[Closed] Why are rich people always so dull ?

There are some notable exceptions - http://www.gatesfoundation.org

Because all of their attention has been focussed on making money rather than enjoying it perhaps?

I love the ingenuity and genuine camaraderie of folks with less money, bit of a sweeping generalisation, but on the whole I'd stand by it based upon my experiences in the VW scene.

Sorry, an "interesting way" to spend masses of money would be to buy a load of coal for some nerds who have a preserved railway?

As opposed to, you know, building a spaceship, or cloning some neanderthals, or organising a coup in an obscure African country?

Most rich folk have got there by being tight and not spending anything!

Probably not what you want to hear, but lots of them are petrol heads an have a collection of old, fast and obsure, and obviously very expensive cars. Chris Evans and Simon Cowell are two such people. Not that I can stand either but they obviously have a keen interest in their collections

As you get older and earn more money, you realise that you never ever want to be in a position where you are not able to afford to live a lifestyle that you have become accustomed too. That is why most wealthy (I hate the word rich) tend to invest their money in their property (historically a sound investment) and something that impacts your quality of life the most.

There are then far more fun things to spend your money. Travel being the next one (including investing in holiday homes). I know for sure i would rather have a property in the sun and a property on the slopes than being able to drive a Ferrari 458 at 12mph down the Kings Road on a Saturday.

There are some notable exceptions

David Choe

I listened to an interview with him the other day. It could be said that he was "enjoying" his money.

Dan Bilzerian

[i]As opposed to, you know, building a spaceship[/i]

I think Elon Musk sank a lot of his own money into SpaceX?

Unimaginative stuff it'd be fun to spend lots of money on if you were rich….

1. Coke
2. Hookers

Assuming we're talking about the rich rather than the better-off-than-most, privacy can be bought.

Does John McAfee have lots of money? I think he either has, or did have, before blowing it on Binners' favourite hookers and coke.

Either way, he's interesting.

Branson has a space-ship, a submarine, and a private island covered in lemurs.

Jeff Bezos has spent $42million on a 10,000-year clock, the "Clock of the Long Now".

Elon Musk builds spaceships and is going to colonise Mars soon (as somewhatslightlydazed points out).

Obviously, it depends on your definition of "rich", but if you're rich enough, your "hobby" can quite literally be "attempting to change the course of human history".

Whether that is better than £10 worth of Meccano is a matter of opinion, of course, but I'd want to have tried both before pronouncing Meccano better, as it looks incredibly lame. 🙂

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Rich, can't say I like her, but not dull.

I dunno, loads of people do great stuff, some keep it quiet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne#Charity_works

Was more prevalent in Victorian times it seems.

Most rich people try and keep their spending and charitable donations out of the public view, so we don't hear about them.

If you'll excuse the attention grabbing hyperbole in the headline, why is it so rare to hear of someone with lots of money who spends it in an interesting way ?

It isn't. Perhaps the fact that it is so unremarkable is a reason why it's rare to hear people make a point about it?

@MTQ Graham
Where does one hear about what the rich spend their money on? Is there a Facebook page or Twitter feed for it? If so I'll have a look and come back to you, since currently I'm completely unqualified to comment (except for Chris Evans, who I know spends his money on some mighty fine automobiles that are far from dull).

Yep, I think you're confusing rich with famous and rich. You don't really know what the 'non-famous' rich are squandering their wad on. I've been surprised by the wealth of some 'ordinary' people I've mixed with without them making it apparent that they are rich and they certainly haven't been dull. Mind you, I also know a few people who think they are the life and soul of the party who are so far up their own sphincter that they are annoyingly dull 8)

Nick Mason has got a fantastic car collection, which he does actually drive.

I read a few books by George Soros. He's a fascinating guy and one of the most philanthropic billionaires you'll ever hear about. His Soros Foundation is pretty amazing.

For every "interesting" working class person, there are dozens with nothing better to spend their time and money on than booze, fags, watching football or crappy TV.

