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

When we were in high school he started cutting grass. By the end of high school, he owned a truck and a few people would work for him.

When we all went to college and many of us took on debt for our education, he bought another couple trucks. Right around when we were finishing college he bought a few rental houses with the money from his landscaping business.

A couple years after school, we were working low paying entry-level jobs, he bought his first apartment building.

10 years out of school, we were finally making money and paying off our debts; he bought his 7th apartment building and built his first commercial property and was capitalizing on the real estate downturn buying a bunch more.

20+ years after school, most of us are making good money and doing well; this guy now owns huge chuck of the real estate in Pittsburgh and is probably worth close to a billion with the way real estate has exploded.