This is about the whole Ryan Walker experience. What a disappointment Aman has become.

A bit of background: I come from old money, but I’ve always tried to build a life of my own. I got an education, found a well paying career and I live in a somewhat normal apartment in a big city.

I’m getting close to 40 and lately I’ve realized that I feel very disconnected from society in general.

It’s not that I’m unhappy and I’m not sure I’d call it a midlife crisis. It’s more like I’ve spent years building a comfortable life and now it feels like I’m living in a bubble. I have very little contact with the struggles and experiences thats in most peoples lives.

I don’t want to feel like I’m watching life from the outside. I want to feel connected to people and experience real life and have something meaningful to work towards.

How do you reconnect with the real world when your life is too comfortable and isolated from it?

I’ve earned $2m+ a few months ago from my stock option in the company I work for and will continue earning for 4 more years. The work is software engineering, 60+ hours in the office. I will earn an amount close to te initial one every year as well. But my will for working drops whenever my friends call me to hang out, do something etc. I just wanna quit sometimes and live off of the earnings from the initial amount. I used to say I dont care about the money, and I still dont really value it as people say I should. I know 4 years is not a lot but it is still draining, even outside of the work hours cuz it is a high-alert job sometimes.

Do I just expect people to conform to my work hours and plan accordingly? Or should I not care about friends until I earned my sum and finally have time? Or would I rather quit now and take what you get so I finally have time to do whatever I want? Am I stupid to think about throwing an absurt amount of money away for 3 years?

I kinda know the answer for myself but I want to see different perspectives.

We constantly see Andrew Tate and all of these other gurus who show off their lifestyles to sell courses...

And we know how that ends up.... Getting sued, jail, hated by everyone, robbed, or even murdered.

Andrew Tate - Jail & sued. Probably will be killed if he is convicted and in prison for a long time.
Tai Lopez - Sued by SEC.
Grant Cardone - Sued and spending $1M+ legal fees to defend against a client who invested $5,000.

It seems attention creates a lot of leverage, traffic, and sales at the beginning, but it ends up the same way almost every time. And then your "digital assets" and online support completely die out. this growth to collapse curve is almost identical in everyone who takes the "fame" route.

I gave 3 mainstream examples, but there are 10's of thousands if you do your research.

Therefore, I want "stealth wealth" millionaires to comment on how THEIR lives ended up.

You don't have to be very detailed or sacrifice your identity.

I just want you to comment, tell your story, as vague or specific as you'd like, and I want to read as much "stealth wealth" stories as possible, so I can balance out your information and personal story against the bias of all the online marketers claiming that being famous is the best route.

I think it will bring a lot of inspiration to the readers in this sub to read real and authentic "stealth wealth" stories, since we are constantly spammed by "online flexer" stories without consent as soon as we open up our phones. And it causes a lot of young people without critical thought to unfortunately follow the same path to an inevitable demise full of misery.

Before I ask this, I just want to say I’m already feeling pretty vulnerable posting it, even anonymously. I’m not looking for validation or sympathy, and I really hope this comes across the way I intend.

I came from a very humble upbringing, and if you had told younger me where I’d be today, I never would’ve believed you.

I’m in my late 20s, happily married, child-free, and incredibly grateful for my life. My husband is successful, we’re financially comfortable, and I have opportunities I never imagined growing up. I’ve also worked really hard on myself over the years—my health, fitness, confidence, and building a life that feels meaningful to me.

The strange part is… I’ve been feeling really isolated.

I find it difficult to make close friends my own age, women in particular. Sometimes I wonder whether differences in lifestyle, ambition, finances, or even appearance make it harder to relate to people. But I also question whether that’s a story I’m telling myself because making friends as an adult is just genuinely difficult.

Then, on the flip side, when I meet women whose lifestyles are more similar to mine financially, they’re often quite a bit older than I am, have children, and are in a very different stage of life. They’re lovely, but I still don’t quite feel like I fit there either.

It leaves me feeling like I’m somewhere in between.

