Moneywise

5 Things Rich People Refuse to Buy

We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wrWhy do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.A $3 billion founder's money advice: keep driving the Chevrolet. Here's why the richest guests all say the same five things.After 100+ episodes of Moneywise, the same five spending refusals kept showing up — from a $3B founder who's never sold a company, a guy who lost 95% of his net worth and won't buy his own socks, and Bryan Johnson, who spends $2M a year on his body and almost nothing on anything else. None of them read the research. There's 50 years of it, and they all landed in the same place anyway.This episode covers all five: first class, new cars, meaningless stuff, angel checks, and kids' comfort — plus the study behind each one (lottery winners, the MIT Celtics auction, the marshmallow test follow-up). Then Anne Mahlum, who sold SolidCore for nearly $100M and forces herself to spend $200K/month, tears the whole list apart. The episode ends with a 10-minute exercise using two questions that decide what stays on your card statement.Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mwEpisodes Mentioned:How Rich Is 'Rich Enough' to Fly Private? — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZyTo6gppPw"I'm worth about $3 billion": What Happens When You DON'T Sell Your Business — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZM0K9eqzx0What It's Like to Lose 95% of Your Net Worth Overnight (the socks guy) — https://youtu.be/fW-F3MKwevIBryan Johnson: I Probably Won't Actually Live Forever — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icWHq_xjhacHow to Not Ruin Your Kids with Your Wealth ft. Dr. Becky — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1SmMA-nLkTimestamps:0:00 — Cold open: the $3B founder, the socks guy, and Bryan Johnson's $2M body budget0:28 — 100 episodes in, the same five patterns kept repeating — and 50 years of research explains them1:05 — Why guests reveal their real numbers on Moneywise1:50 — #1: First class. "I still fly coach unless it's international" — his "poor kid habit"2:27 — Hedonic adaptation, and the lottery winners who scored lower on enjoying breakfast3:52 — #2: New cars. The $3B founder's advice: don't buy the Ferrari, drive the Chevrolet4:14 — The Millionaire Next Door data (most popular millionaire car: Ford F-150), "big hat, no cattle"4:40 — The commute study: zero relationship between car value and happiness5:35 — #3: Stuff. The socks guy's filter: "Does this dollar come back to me or is it gone?"6:03 — Stanford brain scans: every purchase is want vs. hurt6:28 — The MIT Celtics auction — credit card bidders paid double7:26 — #4: Angel checks. Bryan Johnson writes none — half of deals lose money, 7% produce 75% of returns8:41 — Opportunity cost neglect and attention residue: every check is an open tab in your head10:15 — #5: Kids' comfort. Parents who could buy any seat, flying the family in coach on purpose11:06 — The marshmallow test follow-up wealthy parents actually care about12:11 — 70% of family money gone by generation two, 90% by generation three13:17 — The counterargument: Anne Mahlum ($115M, spends $200K/month) — "I hate when people don't spend on principle"14:19 — The 2023 rerun of the $75K happiness study, and buying back time15:55 — The 10-minute exercise: two questions to run against last month's card statement16:33 — If you run a $3M+ company: HamptonSponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcastFollow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberkListen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]

He's 27 and Runs His Family's 7 Companies

We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wrWhy do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.He spends $50,000 a month and keeps $50,000 in the bank. He's 27.Mo Moahid is a 27-year-old who runs the finances for his entire family — parents, brother, sister, and seven operating companies across Canada, Dubai, and Pakistan. His great-grandfather built the family fortune. The next generation lost it. His dad rebuilt the whole thing from a sales job after immigrating to Canada, and Mo grew up watching both halves of that cycle happen in his own house. He started his first company at 18, scaled it to 200 employees, sold it at 21 for low seven figures, and now moves capital between line painting, real estate development, consumer electronics, eSIMs in 125 countries, and the AI company he started with his 21-year-old brother.This episode gets into what it actually looks like to manage generational money instead of making it: why he keeps almost nothing liquid, how a $50,000 monthly burn covers five people, what happens when your dad is the chairman and your brother is your co-founder, and how inheritance gets split between three siblings before anyone dies. We go deep on the acquisition he closed the week before we recorded, the corporate job his father made him take, and the question he's already thinking about at 27 — what he wants his own kids to inherit, and what he'd rather they didn't.Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mwSponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcastFollow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberkListen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]

$247M Net Worth, $100k/Month Burn: Inside Onyi Odunukwe's Money

We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wrWhy do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.He turned down $250 million for less than half his company — and admits he'd say yes today.Onyi Odunukwe is the son of two Nigerian immigrant doctors who dropped out of nursing school during finals week and opened a tanning salon at 21. By 30 he had seven locations, sold five to Palm Beach Tan for $2.3 million in a single week, and thought he was rich. Eight years later his net worth is $247 million — roughly $100M in commercial real estate, $194M in business equity across 26 companies, and under $10M in cash — and he recently walked away from a $250 million offer for 49% of Glo Tanning.This episode gets into the exact breakdown of a $247M net worth, why he rejected the biggest check of his life and what changed his mind since, his $75-100K monthly burn (full-time driver, live-in nanny, a ranch on the way), the franchise math behind Blackstone's $8B Jersey Mike's deal, how he plans to keep his kids from being ruined by money — and a confession he's never made publicly before.Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mwSponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcast Follow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberk Listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]

He Sold For Over $40M. Here’s His Exact Cut.

