millionaire

the five million dollar birthday party of a millionaire who went down in history

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It was February 2007 and in a former military barracks on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, nearly 600 guests toasted with champagne while Rod Stewart sang at a private concert marking the 60th birthday of one of the most powerful men on Wall Street. That man was Stephen SchwarzmanCEO and founder of Blackstone. Nobody at the party knew that, months later, that same night would go down in history as the symbol of everything that was going to go wrong on Wall Street. A party that marked an era. That was not just any birthday party. Almost two decades later, there are still many who remember her as one of the most ostentatious. Schwarzman, founder of Blackstone, rented the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan, filled it with orchids, palm trees, and a life-size portrait of himself. According to the book ‘Davos Man‘ by Peter S. Goodman, comedian Martin Short entertained the evening, singer Patti LaBelle sang happy birthday and even Rod Stewart gave a private concert. Among the almost 600 attendees were bankers, politicians and even a certain Donald Trump, then just another New York businessman. An unforgettable party. HE esteem that the party cost between three and five million dollars. Today that figure seems modest next to other waste the kind that millionaires boast about, but in those years it was a significant waste. Schwarzman later justified it as “a celebration with six hundred people we cared about.” Peccadillo for someone who had just pocketed $398.3 million in the 2006 fiscal year. The expensive thing was not the party. However, the party came just four days after a key announcement. Blackstone had just closed the biggest real estate purchase in history until that moment, for 39,000 million dollars. Months later, the company went public. Schwarzman he pocketed nearly 700 million in cash, and was awarded a stake valued at about 9,000 million. That cocktail of luxury and easy money caught the attention of the Senate. Legislators Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley presented what the press dubbed the “Blackstone Bill”. A regulations tailor-made for Schwarzman’s company that sought to raise taxes on private capital. With the subprime crisis already upon us, Schwarzman ended up admitting that that party was “a little exaggerated”. He assured that he never wanted to become the symbol of the opulence of an era. “I’m not rich,” he only had a net worth of 8 billion. With such a fortune, anyone would expect a certain comfort with the label of rich. But that wasn’t the case with Schwarzman. As and how I collected The Wall Street JournalEven after the millionaire’s ostentatious birthday party, when asked about his lifestyle, the Blackstone CEO responded without hesitation: “I don’t feel like a rich person. Others see me as such, but I don’t. I feel the same as when I was a fifth-year associate and aspired to be a partner at Lehman. I haven’t changed… I’m still trying.” The old excesses that no longer return the same. Perhaps displaying a certain nostalgia, ten years after that memorable party, Schwarzman celebrated his 70th. On this occasion, he did not skimp either. There were camels, trapeze artists and a private concert by singer Gwen Stefani in Palm Beach, near Mar-a-Lago. The party almost happened without noise from the front pages of the newspapers. It was the Trump era and luxury no longer shocked anyone like before. Their neighbors Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were among the guests. The king of parties at 79. Today, with a fortune of 48 billion dollars, Schwarzman prepares a Halloween party at his English estate in Conholt Park. No camels or temples: just fireworks and two days of private meeting. Something quiet. chill. The excesses of yesteryear, those that made Congress tremble, they no longer scare so much today. The billionaires of this decade are more discreet with their forms, although their wealth has increased tenfold. Today’s billionaires they spend the same or more than Schwarzman in 2007, they just don’t do the same ostentation. The difference is in the noise, not the money. In Xataka | A Swedish millionaire lent money to European governments in exchange for matches. Nobody suspected that his finances were pure smoke Image | Unsplash (Ophélie Bonavita), Flickr (World Economic Forum)

Ivar Kreuger, the Swedish millionaire who built a financial empire with matches and ended up burned by his debts

