What is your net worth? $10,000,000 +
At what age did you become a net worth millionaire? 32
How did you accumulate your net worth, what are you invested in? I built a company in software and government services, while maintaining a very tight discipline with savings and no extravagances. I am about to buy my first house, at age 37, because I've previously seen home ownership as a revenue trap that is mostly an enforced savings program that benefits people who would otherwise fritter it away, but harms people with better things to do. Now that my home is a very small part of my worth, I am pleased to buy a historic building that I hope to keep in my family for 200+ years, and never have to worry about making a capital gain on it, ever.
What was your highest average household WEEKLY income after tax? $5m - we actually signed a contract with IBM that would give us more than $20m if delivered. That was my biggest ever individual/stand alone commercial pay day.
What is your career? Technology Sales and Design
Do you have children? YES
Do you have a tertiary qualification? YES
Did you inherit any of your money? NO
What's the approximate value of your house? $3,100,000
Are you debt free now? NO
If NO, how much debt do you have and what is it for? We have some debt and credit lines on assets, and asset financing, mostly for tax and legal reasons. No debt in New Zealand.
Are you in KiwiSaver? YES
Were you taught about money? YES
If YES, how were you taught? My parents and their friends had really good money values. We were always learning about things. After all, when people tell you that someone like Albert Einstein says something like "compounding interest is the 8th wonder of the world"... it has to mean something. It sure makes you not want to be on the paying side of it (i.e. an indebted credit card holder).
What is the most enjoyable thing you do with money? Use it to spend time with family. Money isn't really a thing, it's a mechanism to attract clever people to solve problems. I love using it to attract people to solve meaningful things, of which, freeing me up to spend weekends with my family, is the top of my list. I worked so hard, for decades, from my first job, paid less than £1.80 and hour after tax, in the 1990s, to today, where I pay (some) people more than $500,000 per user and am responsible for a business that pays for more than 30 families food, housing, clothes, cars, holidays and education, that it's an honour to work with people who can help me live my best business life, and also let me spend time with those who I care about most.
Do you use your money or your time to help others? YES
What is your greatest financial win? When my business raised $100m from investors for international expansion. That was good, but it wasn’t the same as signing big contracts from customers.
What is your worst financial mistake? Hiring senior executives to run my business when I was younger. When I was in my 20s our business was going through a crazy growth period, and other people told me to hire some experience, to make sure we could manage the growth. We hired a CEO from Microsoft, a Marketing Director from IBM, a CTO from Credit Suisse, a COO from HSBC, a CFO from Chi-X and a second CEO from a big European Financial Markets organisation called ICAP. It was a complete disaster, in general. These people ascribed their material and self worth on the size of budgets they had been entrusted to spend. Any problem, it was just a matter of using their credibility to sign off expensive remedy programs. They had no idea how to run or build a business.
What advice do you have for others? Invest in yourself. Nobody else, is ever going to be a better investment for you, than you will be, so educate yourself, craft your mind into a machine that generates the best outcomes for you, those you care about, and those around you, while taking time to remember that money, is only one measure of value - it is not a measure of happiness. Happiness comes from high quality relationships with other people who are like you, or who inspire (and challenge) you to be the best version of yourself. Life is much harder than you think - so make sure you take moments to enjoy the basics, like time with friends and family, meditation (in whichever way you interpret that -- for me, it was looking at sailing yacht websites, and reading physics news feeds!) wherever you can. A good lunch with friends and laughter, can feel just as good as earning $100,000, and it's these human connections that reward us the most - and keep our feet on the ground.
Finish these sentences:
If you want to build wealth do this… Invest in yourself - by reading classical business books. Remember that anyone selling you a 'get rich quick' seminar, is using you, as their personal get rich quick strategy.
If you want to build wealth avoid doing this… Committing to anything that makes money leave your account automatically. Even to this day, I do not have any direct debits on any of my accounts, anywhere. Every month, I have to pay my bills. It keeps you humble. Stay humble.
If these questions don’t adequately tell your story, feel free to briefly elaborate here: My net worth is more than described. I don't want to state it as it might discourage some people. My goal in life, since the early 2000s was to make more than 1,000 people around me millionaires - just as Microsoft had done between the 1970s and the 2000s. I've been lucky, and found that focussing on other people's welfare, has caused me great success - as long as you surround yourself with people just like you. More people than I can count, have been very very bad people to work with. I've personally hired into full time corporate roles, that I am personally responsible for financing, more than 200 senior executives, and all of the people whose salaries were in the top 50% of our companies payroll, and when we were smaller, all of the first 50 staff.
If you can focus on being good with great people, and being efficient with bad ones, you can't go wrong. Don't believe that everyone is good... But cherish the ones who are...!