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by mcherm 1771 days ago
I very strongly disagree with this advice.

If my startup had netted me over a hundred million dollars I would start to have real concerns about making new friends. It would be incredibly difficult to know whether someone wanted to be friends genuinely, or if in some way it was really about the money (and celebrity). This would make my pre-existing friendships that much more valuable to me.
2 comments
yellowbanana 1771 days ago
But it's more likely that the new friends are already rich, same 100M+ Club, whom you meet at the Fundraising events, Private Jet Review Meetup, and other events rich people do.

So i think it would be natural and they would not be interested in your money.

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tluyben2 1771 days ago
Jikes that sounds like a nightmare; clubs for useless things just to belong. I think we can start with the simple point that many people do not know what real friends are. What many people consider real friends are, in Rowan Atkinson's words a 'close personal acquaintance' [0]. And a lot of people have 10s to 100s of them. That makes no sense and those are, probably none of them, friends at all. When your situation changes (wealth, illness, poverty etc) you will notice that quite rapidly.

[0] https://youtu.be/mq78D-3HwEM

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csomar 1771 days ago
> So i think it would be natural and they would not be interested in your money.

Why not? Same as in cheap friends who are interested in a free lunch or something.

Friendship happens when there is a mutual past-time to share, a similar culture/mindset and little to no business conflict. It also require that the other party has no friends already, or doesn't have a family that makes him busy.

All in all, it's very hard to make any friends when you are older whether you are rich or poor.

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yellowbanana 1771 days ago
It's also likely that the old friends can change, and start to see you as source of money.

And can definitely ruin the friendship, if every few weeks a request for 300k to fix some stuff comes up.

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glogla 1771 days ago
It might be worth burning the friendship outright to gwt money, since you're not staying friends anyway.

Think of it this way. You were both serfs. He now got crowned king. You're not going to keep hanging out with a king anyway, might as well try to get him to make you a minor noble. It can change your life and the worst thing that can happen is you stay serf.

As americans say, why leave money on the table?

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yellowbanana 1771 days ago
Yes it makes sense for the poor friend to try to get some money.

The difference in wealth is so large that the poor friend's life can be easily changed.

It would be smart for the rich guy to change his friends' lives without being asked, if they were friends and still close enough.

It's also true that people will also overestimate their friendship with the rich guy because now the king can easily change your life.

There is no way someone who suddenly becomes very rich will keep most of the past relationships.

From close friendships to the bulies from highschool, almost everyone will try to reach out and try to get some of that cash.

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pedrosorio 1771 days ago
> the differences between the ultra-rich and the masses impact every aspect of life

> It would be incredibly difficult to know whether someone wanted to be friends genuinely, or if in some way it was really about the money

I guess what the other commenter was implying is that they make friends with other ultra-rich people?

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