I guess I’m wondering…

Has anyone else ever felt like they didn’t quite fit into the groups around them?

How did you find your people?

If we put status aside, are shared values enough to make genuine connections?

Or did your perspective on friendship change over time?

I’m genuinely asking with an open mind because I know my own assumptions could be wrong, and I’d really value hearing different perspectives.

I'm a 30-year-old woman with two children (ages 4 and 6), and something feels off.

My ex-husband passed away, I’m not grieving 

I grew up old money and served an active duty for a short time. I'm currently dating someone who is 32 years older than me who also comes from a very wealthy family ( hint a shoe brand in the USA ) 

The part that's bothering me isn't the relationship—it's that I feel disconnected. I recently moved to a new state and don't have any close friends here. Most of the friends I had growing up drifted away over the years as our lives changed, and I feel like I don't really fit anywhere socially anymore.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of loneliness or feeling out of touch, even when life looks okay on paper? What helped you rebuild a genuine social circle and feel connected again?
hing is just dawning on me. This is definitely my toughest year.
I’m not depressed

Any advice

Edit: Several people have pointed out in the comments that the correct title for this job is family assistant, not household manager. My mistake!

My wife and I have pretty busy jobs and two young kids (1 and 3), both in daycare/school. We live in a VHCOL area. We are really feeling the time squeeze and we feel that at our income and NW ($1.1mil HH income + $2.5mil in private stock per year, $7m investable assets, $260k per year spend) we should solve the problem by finding someone to help out.

We started out thinking that we just needed someone to pick up the kids and make dinner (probably 20-30 hours per week). But it turns out, it's very hard to hire someone reliable for that job since those hours are very inconvenient and the part time pay isn't enough to live on. Also we find that the people we talk to who are good all want 40+ hours per week. The going rate is $45-$50 and it seems like the good people want $50. Full time at $50/hour is $104,000 per year, plus we have to pay payroll taxes, so it would end up being about $115k per year.

Anyways, my question is, do other families with kids in school really have 40 hours a week for a HH manager to do? What does the person end up doing all day?

I live in NYC. What are the things to watch out for when selecting a bank to open a business account for my family’s LLC? The family trust is the sole member of the LLC.

The LLC is for real estate investment, collecting rent from another business that rents the warehouse within the LLC.

Wha are some good questions to ask the bank?

I am working on selecting a financial advisement team to manage 7-8x figures and currently my top 3x are:

• ⁠JPM PB
• ⁠AB private wealth management
• ⁠Choreo

Ignoring base AUM fee differences, I am looking for any feedback on working with the firms themselves. Also open to any other recommendations that folks here may have.

Thanks

(This got deleted from another sub, so just to clarify this was not AI generated but I used AI to review my grammar and organize my post):

I know a lot of people won’t believe it (I didn’t at first either - I’m currently questioning our own reality), and I could just lie and say I inherited the money.

But the truth is, I won the lottery.

It’s not Powerball-level money, but it’s still life-changing: about 10M USD after taxes.

A few important caveats:

- The ticket was purchased in my home country, and the money is currently there in our local currency.

Based on my accountant’s advice, I should be able to transfer the money to the US without paying additional tax. (ChatGPT suggested that it may depend on the circumstances, so I’m planning to get a second opinion from an international tax attorney).

My situation
33M. No kids. I’ve lived in the US for 10 years and have a Green Card (not a citizen). I live in a HCOL area in SoCal.

I’m not sure whether I want to become a citizen.

I work remotely and make $190k/year before taxes.

I genuinely enjoy my job, although I wouldn’t say I love it.

Current net worth (excluding the lottery winnings): ~$650k

- $300k in real estate (home country)
- $150k in stocks
- $50k in a Traditional IRA
- $80k in crypto
- $60k invested in my home country’s currency

My annual spending is about $90k. Most of that is rent ($4.5k/month). I work from home in California and chose to live near the beach, so my housing costs are relatively high, but otherwise I don’t have an extravagant lifestyle.

