billionaires are not like you or me but it's really important for them that you think they
are so important in fact that some of them are now spending millions of dollars every year for
PR agencies to spread the message that they are just regular people that drive regular cars eat
at regular restaurants and live in regular homes but in the age of flex culture why the are these
people trying so hard to look normal why don't you buy a Lamborghini man I didn't have any particular
need for one I only say that because I've got a follow-up question okay what's with the Honda this
is a perfectly good car you bought a house for 45k yeah what is it like big or is it no small
is it is small it's a tiny house Great Value 45k mhm yeah I know it's a tiny it's a small small
house I could buy any house in the world and I don't want any other house than the one I'm
in you know and that house is in a middle class neighborhood I'm happy in a pair of khakis and a
sweater so I I don't I I don't need fancy clothes I don't need fancy food do you have an iPad I do
not have an iPad iPhone no the now convicted Frost Sam bankman freed once had billions of
dollars of customer funds at his disposal to live a lavish life in the Bahamas in the early days
of FTX freed and his co-conspirators reportedly drove around in the expensive sports cars typical
of Crypt Bros according to evidence presented during his trial SPF would later sell the cars
and advise other Executives at FTX and Alama to do the same because it didn't fit with the image of
the company that they were trying to present to customers and investors SPF shitty Toyota
crwler that paid influencers made such a big deal of was about as authentic as the company's
internal accounting department the car the haircut the wrinkled haircut were more carefully managed
than customer funds the group did this because they knew that the image of a boy Genius that
didn't care about luxuries or power would be appealing to people looking for an honest place
to keep their funds SBF and the rest of the gang were all frauds but putting a lot of effort into
crafting a folksy image is done by most prominent Business Leaders for three simple reasons that are
mostly [ __ ] if you know these strategies you will be able to see through what is little more
than personal marketing the first reason that they do this is because even if they aren't running a
fraud acting like an every man still gets people to give them what they want stealth wealth is when
rich people buy products that are of high quality but does not flaunt their wealth they do this
because they don't want the attention and problems that come along with people knowing that they are
rich billionaires doing a Bloomberg or nass daily interviews featuring their basic car and geeky
wardrobe is not the same thing as stealth wealth instead of hiding their financial means these
people are just trying to show off as loudly as possible that they don't care about their money
or that their money hasn't changed them it's not stealth wealth so let's call it poverty peacocking
and it's a great move for their personal brand and any companies they represent humble CEOs are the
new fashion the world's biggest companies are run by men who are hoodies and turtlenecks instead of
tailored suits and other Business Leaders are trying to emulate that Trend because investors
like it if Business Leaders very publicly give up flashy luxuries it also sends the message
that they will be frugal running their business and the data actually backs us up what role has
luck played in your success well there's luck enters into everybody's life according to a
study conducted by the National Bureau of economic research in 2012 CEOs and CFOs who were not Frugal
in their own spending were more likely to have instances of insiders perpetuating fraud and
were more likely to push Equity based incentives to increase their own income the study separated
personally Frugal and flashy Executives by looking for purchases like a personal car that was worth
over $75,000 or a boat that was over 25 ft billionaires and Executives didn't actually
want to give up their luxuries so they just started lying about it Buffett does own an old
beat up car but he is usually driven around in a fleet of Suburbans with a security team Zuckerberg
wears the same gray shirt every day but they are custom made by Brunello Cinelli musk does rent a
tiny home next to the SpaceX Factory but the Wall Street Journal pointed out that he spends most of
his time in an 8,000 FT1 million mansion and all of these men fly private they are welcome to these
luxuries it is their money but there are still two more reasons why they try so hard to pretend that
they don't exist so it's time to learn how money Works to find out why billionaires spend Millions
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for sponsoring this video the second reason that really rich people go above and beyond to look
normal is because it is an effective sales tactic if you make millions or even billions of dollars
in your life I have good news for you unless you made your money as a founder and CEO of a
household name company or you are a celebrity it's really easy for you to live a life where nobody
knows who you are apart from your family close friends and the people that work for you according
to Forbes there are 2,640 billionaires on Earth in 2023 down from 2,668 in 2022 the publication also
admits that many billionaires are not included in this number because they could not collect data to
accurately report their private fortunes even if you are really interested in personal wealth you
would probably know 50 of these people at most and the rest just look like people in suits the point
is that every other rich person you know about is only known about because they want to be and why
would they give up an easy life to enjoy their wealth and peace it's because their own success
is one of the best ways to sell stuff whether it's musk promising that full self-driving is
just around the corner Trump slapping his brand name on everything or Kevin o role playing as a
