above. In 2007, the proportion of women working in finance or management right after graduation rose to 43%, while an astonishing proportion of men made the same choice as high as 58%. You can look at the income gap: In 2005, 8% of men graduating from Harvard earned more than $1 million, while only 2% of women crossed that threshold.
Wealthier households are more likely to be headed by men. In 2005, only one-quarter of the taxpayers' spouses among the top 0.1% of the wealthy had a job. Most of the housewives of the top wealthy were graduates of top schools such as Yale Law School. Ambitious geeks in the super-elite marry classmates rather than secretaries, and their equally highly educated wives are likely to give up their jobs.
The problem is not that women are not as smart or as mathematically capable as men: they do not have a killer instinct, they do not want to fight, they do not want to attack each other's vitals. ”
4. Superstar effect under new technologies
What economists call the “superstar” effect—technological revolution and globalization often create a phenomenon in many fields and companies It is an economic competition where winners and losers are the best. Being the best in your field will bring huge rewards, but if you get second place, the economic value will shrink significantly.
1. Super geeks in the technology field: Super geeks dominated by technical talents not only rule Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Bangalore, and Beijing, they also hold power in Washington—no matter which party wins the election.
2. New technologies eliminate old technologies and expand the overall size of the market.
Live performance--Mrs. Billington's lifelong career and Chaplin's first career--represents only a tiny slice of the entertainment pie. Thanks to the birth of movies and radio, people spent more time participating in commercial entertainment, which created a larger market for top performers. ?
Once the Internet becomes a mass media, we have every reason to believe that this new technology will bring an end to the "superstar economic phenomenon."
The income gap between superstars and everyone else in the Internet age is wider than ever. We found that in the total income distribution map of the United States, the top 1% of high-income earners own about 17% of the total income;
Why is Lady Gaga worth as much as 4 Mrs. Billingtons? In fact, the answer is not that mysterious. They are all top divas of their respective eras and are world-renowned. But the only way to hear Mrs. Billington sing is to go see her live in person, and now Lady Gaga's performances can be heard and seen just through the Internet. Globalization and the technological revolution have allowed Lady Gaga's music to reach a wider audience, making her a brighter star.
Movie stars enjoyed unprecedented success even as movie studios were decimated, and sports stars made millions even as their teams became worthless.
We have also found that in specific industries-banking, legal industry, sports, entertainment, and even in ordinary industries such as dentistry, those at the top are increasingly competing with others. gap. This "superstar economic phenomenon" is one of the reasons for the emergence of global super elites.
3. A comfortable global village has formed within the economy of the top rich.
How the top tier economies became self-sustaining global economies thanks to the Marshall Effect, shutting out everyone else.
Demand for luxury services exceeds demand for low-yield services. It should be remembered that this is also the theory carefully formulated by the proposer of Citigroup's "Top Rich Economy": Gucci's performance is better than Wal-Mart's, and excellent oil paintings appreciate faster than those that are just okay. For David Boy The demand outstrips the need for paralegals.
Russian oligarchs make superstar French dentists, and Wall Street bankers and Arab sheikhs make superstar interior designers. Whether you're good at filling teeth or weaving fabrics, once you're part of a league of superstars, you can profit from the vast wealth amassed by a handful of global business elites. Conversely, whether you start your career in Western Siberia or the American Midwest, as long as you are a member of the super elite, you will be a regular customer of the same dentists, interior designers, and art curators as other super elites. This is why a cozy global village forms within the top economies.
The Marshall, Rosen, and Martin effects all involve the way superstars receive higher returns for the value they create—wealthier customers (Marshall effect), more customers (Rosen effect), and better trading conditions with financial backers (Martin effect). What makes these factors so powerful is the cumulative effect observed by the sage Matthew: the phenomenon of superstardom is self-reinforcing.
The scientist who best embodies the self-reinforcing power of "fame" is Einstein. Einstein was a truly groundbreaking physicist whose theory of relativity ushered in the nuclear age and transformed the way we think about the physical world. However, why are Niels Bohr, who made important contributions to quantum mechanics and proposed a model of atomic structure that is still valid today, and James Watson, the discoverer of the double helix structure of deoxyribose acid (CDNA), not as household names as Einstein?
After World War II, Americans developed a strong fear of foreigners, and anti-Semitic sentiment continued to rise. In this political climate, America's opinion controllers concluded that Dr. Einstein and his theory of relativity were not only evil but destructive. It is a fact universally recognized that only "12 people" in the world can understand the theory of relativity. Experts worry that this foreign secret group can use knowledge to bend time and space, thereby entering the "fourth dimension" to achieve the goal of "global domination." The New York Times even warned that Einstein's discovery had "anti-democratic implications": "An assertion that can only be understood by a select few on Earth or in interstellar space tramples on the Declaration of Independence." "."