We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wrWhy do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.He got his first $5M check and expected to feel superhuman. The next day was one of the most disappointing of his life.Jesse Pujji walked away from a Goldman Sachs job where he made $500K at 25 — with a boss making $3M and a group head making $20M — to bootstrap an ad agency on $33K per partner and a stack of Amex cards. Ampush cracked the Facebook arbitrage before almost anyone: $100K in monthly revenue in June 2010 became $2M a month with $600K in EBITDA fourteen months later. He scaled it to half a billion in annual ad spend and 250 employees without raising a dollar, turned down $25M at 27, sold 20% to Red Ventures in 2015, and sold the whole thing to New Mountain Capital in 2022 for somewhere between $40M and $60M on a 35% stake. He never got the nine-figure number he made up in his head, and he says chasing it was the mistake.This episode gets into the exact allocation of a post-exit portfolio, why Jesse refuses to let his advisors put illiquid startup equity on his balance sheet, what $500K a year of "normal" spending actually buys, and why he asked his financial advisor how people possibly spend more than that. He's honest about the gap between the money he expected to change him and the money that didn't. And we spend real time on the part most founders avoid: three kids who never saw him grind, a Greenlight allowance split into thirds, a $63 JCPenney paycheck at 16 that taught him more than any of it, and the question of whether to leave them anything at all.Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mwTimestamps:00:00 — Jesse's origin story: immigrant household in St. Louis, a snow shoveling business in middle school, and $33K each plus Amex cards to start Ampush02:00 — The Facebook arbitrage that changed everything: $100K/month in June 2010 to $2M in revenue and $600K in EBITDA fourteen months later02:49 — "Sandbox entrepreneurship" — Facebook cold-calls them: "Who the hell are you guys? You're one of our top 100 advertisers"04:24 — Why he left Goldman at 25 making $500K: "I would rather make half of my future expected earnings and do something I feel excited about"06:18 — The $25M offer two years in, why they said no, and the $3M dividend they took instead — $1M each, which bought his SF house07:30 — The made-up number that wrecked them: hoping for $150M, getting $60–75M offers, and turning down $190M in Marin stock09:24 — The Red Ventures deal and $5M after tax: "I thought I would get wings or superhuman strength... nothing changed"11:16 — 2022: selling to New Mountain and walking away without going with the deal13:12 — The exit number, on the record: a $40–60M range on a stake "a little bit more than a third"16:04 — The Zone of Genius framework, and why being a CEO sat in his zone of excellence — good at it, drained by it17:52 — Gateway X by the numbers19:06 — Whether the scarcity ever goes away: "nine days out of ten" became "one day out of ten," and the coach question he couldn't answer20:16 — The Deer Valley condo, and finally understanding why people buy vacation homes21:08 — Full portfolio breakdown and why he tells his advisors to mark his startup equity at zero23:24 — Annual spend 26:52 — The schedule that makes it work: Tuesdays and Thursdays he misses bedtime, Monday/Wednesday/Friday he doesn't, and he deletes Slack on vacation28:16 — The thing that keeps him up: "They've gotten all the fruits of the grind without actually observing the grind"29:23 — Greenlight, allowance equal to their age, and splitting it into thirds — spend, save, give30:19 — Running a Starbucks P&L with his 9-year-old daughter in the store32:30 — The four-bucket framework: spend it, give it to the government, give it to charity, or give it to your kids34:44 — A Schnucks family board member on generational wealth: "Money doesn't ruin kids. Lack of values does."35:36 — What Jesse wants said at his funeralSponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcastFollow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberkListen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]

He Turned Down $11B... Here's Why

Craig Newmark turned down an $11 billion offer for Craigslist, and he's already given away $570 million of his own money chasing a number even bigger than that.This podcast is made by Hampton, a community for founders doing on average $25 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you're a founder, apply here: joinhampton.com/mwCraig founded Craigslist off a mailing list in 1995. He turned down that $11 billion offer, and since then has given away $570 million through his foundation, aiming for a billion before he dies. He funds NYPD bomb squad gear, an NYU cardiologist's AI research, Wikipedia, journalism schools, and pigeon rescue. He's 73, hasn't owned a car in ten years, and just upgraded from $50 Skechers to $80 Skechers.This one gets into what happens once a founder's number stops being the problem, the Sunday school lesson behind his moral compass, why his own headline net worth is wrong, the two causes eating most of his giving budget, and his plan to train an LLM to keep making his philanthropic decisions after he's gone. It closes on Take Nine, his campaign for the nine-second pause that stops most scams.Sponsors: Daily Body Coach - achieve your dream body with https://moneywise.dailybodycoach.comSubscribe to Moneywise: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneywisepodcastFollow Daniel on X: https://x.com/danielcberkListen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts: [search "Moneywise Hampton"]