I imagine similar ratios of boring/interesting apply to the wealthier end of the spectrum too.

Where does one hear about what the rich spend their money on?

I think the "How to Spend It" section of the FT would probably assist.

I have just realised that if I was massively wealthy, my current hobby would be "travelling to Siberia to hunt wolves with a spear". I would travel by icebreaker to the mouth of the Lena River, and then paddle upstream in an open canoe for 1,000 miles. Then I would leave my canoe and travel on foot through the forest. I would hunt wolves, bringing them to bay using my trusty wolf-hounds and would then battle them with an artisan-crafted organic wolf-spear. I would skin them, and use their pelts to make hats on my return to civilisation (assuming I survived).

I would probably be away for several years.

Once I was done with that, I would probably take up something else. Posibly Meccano.

For every "interesting" working class person, there are dozens with nothing better to spend their time and money on than booze, fags, watching football or crappy TV.

I imagine similar ratios of boring/interesting apply to the wealthier end of the spectrum too.

Where does one hear about what the rich spend their money on?

Two million pounds for a house is not unusual these days, therefore, there must be a lot of people around who can afford them.
The projected cost of [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Peppercorn_Class_A1_60163_Tornado ]Tornado[/url] was £1.6 million.
Everyone's got their own interests, but I think that most of the people [i]that I find interesting to talk to[/i], would rather have a modest house and car and the ability to take their hobby to the extreme, than a posh house and car and no hobby.

I assure you sir I am anything but dull. 😉

I imagine theres two other points:

1) They're rich because their hobby is something that makes truckloads of cash (e.g. Gates and Jobs are/were geeks who liked making computers).

2) They're rich because they don't spend >5% of their income on a bike frame. If I had done nothing with the money I'd spent on bikes, hollidays and other bike related costs (renting a house with a garrage etc Vs a flat I'd otherwise 'need') over the last 10 years I'd probably have in the order of £20k (I'm actualy worried it may be substantialy more!), which could have been invested in some sort of startup etc, then I'd (maybe) have been rich.

The 'new rich' probably look on other people as boring for driving a ford focus when they could have a Range Rover Evoque. Their hobby is just spending money and looking like a bit of a tit.

Where does one hear about what the rich spend their money on?

I was thinking of general life experience and my own particular interests.

So rich people aren't as into Meccano as you are, therefore they lead bleak, shallow, empty lives?

😉

Buffet's pretty boring - he lives in a very modest house anyway....

All those quoting cars as an exciting way of spending money. You are wrong. That said, better than meccano.

I read somewhere recently that being impulsive is the characteristic most likely to make you financially poor.

BTW the properly rich folk I know tend to have crap cars, something fancy is usually a status symbol/self reward for the nouveau riche or or on credit.

Yeah that's getting into the old v new money thing. All the rich people I meet have land, wonder about in wellies and clothes full of holes and a gun dog or two.

Rich people who spend their money in an 'interesting' way aren't rich anymore, they're poor... they've spent it all!

Exhibit a: George Best

I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.

BTW the properly rich folk I know tend to have crap cars

Yep, sort of! Not normally crap cars, but older good cars. Like old Mercedes or Volvos for example. No, I'm not, but the premise stands. Look at some of the best streets in SW3 for example, and for every shiny new Ferrari, there are three or more older BMWs or slightly careworn Mercs.

*Edit*

Exhibit a: George Best

Sad story that. I remember seeing him shortly before he died, in the Trafalgar, on the King's Rd (SW3, as well!) Quietly sitting there alone, tipping back the booze. 🙁

I'd have to agree with the general point of the op, I live in a relatively affluent (depending on the circles you mix in) rural area/community and hobbies/interest vary greatly between classes/amount of wealth.

Most of the wealthy people (farmers or business owners) I know have few, or no hobbies in general, preferring to have a brand new car every 3 years, property assets and material goods. Even my 'working class' friends who have done or are doing well for themselves don't spend much on hobbies, and prefer to have 'stuff'.