?Weizmann's delegation arrived in the United States. At that time, Zionism was gradually gaining popularity among New York Jews, and thousands of people came to the pier to greet the visiting delegation. But the media believed that these people were fanatical followers of Einstein. The Washington Post reported, "Thousands of people waited at the pier to welcome Einstein." The New York Times wrote, "Thousands of people waited for four hours to welcome Einstein and his team." Einstein. Stan piqued the interest of the news reporters, who focused their attention on him. Reporters had expected Einstein to be a rebellious, aloof European who would look down on rough Americans, but on the contrary, he turned out to be a humble and likeable guy. "He smiled broadly when he was photographed, and his answers to reporters' unreasonable questions were full of humor and witty remarks." Einstein no longer posed a threat to the Declaration of Independence. The New York Times declared, "The more familiar you are with love, the more you know about love." Einstein, the better the impression of him." Essayists also love Einstein, they like to subvert readers' expectations and experience the thrill of excitement. A scientific legend was born.
4. How the rich are born.
1. Economic transformation, change of the old system
The Soviet Union’s transformation to overthrow the old system, or the transformation from a centrally planned economic system to a market economic system. In those areas, responses to change have been particularly profitable. The most stunning transformation—and the greatest opportunity for a windfall—is in Russia, where two decades of capitalism have produced about 100 billionaires, or 8% of the world’s total. The personal wealth of this group of Russian billionaires is equivalent to 20% of Russia's annual economic output.
The reason why Soros has achieved remarkable results is because the "radar" he uses to detect change is a way of thinking about the world, not a fool's algorithm. This is the real secret of emerging markets. If you're not afraid of uncertainty or uprooting your family, it's much easier to make money in these unexplored areas of the economy than to fight for an extra 1% of market share in developed countries.
The world’s smartest big companies—like General Electric, Google, Goldman Sachs—are looking for ways to profit from the massive economic transformation of our time. The biggest winners, however, are individuals, not institutions: globalization and the technological revolution are dramatically lowering barriers to entry, and the beneficiaries are those who are smart enough, lucky enough, and able to achieve their goals on their own.
The biggest winner of the "loan-for-shares" privatization reform and Russia's richest man in 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, has been in prison for 10 years (for fraud, tax evasion, etc. ) and spent much of his time in labor camps in Siberia. This kind of turmoil among the top rich is an important feature of the new top rich circle. It also explains why although the top rich have a large amount of bank deposits, their current situation is actually not that stable and there are great differences between them. The biggest winners in the current economy are those who are good at responding to change, but that also means they live in—as one Hungarian (Andy Grove) wisely said—“a world where only the paranoid survive.” middle".
Among the 1,226 billionaires on the 2012 Forbes rich list, 111 were oligarchs from the Soviet Union, 90 were technology experts, and 77 were financiers. The number of billionaires relative to the size of the economy, and the gap between billionaires and others, is even more staggering: the total wealth of Russia’s billionaires is equivalent to 1/5 of Russia’s annual economic output. In the United States, the wealth of 424 billionaires is equivalent to only 10% of the United States' annual economic output.
Moscow is the city with the most billionaires in the world, ranking first with 78, and New York has only 58, while London is only half the size of Moscow, Russia’s oligarchs have achieved impressive results and income inequality is worse today than during the tsarist period. This post-Soviet asset sale was eye-catching not only because it marked a sudden shift from state ownership to private ownership, but also because the value of the spoils after privatization was so high and the shift was so swift.
At almost every turn, the end goal is to get the government out of business. But the irony of the triumph of liberal economic ideas is that their implementation has brought about the greatest opportunity for rent-seeking wealth in economic history - in the final analysis, the government dominates privatization. A spot in the prize pool is one of the safest ways to join the world's elite today.
2. Take advantage of the development trends of the times
Big data will create a new group of highly paid superstars. McKinsey estimates that by 2018, the United States alone will have 140,000 to 190,000 talent vacancies with "deep analytical skills" in the field of big data applications. Big data may create a small group of billionaires who will be the first to understand the revolutionary potential of big data and profit from it. Facebook's market value is as high as 100 billion US dollars, which can actually be understood as the market's optimism about big data.
The rise of the top 1% of the rich, especially the top 0.01% of the rich, can be attributed to the rise of finance. Looser financial regulation, more collusion, and higher risk pursuits are all important reasons why finance has become a more important field in many Western economies—especially the United Kingdom and the United States. This is also what creates the super elite. The key reason for its rise. It is also an important reason why financiers earn more than almost everyone else.
3. Know how to turn around in time
"Turn around" means that you realize that you have taken the wrong path and must change your route. To become a winner in the moment of change, part of it depends on A lucky combination of factors, the right skills, the right personality and being in the right place in society at the right time.
