Flying Over San Francisco For Fun
The following is a guest post from long-time reader, Samurai Marco.
When Sam first mentioned that he was accepting guest posts from his readers, it made me wonder what, from my financial journey, I could share. After all, you’re already all a bunch of financial samurai’s yourselves, right? Is my journey interesting enough? At 43 years old, have I made enough mistakes?
I grew up a spoiled rich kid in Cupertino, California, about an hour south of San Francisco. My father was a one of those, and I hate to use this term, “Serial entrepreneurs.” He started a lot of technology companies, a couple went public, some were acquired and, of course, a few failed. I remember my Dad, back in the early 80’s, bringing home the first prototypes of the Macintosh and Compaq computers and even the first cell phones.
His summer parties were filled with the “who’s who” of Silicon Valley. I remember, in particular, one Christmas party in 1997, Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs made the deal for Apple to buy NEXT that night at my Dad’s house. The Forbes reporter, who was there, leaked it the next day I’ve gone flying with my Dad and Larry Ellison. I’ve talked stocks in the swimming pool with Eric Schmidt. So yes, I was surrounded by a lot of money and power and got a lot of attention for being my father’s child.
To say I grew up spoiled really is an understatement It’s taken me a long time to realize how “out of touch” my reality was back then. We flew first class to Italy every summer, sometimes twice a year, to visit family. We lived in a big house with a swimming pool in a “safe” neighborhood. My parents bought us whatever we wanted.
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Over the years, a number of you have asked me to write a review about what exactly goes on with a free financial consultation with Personal Capital. Common questions include: Is the consultation really free? Is the consultation a high pressured sales call in disguise? Will I get something out of it even if I don’t sign up? Is it worth it?
One can either work hard for their wealth, inherit their wealth, or marry into wealth. No way is the right way to get rich. Although the most honorable way is probably getting wealthy with your own two hands.
Leaving my job in the spring of 2012 was not an easy decision. Even if you have all your ducks in order, it’s still a leap of faith where you hope fluffy pillows await instead of jagged rocks. One of the main reasons why I wrote my book, “
When I was a young buck, I used to travel like a maniac for work. I was based in Manhattan and had to cover clients in Florida, Bahamas, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, and California. Then there were the necessary quarterly or semi-annual pilgrimages to Hong Kong to kiss the ring. When you’ve got a corporate card with unlimited credit, you feel a little better about taking red-eyes to your 8am meetings. But after a while, the novelty wears off and all you want to do is take the Chairman’s Flight (fly in the middle of the work day).
The only way someone can truly get rich is through equity. Think about all the billionaires in the world. Almost all of their net worth comes from their equity stakes in huge businesses such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Berkshire Hathaway. The only people who are going to get rich making a salary are perhaps investment bankers, hedge fund managers, strategy consultants, doctors, and big lawyers. But even those guys aren’t going to crush it with 