businessman to pitch FTX people bu success people also buy relatability so the clever billionaires
that want to use their image to boost their own company will make sure that people can see them
living lives that people can relate to and aspire to at the same time the New York Post recently
ran an article about Warren Buffett's wife who was supposedly overheard complaining about how
expensive a $4 cup of coffee was at the annual Allen and& Company Sun Valley Conference which
is nicknamed the summer camp for billionaires this story is also picked up by Publications
like Business Insider that ran it with the title Warren it just became even more relatable for a
billionaire if it wasn't obvious let me ruin the fun for you nobody at this conference would have
passed along this kind of personal conversation to the Press you are reading about it because they
want you to read about it Buffett's frugality is credited in his Investment Company Success
so he is selling an image just as much as Trump is with his stakes and O is with his wacky pants
for Buffett this is a better story than a bunch of billionaires getting together to talk in private
about well who the knows the only information that seems to leak from these events is how
expensive the coffee is being relatable is an equally important sales tactic to people who
want to sell a get-rich quick course an important element of any grift like this is that people need
to believe that someone has become wealthy and that they can do it too so grifters will often
talk about their humble beginnings while standing in front of a rented Lamborghini this creates
a situation where a lot of the people you see promoting their courses on YouTube will be poor
people pretending to be rich people pretending to be poor people bill billionaires and get-rich
quick core salesmen presenting a different image of themselves to the world than who they really
are behind closed doors probably won't surprise most of you but there are two ways this s is
hurting the personal finances of regular people the first way is simply the financial harm that
buying into the Trope of the relatable millionaire or billionaire can do to people who follow them
blindly successful people telling regular people to cut down on luxuries to improve their financial
situation is fine but if they are telling them to cut down on luxuries to take on a side hustle so
they can spend their money on a course instead that's obviously bad and it tragically happens
all the time it's easier for people with something to sell to ask people to cut down on discretionary
spending if they have already built up a personal brand around driving a cheap car
and living in a tiny house even after they become a millionaire being a Frugal millionaire is also
easier to fake if the supposed millionaires ever get questioned about the legitimacy of their own
success obviously grifter building an image so that they can sell a bad investment or overpriced
course are going to do serious Financial damage to to the people they rope into their schemes
but even the billionaires paying their PR teams to get them positive media coverage about how
relatable they are are still doing damage to a lot of people's personal finances because
they are reinforcing a common Trope in personal finance that everybody's financial problems are
caused by them spending too much the lies that very wealthy people tell about their humble cars
basic homes and average Lifestyle makes it easy to guilt people for enjoying little luxuries because
if Warren Buffett drives an old car why do you need a new one this does not excuse The Reckless
spending that a lot of Americans are guilty of but it does take the attention away from their
income after a certain point people can't improve their personal financial situation by being more
frugal they need to increase their income and that's the third reason that billionaires spend
too much money on looking poor it helps them keep their workers in line the accounting firm ernston
young in a report estimated that the number of family offices in the world had doubled between
2001 and 2016 family offices are investment firms dedicated exclusively to to managing the wealth
of a single family where you and I have some shares on Robin Hood or Schwab the ultra Rich
keep their money in family offices an article by baren reported that one of the fastest growing
expenses for these firms was public relations many of these family offices are so big that they now
have as much influence as private Equity firms and with influence comes scrutiny private Equity firms
are some of the most hated financial institutions because they have a long history of bankrupting
beloved companies and laying off thousands of workers all to try and turn a slight better
profit right um that's exactly right uh what we've seen you know in uh industry after industry uh
where private Equity buys up uh businesses is that they're really responsible for some of the worst
most abusive business practices in the country the scrutiny has been very bad for private Equity but
the anger is only directed towards the managing partners of these companies when a family office
does the same thing public outrage over job Cuts would be blamed on the family and that's where a
good PR team is employed it's easy for workers to demand better wages from a company owner who
is photographed lounging on a super yacht it's easier for a company owner to push back against
worker demands when all of their public profile is about how they try to save every scent they
can in the name of their business the author of the article concluded that corporations became
people as people too became corporations and every corporation needs a media relations department now
billionaires have been getting very good at this but there is one that stands out Above All the
Rest go and watch my latest video over on how history Works to find out how rert Murdoch went
from card carrying socialist to a billionaire by turning conservative news into entertainment and
don't forget for more hard-hitting reports that can't be made into YouTube videos written by
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