re: How did that person in your class become rich?

The person from high school no one saw coming made it selling cigars. He started a little store in what was basically a quarter of a storefront in the Acadiana Mall in the early 80s selling pipes, pipe tobacco, smoking accessories, and knives. He eventually moved into cigars and into a storefront not in a mall and is now in a stand-alone building.

He's not the kind of rich the OPs guy is.


I've got two friends who went to work for a small gaming company in the Seattle area. They just happened to onboard in time to begin working on a new game they were developing. Brown bagged lunches and started to work on a new game hoping the company would take off. The name of the company was Valve and the game was Half Life.

One of those guys has a house worth in the millions, bought his parents and in-laws each a house and drives a McLaren F1 as a daily driver.

The other is a bit less ostentatious and lives in a more modest home but he is probably pretty close to a top 1% income earner. He's also an incredibly down-to-earth guy and has been as long as I have known him, which goes back to college in the 80s.

They all still work though. The guy from high school is in his 60s now. The other two guys are in their 50s.