Quora Answer: How Wealthy is the Wealthiest Person You Know & What Do They Do?

The following is my answer to a Quora question: “How wealthy is the wealthiest person you know, and what do they do?”

The wealthiest person I personally know, manages a family office that has funds of several hundred billion in assets.  His extended family has majority stakes in two banks through several dozen vehicles, and they entire family group of companies, trusts and foundations is over 200.  From an external point of view, that is not obvious. The great-grandfather had several wives, and the children used the mothers’ surname, not the father’s, so no one would immediately realise that they were one extended family.

The family made its initial money supplying weapons to the Chinese fighting the Japanese in the 1930s.  They then diversified into banking, manufacturing, telecommunications, and other businesses.  The Chinese Communist Party never forgot their help during the war against the Japanese, and their sacrifices during the Japanese government.  They parlayed these concessions into further businesses.

I have learned a lot just by listening to him.  For one, I understand that the absolutely wealthiest people, are very low profile.  They pay their taxes, they abide by the letter of the law, and they never draw attention to themselves.  There is a certain security in anonymity.