Audio

I forced Dan to listen to naval (Naval Ravikant)’s twitter stream/podcast about How to Get Rich Without Luck or Inheritance. Naval’s twitterstorm inspired me to create one of my own, about the real strategies used by the super-wealthy (spoiler: they aren’t available to you). But we spend an hour talking about where these “how to get rich” methods fit into a bigger propaganda and ideology scheme, pushing people towards pyramid schemes; to despise unions, taxes, and collective solutions; and to feel like social failures are their own fault. 

SHOW NOTES

Here are my thirty five ways to get SUPER WEALTHY.

My Dad tells me that everywhere online and on TV there are Indian guys my age teaching you how to be rich (in at least one case, without luck). I won’t be left out! After extensive study, not one but 20+ ways to become not just rich, but super-rich. Here we go.

I am going to confine myself to the great countries of the Anglosphere, where opportunity is more abundant and where the wealthy don’t have to worry about authoritarianism, socialism, or taxes.

1. The first and best way to be wealthy is to inherit wealth.

2. The next reliable way to vast wealth is to win a war with an empire that is in decline, steal its entire treasury, and install a ruler who gives you rights to tax the population.

3. We are talking country-scale wealth here, folks. So, use hundreds of millions of other people’s money to sell a country’s currency short during a financial crisis. If you guessed right, you’re a billionaire. Wrong? It’s mostly other people’s money, it’s cool. (See: George Soros).

4. Own a bank.

5. If you own a bank, charge bank fees, trading fees, mutual fund management fees, etc. These will make you rich, whatever other games you can play with interest rates.

6. Get a big contract with the government – say, to rebuild an occupied country.

7. Get a big contract with the military – supply a military with weapons. Look for countries that are violating human rights: these countries require weapons.

8. Obtain tax relief and government subsidies.

9. Install a monarch in power and obtain rights to the state-owned oil company. The general principle applies to other governments and resources.

10. Own the media.

11. Bank for organized crime.

12. Offer to overthrow an elected government (see: Silvercorp). Mercenaries make good money.

13. Have your friends in government privatize a previously public service: obtain a monopoly over that area.

14. De-fund and destroy public systems to offer expensive private alternatives. Especially good in higher education.

15. Avoid taxes using private jets, wine auctions, and rewriting tax codes.

16. Obtain government protection for intellectual property. It doesn’t matter who created that property, only that you get a government-protected monopoly.

17. Use your political position to personally enrich yourself and your companies.

18. Obtain board positions after being in office.

19. Do speaking tours after leaving office.

20. Start a speculative bubble, obviously. Below this: create fancy financial instruments and use them to create bubbles or suckers.

21. Run a pyramid scheme, of course.

22. Use fancy talk about disruption to seduce investors into giving you money. Lose money year after year while your valuation increases. Being profitable is irrelevant- real wealth is about making promises.

23. Sell dollars for 90 cents while your stock price increases (see: Amazon). Only do this if you want to become the wealthiest man in the universe.

24. Get everyone in the world to work producing content for you for free, then sell their attention to advertisers. By taking over the entire communication infrastructure for the world, you also obtain the entire advertising revenue.

25. Extract precious minerals from the earth, destroying irreplaceable ecosystems and local cultures. (see: gold in Guatemala).

26. Have the goverment create money and give it to you in astronomical amounts (see the recent bailout).

27. Rob banks in a country you occupy. Nice headline by the way, NYT. Thanks for that.

28. Rob banks, part 2.

29. Declare sanctions and steal from the sanctioned country.

30. Leveraged buyout: borrow money, buy a large corporation, and sell its assets – do asset stripping.

31. Be a vulture fund and sue countries in financial trouble.

32. Join the military in a country with a fragile democracy. Wait for the CIA to ask you to launch a coup.

33. Be born into the right social circle. Attend the right schools, join the right clubs. Never do anything to rock the boat. When you are made CEO, do exactly what everyone else does. Two years later, collect your golden parachute. Rinse and repeat.

34. Operate a sexual abuse network with undisclosed intelligence agencies [allegedly. Note this is a high-risk strategy].

35. Start with an inheritance, and use a mafia-connected lawyer to sue the government for hundreds of millions of dollars.

I am planning another twitterstorm about how to stay wealthy once you already are wealthy, so sign up for my EXCLUSIVE SEMINAR and I’ll teach you the secrets that ONLY THE RICHEST PEOPLE ON EARTH KNOW! (And everyone who looks them up).