“One generation plants trees another gets the shade”-Popular Chinese proverb. This proverb has resonated with me for the last couple of days. I have dispelled any idea of becoming a billionaire(in USD) and instead, I want to play the long term game to ensure 4–5 generations from now, a billionaire is born from my lineage.
Most billionaires are a product of generational wealth or had a great network base to access. Elon Musk came from an uber-rich family in South Africa, attended the University of Pennsylvania. Maye Musk, Elon Musk’s mother was a model and dietician, appeared in major magazine covers including Times. Errol Musk, his father came from a family of well-established Engineers. His parents were reportedly the first to fly from South Africa to Australia in a single-engine plane. Bill Gates the wealthiest man in the world and famous for “dropping out” came from a very rich family, His father was a Senior Lawyer, his mother was a big bank executive. Mary Gates grandfather was president of the National City Bank in Seattle and a director of the Seattle branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. What is rarely made mention of is that Mary Gates was on the same board as John Opel , the President, Chairman and CEO of IBM. Bill Gates got his big break when IBM hired Microsoft. By now, you must have started to see a trend, billionaires are a product of advantage.
As a child, you are mostly a product of your environment and if you weren’t dealt favourable hands there is so much you can do in ensuring a better standard of living. I have come up with a process of reflecting on your childhood, write a list of things that may have hindered your success and work towards ensuring you improve on these things in the life of your child. It can range from Quality of school attended, black tax, lack of trust fund, citizenship of only one country (in my case, being Nigerian), etc. You then try to significantly improve on these.
Recent research shows that most billionaires all attended prestigious universities with Havard the school that produced the most billionaires. Do you now see that the Unilag graduate is significantly more disadvantaged than the Havard graduate? A Unilag or Unizik graduate no matter how industrious will not be able to access the pool of opportunities available to the Havard graduate, and it is not the fault of the Unilag graduate you are just a victim of your society. A lot of motivational speakers (aka Aspire to perspire people) tend to mention how Mark Zuckerberg dropped out and became a success in spite of being a dropout , while their intentions might be noble it is grossly misleading. Mark Zuckerberg dropped out Havard University. Walking through the gates of Havard already puts him 10–15 years ahead of you that studied in Nigeria. So making such a blanket statement about being a success in spite of being a dropout does more harm than good to the already disadvantaged listener. Pitchbook brought out a study that showed that you are most likely to receive VC funding if you attended Stanford, University of California, MIT, Havard and University of Pennsylvania. You can, however, strive to give your child a better education and opportunity than what you got as a Unilag graduate. You may not have the resources to take your child to Havard, you can start by taking your child to a University in the United States of America. The child is already better off than you, the child has better opportunities than you got at that stage in your life. The responsibility then falls on your child to then provide a better education to their child, who then provides better education to their child and a few generations later you have a Havard graduate from your lineage.
If being a citizen of a third world country was a major stumbling block(which it is), then you can greatly improve on this by either giving birth to your child in a more developed country. This Child is already able to access opportunities you did not have access to and already puts the child 5 years ahead of you at this same stage. The child then has to find a way to exponentially improve on this to his/her own child (either through dual citizenship, building a strong network in the foreign country)
While as a child, you only went on play dates with children in your social level. You will be doing your child a world of good by exposing the child to interactions with children in higher social strata. The interactions from such association helps shape the thoughts of the child. Also, there is a strong network base for the child to leverage on as he/she grows.
Most parents fail to reinvent the wheel and take the kids through the exact/similar experiences they had while growing up; same public schools, same neighborhood, same social circle, etc and such kids can only make marginal improvements on their life with respect to what was lived by their parents. Children who then go the extra mile to etch out a decent livelihood have to work twice as hard as their already advantaged peers, work long nights, and will take a lot more years than if you had given them some sort of advantage that they could leverage on.