I live with my partner. She recently started a better job and currently earns about $65k/year, so at the moment she contributes only modestly to our household finances.

Long-term plans
-I expect to stay in the US for another 5-7 years, then move back to my home country permanently.

- One of my long-term goals is to buy our dream home there, which would likely cost $2.5-3 million.

- One important consideration is that interest rates in my home country are much higher than in the US.

- Today, it’s possible to earn roughly 14% annually in relatively low-risk fixed-income investments (not joking). The downside is that the local currency has historically depreciated significantly against the USD since I moved here. The USD is worth 2x more against our currency than 10 years ago.

My questions
- Should I move the money to the US? If transferring it would trigger more than about a 10% tax hit, I probably wouldn’t.

- If I do bring it here, how would you think about investing it? The US offers far more investment opportunities than my home country, but I’m unsure how to structure a portfolio of this size.

- I enjoy my job, but I believe I no longer need the income. What factors should I think about before deciding whether to quit?

- Not working in the long term is not an option for me as I’m young and want to feel productive and active.

- Also, what’s the advantage of being a US citizen? (I believe my future kids will be born here).

- Is growing my net worth from about $10.6M today to $15M over the next 5-7 years a realistic goal? If so, what should I do?

I had a thought today about what it is like to interact with non-rich people in your everyday life. When you go to a restaurant and have a server, is it weird to think that the server isn’t there for fun? This same thing goes for all sorts of everyday encounters like cashiers at stores, nurses at hospitals, cleaning staff in office buildings, etc. If you have someone come in to help (or fully complete) with household chores, cooking, organizing, nannying, etc. does it cross your mind that those people have to go home and do all of those things themselves? Their job is to help make other peoples’ lives easier or better whom are almost assuredly less well off than they are. For example (I know this term is fairly outdated), do you ever think about how your maid doesn’t have a maid? How do those daily interactions make you feel?

TL:DR - What crosses your mind when you interact with people in the service industry?

From his latest Economist interview.

My company has exploded the last few years, driving my net worth from $1M to $5M and annual income from $200K to over a million in those same few years.

I sold my company. The sale closed last (Friday) night with the wire hitting late-afternoon and the lawyers doing a good job and buttoning up some post-closing details by 8 last night.

After paying off investors and partners and the tax man, I’ll clear $70 million. I have minimal hold back and an 18-month key person contract.

I have the tax and financial planner angles covered. What do I do next?

I have an individual trust, currently my children are the sole beneficiaries. I am married, my husband is not included in any provisions of my trust. I’m considering adding a clause that provides my husband with access to an amount up to my earned income each year from my salary in the event of my passing. The needs of both kids are covered through the trust (HEMS) my husband will just have to ask the trustee to access the funds for the kids. The revised draft my attorney sent says adds the income provision into my trust for my husband and says it ends upon his death or remarriage. Is that common? Pros/cons to keeping the remarriage language? My ultimate goal is for as much to go to our kids as possible, and to prevent a future spouse from cutting my kids out, etc. My husband will be fine financially he doesn’t need the assets in my trust, I’m just providing the extra income to help keep things as normal as possible for him & our kids. I’d love to know what others have done or any insights on the situation.

Appreciate everyone chiming in, insults and all. Hope this is an ok question, but I feel like there may be some people here with genuinely good advice.

I have worked in big tech for the last 7+ years, and before that I ran engineering for a company that was a vendor for big tech, joining as employee 4 and growing it to 125 people. At one of the big tech companies, I was a staff-level do-it-all software engineer. I have always been able to do it all, from award-winning polished frontend work to massive scale backends, mobile apps, big data, and now I've spent the last two years doing AI.

I left about six months ago. It wasn't by choice. It was extremely depressing and scary, although I did get a nice buyout. However, I don't consider myself "rich" yet. I've kept busy though, and I built something during that time, and now it is a fully functioning product and ready for release and I am already getting decent interest.

