He interviewed 57 young heirs and heiresses to America s greatest fortunes who started their lives at the apex of the pyramid that everybody else spends a lifetime climbing. Only one of them had any real success he could call his own. The others were always living under the shadow of their elders. They were prisoners of wealth often plagued with ignorance of money matters, spending sprees, guilt, mad passions and an unending search for happiness in work. They had no connection between what they had done and what they have received.
Good fortune can be as disruptive as tragedy.
Construction engineering magnate Joseph Jacobs, who is the son of poor Lebanese immigrants, decided with his wife, Violet, to empower their three daughters. Because we love you very much, we have decided that we are not going to leave you a lot of money, they were told. Jacobs, now 80, has not changed his mind. One of the worst things I could do, is indulge them to the point where they don t have the opportunity to make their own failures and successes that they can say are theirs and not their parents, he said. In addition, Home Depot Chairman Bernard Marcus agreed that inheritances can be a terrible burden for some.