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Paris, March 1932. The cover of The New York Times pick up the news of a man who has been found dead in his room, shot in the heart. Outside, no one still knows that that body hides the major financial fraud of his time. That man had lent money to governments and personalities across Europe, dined with Greta Garbo, and advised presidents. In Sweden they called him “the second king.” On Wall Street they treated him almost like a god of finance. However, as Frank Partnoy told in his biographical book ‘The Match King’behind that shining empire there was something much darker. That story begins, like so many other great falls, with a product so simple that no one suspected it: a match. An empire born of fire Ivar Kreuger was born in Kalmar, southeastern Sweden in 1880. His family already had a small match making business Therefore, her wealthy position allowed her to study engineering and travel around the United States, where she learned construction systems based on the use of reinforced concrete that were not yet used in Sweden. In 1908, he returned to Sweden and founded the construction company Kreuger & Toll along with Paul Toll with just $2,500 in capital. The main advantage of your company is that, when use concrete armed in their constructions, they managed to shorten construction deadlines without losing quality in the constructions. This allowed them to obtain projects as important as the construction of the Stockholm Olympic Stadiumwhich would be the venue for the 1912 Olympic Games. The founders of Kreuger & Toll: Paul Toll (standing), Henrik Kreuger (left) and Ivar Kreuger In his first business venture, Kreuger discovered something key: knew his way around finances almost as well as with concrete. With that mix of ambition, engineering and business acumen, Kreuger entered the family matchmaking business with the Swedish Match (that still exists) in 1917, uniting different dispersed factories into a single holding company. In a few years, the new company manufactured 75% of the matches on the entire planet. Trade matches for debt However, and despite the buoyant business of his factories, Kreuger’s great move was to exchange matches for debt. After the First World War, half of Europe needed money to rebuild. Kreuger saw the opportunity. It offered huge loans to governments in financial trouble and, in return, asked for match manufacturing monopoly in your country. He lent money to France, Germany, Poland, Greece and other nations, thus managing to monopolize the production of matches in half of Europe. It is estimated that the total loaned to the different countries was around 387 million dollars in 1930. It had factories in 43 countries and almost total control in 25 of them. The business was no longer selling matches, it was now lending money disguised as an industry and its empire extended to other industries. It came to dominate 50% of the iron market and became shareholders in banks, mining companies, railways, lumber, paper, film distribution, real estate and the pulp industry. In 1925, he even gained control of an important package of Ericsson shares and the other three largest companies in Sweden, as well as more than 200 companies and represented 60% of the Swedish stock market. Its 125-room Stockholm office earned the nickname “Match Palace.” To finance so much borrowing, Kreuger needed a constant flow of capital. To achieve this, it issued shares with very high dividends, up to 30% between 1919 and 1928. Investors, especially in the US, entered en masse due to the promise of obtaining a return well above the average. He managed to raise 750 million dollars with this system, according to collected The Economist. The trick he used to offer those succulent dividends was not new, although no one saw it at the time: he paid old investors with the money of new ones. That is, the same pyramid system that I was using Carlo Ponzi on the other side of the pond: a ponzi scheme with the appearance of an industrial multinational. Nobody audited Kreuger’s books and, as how I collected a chronicle of The New York Timeswhen an English executive proposed it to him, Kreuger responded with a phrase that today exudes fine irony: “Do you think I’m a swindler?” The answer is clear: Yes. A house of cards on fire The Wall Street crash of 1929 suddenly cut off the flow of capital that sustained Kreuger’s pyramid scheme, which, in desperation, went so far as to sell the same securities several times. counterfeit Italian bonds for 80 million without actually having that monopoly. In 1931 he requested a loan of 800 million crowns from the Swedish banks, the equivalent of 10% of the country’s GDP. It wasn’t enough. He Swedish Riksbank hesitatedhe government intervenedbut the hole was now impossible to cover. On March 12, 1932, Kreuger took his own life in his Parisian hotel room. A few weeks before, the telephone company ITT (International Telegraph & Telephone) had forced him to return 11 million dollars after discovering that the Swedish millionaire had deceived them making up Ericsson accounts. Subsequent audits uncovered the true extent of the pufo. Their companies accumulated credit debts of more than 1.2 billion dollarsin addition to a personal debt of 265 million dollars, compared to just 18 million dollars in assets that he had in his possession. All of this, we remember, in the 1930s, which represents a debt of unaffordable proportions even by today’s millionaires. Thousands of families lost their savings. Entire factories closed. And the man who one day lent money to half of Europe ended up being, himself, the biggest financial hole of his time. The United States Congress called him the biggest fraudster in history. A year later, the SEC was created to monitor the markets and ensure that Kreuger’s scam It did not repeat itself. In Xataka | The extreme stinginess of the first woman to become a millionaire by investing: she was known as the “Witch of … Read more

A millionaire went to bed one day being the richest man in the world the next day he was bankrupt… twice