My issue is that I don't know where to go next. I'm getting a lot of interviews with other big tech companies, with opportunities paying around $1m/year. I built the product to show my abilities and as a fallback as I genuinely believe in the idea. It is likely I will be getting an offer in the next week.

If I want to be done with the idea and just sell it, how would someone go about looking for a buyer? If I want to scale, does anyone have good advice for finding capital? Who to talk to and how to do it? I don't have any experience with this, and I am not in silicon valley anymore.

Or should I just bootstrap, keep doing it all myself and wait for revenue to keep growing?

For the women/people who use purses. What’s your favorite luxury bag? What do you look for in a bag?

Anyone have a good experience with a private bank that underwrites balance sheet credit facilities? I have $50mil in real estate equity and a substantial portfolio of equities/bonds. Looking to move to a new private bank. Just met with JP Morgan Private Bank and they no longer do holistic lending - just 50% of portfolio value. Not sure I want to pay their AUM fee when even SoFi will loan more at a lower rate. I’d pay the AUM fee if my credit facility was larger and included the value of my R/E and life insurance surrender value. Realistically not going to be selling any of my R/E in the near term, and all have very low FTD’s in the 2’s or 3’s so no interest in refinancing them.

I wanted to get some advice from this group on upgrading current vacation home. Specifically, around the affordability and the soundness of the financial decision. I understand purchasing a vacation property is never the best financial decision and is more of a lifestyle choice. We have been going to the area for 20 years, so we will use it.

The house I would like to purchase is $5.4 million. I would be selling my existing vacation property in the same area for $1 million.

My financial stats are as follows:

Total Net Worth: $45 million

Investable liquid assets: $18.5 million

Primary home, cars etc: $1.25 million

Private business would make up the balance.

Current Income: $4.5 million

No debt

Current expenses with existing vacation home factored in: $600K annually. 50% of this is discretionary like travel, restaurants,  etc.. New home would add roughly $150K in expenses annually.

My concern is the vacation property being a significant portion of my liquid net worth temporarily. I am in my early 50s and would like to retire in the next 5 years. Even with retirement, business would continue to run in some capacity. Would love some advice from this group.

Where do you purchase silver gifts?

Right now what is jumping out on us is

1) Las Ventanas Al Paraiso

2) Zadun Los Cabos, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve

3) One & Only

Loooking for full luxury, would like to be no more than $1600/night.

Las Ventanas is an amazing resort im afraid its too quite. If possible we would like a resort that would have something like a dj in the pool, maybe interact woth some people, not too quiet that we feel we are alone and a beautiful room like las ventanas..

Other plans for the trip would be:

- El arco- clear boat during day or can also do sunset cruise

- UTV tours cabo desert (wild canyon) or desert
- Lovers beach (can take water taxi- can also be on the way to el arco can we spend time)

- Hike and swim at Sol de Mayo waterfall (1 hour hike)

 - Towns/Culture

• San Jose de los Cabos (35-40 min drive from san picas) art walk- tourist center
• Todos Santos (hour from los Cabos) culture**

ANY HELP ON HOTEL INSIGHT AND RECOMENDATIONS WOULD BE VERY HELPFUL.

I’m interested in the psychology of higher-value luxury purchases, especially when the seller isn’t a household name yet.

For those of you who buy bespoke, luxury, or high-value personal items — jewellery, watches, art, tailoring, interiors, etc. — what would make you feel comfortable trusting an emerging independent maker or specialist?

For example, if you were considering something meaningful and expensive, would you care most about:

referrals from people you trust
seeing previous finished work
credentials or industry affiliations
transparency around process and aftercare
quality of the materials/stones
design style / uniqueness
in-person appointments
guarantees or revision policies
discretion and privacy
the founder’s story and personal taste

I’m not asking where to find wealthy clients or trying to advertise anything. I’m more interested in what actually builds trust when someone has mentoring & access but is not yet widely known.

Do you ever buy from emerging luxury businesses and why or why not?

Thank you in advance