Some time ago, I saw a topic of #What an experience of earning billions.
Tens of thousands of netizens joined the discussion, and the comment area looked funny and sad.
What is the experience of making billions?
In fact, 18 years ago, there was a group of people in a documentary, discussing their true feelings.
Image source Weibo @ long insight bot
This documentary, called "Born Rich", has caused a sensation in the United States as soon as it was released, and it is difficult to find tickets in major movie theaters in New York.
Everyone who appears in the documentary has a lot to offer. Ivanka Trump, whose family had $4 billion in assets at that time, was not in the top five in this group of top giants.
Georgina Bloomberg, born into a Bloomberg family, currently has a family net worth of about $59 billion.
S.I. Newhousw IV, the son of condé Nast Media Group Chairman, has family assets conservatively estimated at $20 billion. (2003)
Josiah Hornblower, whose grandmother's family had monopolized the railroad and shipping industries across the United States, owned a family museum in New York, where the subway was family-owned and unexploded.
The director of the documentary is Jamie Johnson, the fifth-generation son of the Johnson & Johnson family in the United States, whose family assets have reached 18 billion US dollars in 2003.
Because the film was too real, it was also prosecuted after its release.
What is it like to be born in a family with billions, tens of billions of possessions?
The answers of these top tycoons were surprising...
Born rich
All avenues lead to Rome, and some people are born in Rome.
If there is a model for the winners of life, Jamie Johson, who was born with a golden spoon, must be one of them.
He was tall, handsome and wealthy, and at the age of 21, he was able to secure a $600 million (about 3.8 billion yuan) fortune from the family trust.
After watching the documentary, I learned that many of the top children were accidentally learned that the family had money.
As a child, Jamie Johson grew up in the countryside and never had a big idea of money.
Even if the travel was mainly based on horse-drawn carriages, he thought that every household had horses and carriages.
Until the age of 10, Jamie's father's "secret" was inadvertently discovered by classmates.
"When I was in the fourth grade of elementary school, a classmate in my class found my father's name on the Forbes list of 400 rich people in the United States. After he read it aloud, every classmate and teacher ran over to see if it was true.
My father never talked to me about it, and for a moment I felt ridiculous, as if I was revealing a secret that I shouldn't have known..."
After discovering that she is the young master of the Johnson & Johnson Group, Jamie, an ordinary elementary school, can no longer read and can only receive elite education.
He went to the best schools, studied various arts and cultivated himself, and was introduced to the same circle of people to know.
Jamie doesn't have to think about survival, which in some ways is the ultimate benefit of being very rich.
As the son of the current president of Condé Nast, S.I. Newhouse IV also learned that he had money at a high school parent-teacher conference.
"My great-grandfather bought Condé Nast magazine and conservatively estimated that my family's assets were about $20 billion."
The mouth said" "I can only reveal so much", but the look on his face betrayed his inner pride.
"At the parent-teacher conference, I remember a girl's father telling her, 'These newspapers and magazines belong to his family, they're too rich.'"
The girl went on to tell everyone about my family. I thought they were clever, but I didn't expect it to be true. ”
Newhouse was more concerned than finding out that he had money, and when he came home that day, his father didn't notice anything.
This made him very disappointed, perhaps, that his father did not love him as much as he thought.
B· Luke Weil is the son of a giant in the betting industry, and his father runs all betting industries in sports and horse racing.
"My father said when I was very young, I could do whatever I wanted to do, and I could choose any profession, even as a violinist for concerts.
I just have to care about what I want to do, everything will be ready, don't have to worry about any obstacles. ”
The confidence given by the family made him blind.
At Brown University, he often skipped classes, did not meet the standards of homework credits, and stood up during exams to do other things, and the registrar did not dare to expel him.
At school, if anyone provoked Luke, he would often scold: "Lao Tzu is a New Yorker, he can buy your whole family, get out!" ”
As the daughter of a financial tycoon, Stephanie Ercklentz and Jamie are friends in the same circle.
She was born into a lavish life, attended an expensive private school, and had everything she wanted.
She loves to buy bags and calls herself a "handbag girl".
When shopping, if she really has nothing to buy, she will try those bags that are ridiculously expensive.
Carrying them in your hand, you can't help but buy them one by one, never caring about the price.
We often say that money can do whatever you want, after watching the daily life of these top-notch children, Xiao IN really feels a word: freedom.
They develop a calm temperament from an early age, do not have the trouble of making money, do what they like, and buy what they like without looking at the price.
These people have the freedom to control their own lives, the freedom to say no to bondage.
But freedom also comes at a cost.
confused
Accustomed to relying on his family for everything, one of the last things Luke wanted to think about was, "What if you lose all your money one day?" ”
If one day it disappears, Luke says he will lose his mind.
Americans may also be afraid of the curse of not being rich for three generations, and understand the truth of from frugality to luxury, from luxury to frugality.
Compared with Luke's clumsy son, Josiah Hornblower is a typical example of poor support in the top family.
Josiah's great-grandfather was the son of a famous new York financier, and his grandmother was Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney.
At the end of the 19th century, the Vanderbilt family, which monopolized shipping and railroads, accounted for 1/87 of the US GDP, and was one of the richest families comparable to the Rockefeller family.
In 2007, someone specifically calculated the vanderbilt family's assets at its peak, which translated into about $143 billion.