Me, I'd rather live in a modest house, with a boring car, but have some relatively expensive hobbies to enjoy my evenings and weekends. Sitting in a big house or being out socialising all the time, thinking about, looking at, or telling people how much stuff I have wouldn't do it for me.

But, you need to be careful and balance it all out, don't you. A poor man who spends too much on hobbies will always be poor. Have heard stories of people re-mortgaging houses to pay for autograss cars ffs!

^maybe they have no time for hobbies because they're too busy working and getting rich, but it's easy to buy "stuff"

Check out Dan Bilzerian, you might not like how he spends his $$$ though 😀

I know a number of wealthy people (£10m plus) who don't spend money on cars as they think they are a waste, eg one guy with a £1m yacht who doesn't own a car at all, he spends 6 months a year on his boat so what would he do with a car ? I know plenty of people with less money who have nice cars (Aston's, Ferraris, Lambo's etc) but equally one guy I know built a garage under his (large) garden to house his car collection (EDIt3 - this guy ran his own privateer team Maclaren at Le Mans)

Rich people do tend to have different hobbies than the rest of us, collect art, wine, etc (EDIT4 Sir Alex is selling some of his wine collection, £6m estimate, clearly targeted at Asian ManuU fans he is selling it bottle by bottle, so his hobby will make him a handsome profit)

@CFH as I'm sure you know they don't park their nice cars on the street, the BMW/Merc is the run-around. EDIT 2: I saw George Best a few times in the Dover Street Wine bar and then towards the end on the train down to Portsmouth, sad tale indeed and a lesson in addition.

EDIT: Americans tend to be generous donars as they have large tax breaks for doing so, that's one of the reasons you see so many foundations and US Universities like Harvard have very large endowment funds.

I have just realised that if I was massively wealthy, my current hobby would be "travelling to Siberia to hunt wolves with a spear".

Why wait?

I would need to dedicate at least 3 years full-time to training in running, close combat, tracking, navigation, survival skills and general fitness. Also probably meditation. I would need to outfit my expedition (including finding a really, really good spear) and would need to learn a Tungusic language well enough to sustain a conversation about the movements and habits of large animals in un-mapped forest regions.

The expedition itself would not be something my wife was much interested in, and would take years.

Total budget therefore would need to be a minimum of 6 years of current revenue spend, plus equipment, travel and training costs. Not much change from £100,000 to do it properly.

🙂

Just go spear a dog on a rough housing estate, bet you don't make it out alive!

Thing is you don't necessarily know how wealthy people are - you see someone with expensive car & house & think what a boring way to spend their money, what you don't see are the infinitely wealthier folk spending their money in a different way. I had no idea how wealthy my cycling buddy was (met him through school football & cycling awareness courses with the kids) until he took an extended sabatical & spent countless millions on a boat moored in south france, thousands of acres of wilderness land in south africa, setting up an outdoor activity foundation in spain & buying a chateau in south france - yet if you saw us out on our bikes you would probably think him on below average salary 8)

Thing is you don't necessarily know how wealthy people are - you see someone with expensive car & house & think what a boring way to spend their money, what you don't see are the infinitely wealthier folk spending their money in a different way.

There is a huge difference between being wealthy and having lots of money though.

Many of my wealthy friends/acquaintances have inherited wealth and a great deal of it is tied up in assets rather than a shed load of cash in the bank. One close friend has a jaw dropping amount of cash in the bank, but rarely dips in to it because it is not "his" to spend frivolously.

Contrast that to friends from less affluent backgrounds, now earning 4 times what their parents did, but still far from wealthy...financial planning was never high on the list when they were brought up and it shows at times!

just read about Jeff Bezos and that clock of the long now.

[i]There is a Clock ringing deep inside a mountain. It is a huge Clock, hundreds of feet tall, designed to tick for 10,000 years.[/i]

Each to their own I suppose.