In the past, the big ones ate up the small ones, but now the ones with quick reactions eat up the slow ones. "Saar, a professor at London Business School, believes that mature companies - large companies - have difficulty becoming fast-responsive companies, at least in terms of efficiency. These companies have not changed their behavior. Their most typical response is "active inertia" - the company is still in the same old way, but more active than before
Firestone Company. Company founder Harvey Firestone was very good at responding to change. In 1900, the Firestone Company began producing tires in Akron, Ohio. Henry Ford pioneered mass production of automobiles, and Firestone saw the potential. In 1906, Ford selected Firestone to supply tires for the Model T automobile. In 1988, Japanese competitor Bridgestone acquired Firestone at a low price. Like many strong century-old businesses, Firestone was crushed by the new disruptive technology as radial tires entered the U.S. market. The company tried to catch up and began ramping up production of radial tires in manufacturing plants originally designed to make traditional bias-ply tires, which led to disaster. Eventually, Firestone had to recall millions of tires. At a U.S. Congressional hearing, Congress held that the tire problem caused the deaths of 34 people and that Firestone should be held responsible.
The direct cause of Firestone's failure was its past success. ” Firestone has performed well in the stable post-World War II era in the United States. As Sal said: "As long as the environment remains unchanged, you will be fine if you follow the success formula step by step." However, many industries, many countries, and the entire world economy are now in a period of change. "Step by step" is not enough. At this time, you need to be good at responding. Outsiders who change can stand out and defeat the established system.
The Groupon group-buying website was originally a platform for collective political action; the Paypal website was initially a tool for mobile phone transfers, and later "turned around" and became eBay's online payment platform; Twitter was originally It was a podcast website that failed and then rebranded as Weibo
LinkedIn went public in 2011, making the company's co-founder and chairman of the board, Hoffman, a billionaire. Hoffman understood that while he was riding the wave of change, it was creating a society more polarized between winners and losers. "There is a growing gap between those who understand the new rules of the workplace and master new skills in the global economy, and those who are stuck in old ways of thinking and rely on commoditized skills.
Nobel Prize winner Michael Spencer said: "The knowledge and skills you acquire are not as easily replaceable as a portfolio of assets." Soros can respond to change by taking losses or trying different bets. For the general public, it is not that easy to find a new career at the age of 45 because the previous career has become a burden.
4. The fatal flaw of the super rich—short-sightedness.
When you join the ranks of the super elite and climb to a certain height, your life will change, and the people around you will cater to all your needs. "When you get used to being served 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you begin to feel that the whole world revolves around you and your needs. You lose the ability to judge what is right or wrong, have more resources, and exist independently of others. , prompting people to put self-interest above the welfare of others and view greed as a positive and beneficial thing, which in turn leads to more and more immoral behavior.
Venice in 1315. When they reach the peak of economic power, they begin to take actions to "lock in" their privileged interests. The privileged ruling group that gradually tightened its control over the government released the "Libro D'oro" (Golden Code), which officially brought an end to social dissent, because this is an official directory of Venetian nobles. If your name is not here You cannot join the oligarchy by reading this book.
Soon, the "political closed door" turned into an "economic closed door". Under the control of the oligarchs, the Venetian ruling group gradually cut off business opportunities for new entrants. The Comanda, the legal innovation that had made Venice and other Italian city-states wealthy, was banned. The elite ruling group of the Republic of Venice acted for immediate self-interest, and keeping out entrepreneurial entrepreneurs meant that vested interest groups could enjoy exclusive control of the city's hugely profitable trade routes. However, in the long run, "closing the door" means that the Venetian oligarchs are beginning to die, and it also means that Venice as a whole is beginning to move from prosperity to decline. By 1500, Venice's population was smaller than it had been in 1330. Venice was once the richest city in Europe, but during the 17th and 18th centuries, while the rest of Europe continued to grow economically, the city's wealth continued to shrink.
Warren Buffett, regarded by the public as a man of noble character, is the most sacred figure on the altar of American billionaires. In 2008, he described his investment philosophy in a letter to shareholders: "A truly great company must have a stable 'moat' to protect the ultra-high returns on invested capital." Buffett understands that the benefits of an open economy "Creative destruction" is beneficial to the entire country, but smart capitalists like him prefer to defend themselves with an insurmountable "moat", just like the Venetians putting their names in the "Golden Code".
The modern version of membership in the Golden Code is more obscure than inclusion in the peerage list. In our increasingly complex economy, the real golden rule is the degree from the elite universities increasingly occupied by the global super-elite. In fact, statistics show that parents' wealth is more closely related to getting a college degree than high school test scores: higher class is more important than taking classes seriously.
Unlike the Venetian elite, Western capitalists engaged in "creative destruction" and competition with new entrants, thereby creating an increasingly inclusive economic and political order. As a result, the most dynamic era of economic development in human history was born. Marxism makes elites more willing to share the results. Fear of communist revolution was a powerful motivation for reform. Rather than risk outright seizure of power by the forerunners of the Bolsheviks, it was better to give the working class an effective political voice and social safety net.
As the economic gap between the top rich and everyone else grows into a chasm, they begin to live in their own "closed" global communities. The top 1% of wealthy people live in different cultures from the remaining 99% of people. "Cultural closed-door" is very scary because it aggravates the political short-sightedness of the top wealthy people.
"We must have a long-term greedy perspective." If the top billionaires were smart enough, they would adopt this philosophy by now. But as Levy's successors took the helm of the Goldman ship, they came to understand that this was easier said than done.