asdfasdfasdfads wrote:
Unless you inherit the money, you have to have some amount of talent, or be extremely lucky. Assuming you are smart (not a genius but able to squeeze in to an ivy league caliber school) and have reasonable social skills, the highest probability path to $100mm is finance. The least risky way in finance would be corporate finance investment banking--if you devote yourself entirely to the firm, there is a good chance you'll keep moving up, until you make $2-$3mm a year. If you are really good at your job, you could make $5mm or more, although, numerically, few people do. If you make $2-$3mm for 20+ years and invest it reasonable well, you have a decent shot of having $100mm by the time you die. Also in finance, you could move into private equity or a hedge fund, but you generally need to be smarter for that, and there is more risk. However, you can often make more, earlier.
Other ways of doing it obviously, but most require significant luck, and the average person who takes that path doesn't do very well (eg. working for a tech startup)
"was" finance. unlikely we'll see as many millionaires coming out of finance for the next few years. if you can guess what the next bubble will be, of course that is the route to take. what you are describing, of course, is some form of building a book and siphoning money from this book.