I work for the billionaires, and honestly I wouldn’t want their life if you gave it to me.
Having a driver, a cleaner and a chef might seem appealing (it definitely does to me still when I picture what nice little adds up I could add to my own life) but the reality is so different to what people picture. Most of the billionaires I have worked for (and that’s a fair few now) really don’t have the happy life people think money provides. Most are in not so happy marriage, most are also surprisingly extremely socially isolated (they have work relations etc… but true friends? Friends that would still be there if they lost everything? No), so surprisingly most don’t even make the most of their money, because the things that truly matter (which is a healthy marriage or healthy friendships or health in general) they don’t really have and can’t buy, I always pictured that people with money must always be having the time of their life. But the reality is so different!
Most have a less vibrant social lives than 99% of the people I know (most of which don’t even have 1% of their wealth).
Staff, which sounds good on paper, then become this weird in-betweener, It’s those people who work for you but have a friendly relationship with but aren’t you friends but know everything about you, it’s the people that add positively to your lifestyle through their work, but also take a lot from you (their problem become your problem kind of, and you live or co-live with a lot of them so the mood of the house can definitely be impacted by any internal conflict amongst them or with you and you also lose most of your privacy).
Most billionaires I know hate having staff as much as they love it because imagine having someone living there with you 24/7 and you being responsible for their needs (as staff all your needs are usually covered by the family) and mood and not being able to ever truly be alone in your own home.
(I mean it’s their choice to have such coverage and a fair amount of billionaires actually do chose to have no staff because of it but yes, there are objectively pros and cons to having staff working for you full time in the intimacy of your home).
Honestly, as someone who live the life of the billionaires at work (I do take the private jets, or fly first, go in cars with drivers, eat the food made by the chefs and enjoy the same hotels and restaurants as them, etc…) I am glad I get to experience it through my work (and maybe that’s the best deal, as in enjoying the perks but it not being your life full-time) but I am so so glad when I clock out. The private jet or chauffeured car experience just isn’t worth what comes with that level of wealth.
And I don’t know any staff who work under billionaires who leave their shift wishing it was their life full-time, if anything we all feel a lot more grateful for our own actual lives, where we don’t have to worry about whether or not our friends are friends with us because of who we are or what we can provide financially, where people don’t date us because of money and where we can walk away from the relationship freely because it doesn’t mean walking away from an entire lifestyle the average person can never attain again, and where we don’t actually have staff living with us full-time we have to catter to.
If I was richer I would definitely have a cook and a cleaner (I like to drive so a driver wouldn’t appeal to me) but I would have them working minimum hours and would even be happy with the cook batch cooking for the week and me reheating it all up. I would still not pay for first class tickets nor business class seats (not gonna lie first class on emirates should be done once in life if possible and having a seat you can stretch and sleep on is pretty sweet, but the difference in price just isn’t worth it, private jets are even worse, so expensive, for a slightly higher chance to die than on a commercial plane statistically speaking and a lot more sensation (I really don’t like private jets because they are smaller plans and so you just feel a lot more and would much rather be in economy on a bigger plane if given the choice than fly private personally).
But to afford this lifestyle you need millions (well billions actually more so) because just in staff I would say salaries probably add up to 1 million a year (if you have a nanny + cook + cleaner + Gardener + driver) then you have to feed your entire staff, some provide them with housing (especially if you travel and they are all coming along). It’s a lot. And no I don’t think the average person can get to that level of wealth by just reaching the top of their career.
Most would need to reach the top of their career and re-inject their money into investments (usually the ones that payout best are those with the most risks to lose it all) or their own business, and then re-invest what they earn through those into bigger/better investments etc…
So can average people become wealthy? Yes but it does usually require either earning well enough to be able to invest or being ballsy enough to start your own business with very little and have enough luck or knowledge and experience to turn it into a super successful venture or winning the lottery and investing wisely your gains.
Yes, you can also marry for wealth but please don’t. Because no money is worth your financial and emotional freedom, ever, and most women I have met through my job who weren’t born rich but married into it (including for love) miss the freedom they had pre-money.
To me, as someone who witnesses and partially live through that kind of life, I would say there are more cons than pros (but then I am also very non-superficial and so don’t find much joys in expensive things, be it clothing, cars or electronics and so being able to dress in Louis Vuitton head to toe without needing to check my bank balance wouldn’t bring me any joy and wouldn’t ever be worth losing out on the freedom you have when you are a “nobody”, don’t have enough money to have people take an interest in your because of it.