It's not the same as it used to be, but Josiah's family still has a monopoly on New York's subway operations.
In New York, they also have a family museum, the Whitney Museum.
Maybe everyone fantasizes, "Parents are invisible rich people, and now they just want to test themselves", right?
This actually happened to Josiah.
As a child, Josiah's father always said that the family was very poor, he rarely received gifts, and he knew nothing about the family.
On his 18th birthday, Josiah's father and mother came to school with a bunch of papers for him to sign.
This even included his will, which he signed and became a millionaire.
Josiah, a high school graduate, is looking forward to his college life and future, and his parents are overwhelmed by this behavior:
"When you're a kid and you haven't done anything, you have it all."
His lucky experience was an enviable one.
But without a purpose in life, Josiah gradually lost interest in everything and suffered from depression.
After the 21-year-old coming-of-age ceremony, Jamie, who owned $600 million, also worried about his life.
Members of the family have not been allowed to work at Johnson & Johnson since their grandfather's generation.
Knowing that she would never have to earn her own money to make a living, Jamie felt even more confused, what should she do in this life?
"I don't paint, I'm not interested in collecting, my bottom line is to do something, but I don't really know what profession to do."
Rather than at home, Newhouse prefers to stay in an apartment at Haverford College.
The school's apartment was a double room, and he lived with his roommates.
It's his personal belongings, everyday clothes, things he likes to eat, enough drinks, and so on.
It was nowhere near as good as his father's property in town, but it belonged entirely to Newhouse, which made him feel at ease.
"When I went to New York, it was no longer like my own life."
In the eyes of most Americans, achieving the "American Dream" means living a better life than their parents.
However, for the children of Dinghao, throughout their lives, they could not surpass their fathers no matter what they did.
Ivanka Trump said: "Actually, I am a little proud, everyone will be interested in me because I am a member of the Trump family. But for a while I was also worried that I was under the protection of my parents. ”
Even the greenhouse flowers that have never experienced wind and rain want to bloom in front of everyone's eyes, let alone them?
Self-worth
Georgina Bloomberg, the second daughter of Bloomberg's founder, is now personally worth $11.5 billion (about $73.29 billion).
At the same time, Georgina is also a professional equestrian athlete, living not at all like a rich second generation.
She suffered from congenital spondylolisthesis and was not suitable for equestrian sports, but she began practicing horseback riding at the age of 4 and participated in large and small equestrian competitions since the age of 6.
Most of the time, she lived with her mother in a small town in upstate New York on horse farms, where she practiced equestrian skills.
At the age of 18, Georgina won the Talent derby for the American Equestrian Team.
No matter how much effort she put in behind her back, even if she broke her back bone several times, everyone still blamed her father for her equestrian victory.
In an interview, Georgina felt for the first time the pressure from the family's surname.
"People see the family behind my name, and that's what I'm fighting for."
At home, Newhouse is stressed because he has to "make money" on his performance.
If he doesn't go to school well, if he doesn't work for his family and invests his time, he won't get any share of the assets.
"If one day I suddenly receive a fax or a phone call from my grandfather and say, 'I'm so disappointed in you, you actually put your shoes on the wrong shoes that day, I won't care about you anymore. I'll be scared half to death. ”
Some people are born in Rome. But when they grow up, the children of the top heroes will gradually find that the freedom they have has always been under some kind of restriction.
"Taking their fate completely into their own hands" belongs only to their inner expectations, not facts.
Stephanie, a "handbag girl" who graduated from Wellesley Women's College, found that in New York, not everyone is lucky enough to have those privileges in her life with designer coats.
In order to try to live independently and pay huge credit card bills, she went to work in an investment bank.
Stephanie with father
On her first day at the investment bank, Stephanie worked from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Once she didn't know how to get along with her colleagues, then in the investment bank she learned how to communicate with customers, more about finance.
Now she lives an ordinary nine-to-seven life every day, but she feels very down-to-earth.
"I know, if you lose everything, you're left with only your brain."
After a few weeks at Trinity College in college, Josiah suffered from depression.
Josiah's parents soon arrived on the news and unanimously decided to suspend him from school for a while.
Recalling the two years of suspension, Josiah's eyes suddenly lit up, and he said:
"Those were probably the best two years of my life, and the most important two years of my life."
Josiah, in anonymity, got a job at an oilfield services company in Texas and worked tiringly all day.
Many of them had never been in high school, and Josiah was like a person of two worlds.
During this time with people, he found his own value.
"It was tough at first, I didn't fit in with them, but working hard makes me feel really good."
Being recognized by others for his value makes him feel very satisfied.
Born with a good life, these reincarnated masters are undoubtedly lucky.
But to some extent, everyone's confusion and life goals at different stages are similar, and they will not be happier because of who has money.
We all crave emotional satisfaction in our growth and our self-worth being affirmed by everyone.
Although having money can fill a lot of desires and solve a lot of troubles, if you acquiesce to it, it is all our life pursuits, and we will be limited to one track.
As Liu Yu, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Tsinghua University, once said in a public speech:
"The purpose of life is not to be higher, faster, more, but to find a place that suits you."
The branches of the world, each riding the stream.
I hope we can all experience the true joy of life in our respective fields.
Video source: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1NQ4y1T7rv
Photo /B station up main @ Bai Huan Huan
Written and Edited / Seven Seven
Responsible Editor / Honey
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