How to be rich
Duncan Greenberg wrote on 9th October 2009 that analysing self-made members of the Forbes 400 gave results such as these:
- Have parents who are good at maths. Among the most common occupations of parents of current US billionaires were that of engineer, accountant and small-business owner.
- September is the most popular birth month among American billionaires.
- A degree is not mandatory to be successful. Nearly 15% of self-made American billionaires never completed university, most of them in the tech sector, an illustrous list that includes Bill Gates (Microsoft), Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Dell (Dell), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook).
- it seems that quite a few billionaires who were Yale graduates were also members of Skull and Bones, the secret society whose list of members includes investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Stephen Schwarzman and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.
- have a stint at investment bank Goldman Sachs: 6 of the financial tycoons spent some time there. Its crown jewel, the “risk arbitrage” unit launched the careers of billionaires and former billionaires Edward Lampert, Daniel Och, Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.
- have a penchant for Naot shoes. Just kidding 
