A Sheikh in Dubai said 'My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Lamborghini, his son will drive a Lamborghini, but his son will ride a camel'.
"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel," the Sheikh was fond of saying.
You can definitely preserve and transfer wealth provided you are disciplined enough do certain things.
Be careful to not reproduce in excess. This is the main thing. You don't want wealth to divide too rapidly between quick generations. Ensure you invest heavily in training people to teach them how to grow their wealth through age old tested ways: Gold, Real estate, well trained children. Ensure your accumulation rate is above your spending rate.
Modern day trusts too come to mind. Kennedy's, Clinton's, Rockefeller's and Rothschild's of the world.
Wealth doesn't last for long if you don't have the discipline for it. Most people who tend to lose wealth are generally the ones who completely lose a grip on reality. Deviate so far away from the very reasons that bought them there. Bad things happen from there on.
Just a nitpick: gold is not going to grow your wealth, it will preserve your wealth. One ounce of gold is worth about a loaf of bread every day for a year. That was true in the time of King Nebuchadnezzar (600 BC), and is roughly true nowadays.
Yeah and losing this discipline is even harder when going from one generation to the next. The guy who built the empire knows all the sweat he put into achieving it, and he knows how it is to live with nothing. Therefore he has internal motivation to keep his wealth. But his children and their children don't know anything else but wealth. They might not even understand that it won't always be like that.
Or, alternatively, reproduce abundantly and use your children to make alliances with families that actually do matter.
You're advocating having few children in a thread related to Saudi Arabia, a kingdom whose founder had 20+ wives and some 100 children. That is how all the warring clans in the Arabian Peninsula were united and pacified: by marriage.
>70% of wealthy families lose their wealth by the second generation, and a stunning 90% by the third, according to the Williams Group wealth consultancy.
>It takes the average recipient of an inheritance 19 days until they buy a new car
While agree with the general sentiment, there are exceptions.
The Shang dynasty had the longest reign in China (554 years). The Habsburg family ruled Austria for about 600 years. Paraphrasing [1]: The Japanese ruling 'family' recognises 125 monarchs beginning with the legendary Emperor Jimmu (traditionally dated to February 11, 660 BC) and continuing up to the current emperor, Akihito. Historical evidence for the first 29 emperors is marginal by modern standards, but there is firm evidence for the hereditary line since Emperor Kinmei ascended the throne 1500 years ago.
It's the other way around: you need to prove that what he says is merely feel-good baloney.
Otherwise, every person is insincere, including both yourself and I.
Side anecdote: While I haven't met and talked with the guy in person, I know a person who has. Her impressions of him was that he was an honest man who cared about his country.
Take what people say with a grain of salt unless there is reliable source that backs them up.
It is safe to assume that people with non-trivial power are very seldom sincere when making public statements.
If Dubai's elite's descendants will be riding camels some decades from now, then why does Dubai have a national wealth fund?
The truth is that Dubai's wealth fund may invest in YC or in VC funds, and some of those mocking Dubai's future will be working indirectly for the elites that run Dubai. To distract people from such master-slave reality, a bit of self-deprecation can be charming.