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History is full of names that they lose their fortunes for an achievement of bad decisionsbut also of others who lost their assets due to a stroke of bad luck. The story of Nelson Bunker Hunt is one of the latter, who not only lost his fortune once due to a stroke of bad luck: he lost it twiceand neither time was the fault entirely his. The name of this millionaire is barely known today, but between the late 70s and early 80s, he was synonymous with enormous wealth: the richest man on the planet, owner of oil wells in the Libyan desert and such a large portion of the world silver market that he managed to twist the arm of Wall Street. A coup colonel and a bad Thursday in 1980 reminded him that no fortune, no matter how enormous, is safe from history. From Arkansas to the Libyan desert after the black gold Nelson was born in 1926 in El Dorado, Arkansas. His father, H. L. Huntwas already an oil magnate with fifteen children from three different women. Nelson wanted to match him, at least in terms of wealth, so he went looking for oil outside of Texas. His first attempts in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan They were a total failure. But the third time’s the charm and in 1961 he tried his luck in Libya. A stroke of luck led the young entrepreneur to obtain Concession 65, a huge area of ​​32,400 square kilometers of desert land to exploit the Sarir sitewhich still today continues to be the largest oil field of the country. That made him a multimillionaire almost overnight. As and how did he count the BBCfor more than a decade, Sarir generated billions of dollars for Hunt’s company. Muammar al-Gaddafi It all ended in 1973, when a colonel named Muammar al-Gaddafi took power and nationalized all its oil wells without prior notice. Over time, that same site served to amass the dictator’s personal fortune, which some researchers even valued at more than 200,000 million of dollars. However, Hunt lost the goose that laid the golden (black) eggs of his oil empire due to a coup d’état, and bad luck, that he did not see coming. Silver as an unexpected refuge Far from giving up, Hunt He reinvested what was left of his fortune on ranches, in breeding thoroughbred horses and in new oil businesses. Together with his brothers Herbert and Lamar, he began buying silver in the mid-seventies, as strategy to protect your fortune against inflation. What started as an investment in a safe haven soon became an obsession. By 1979 the Hunts controlled about a third of all the money deprived of the planet. The price of silver went from trading at six dollars an ounce to exceeding $49.45 thanks to the position of power over the silver market exercised by the Hunt brothers. Which implied that his fortune was also growing in the same proportion. The Hunt brothers’ control of the silver market reached levels that even Tiffany’s published an advertisement in it New York Times accusing them of artificially make any silver object more expensivefrom baby spoons to photo reels. “We find it unacceptable for anyone to hoard billions, yes, billions, of dollars in silver and therefore drive up the price so high that others have to pay artificially high prices for items made of silver,” the article read. According what was published for the BBCthe silver magnate reportedly told Time magazine in January 1980 that “silver seemed safer than oil concessions abroad. And precious metals were a good hedge against paper money.” Anyone has a bad Thursday Thursday, March 27, 1980 would be a day that would be burned into Hunt’s head. His arrived second major financial disaster. That day, known as Silver Thursdaythe price of silver plummeted below $11 in a matter of hours. The Hunts’ silver position, valued shortly before at more than $4.5 billion, was transformed into a debt of $1.7 billion, as detailed Britannica. A group of New York banks had to set up an emergency line of credit to prevent the Hunt bankruptcy from dragging down half of Wall Street with them. Years of trials later, the Futures Trading Commission fined them each $10 million and a lifetime ban to operate with raw materials. In 1988, Nelson Bunker Hunt officially declared bankruptcy. His assets, then valued at just 150 million, were completely liquidated to pay debts and back taxes. He had to sell up to his 580 purebred horses. When asked by Congress about his fortune, he replied with dark humor: “a billion dollars is not what it used to be.” He spent his last years in a modest house in Dallas, and died in 2014 in a residence, at 88 years old. His brother Herbert had better luck: sold his assets in Montana for $1.5 billion in 2012 and died in 2024 with a assets of 4.7 billion dollars, according to Forbes. Nelson, on the other hand, went down in history as the man who He was the richest on the planet and ended up with nothing… twice. In Xataka | In the 19th century, a US millionaire set out to invade countries on his own: he founded two republics of which he was president Image | Hall of FameUnsplash (Mohamed Fsili, Scottsdale Mint, Colton Sturgeon), Flikr (Esther Vargas)

In 1950, a millionaire got into a Bentley and achieved one of the greatest feats of the 24 Hours of Le Mans: completing them alone

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June 11, 1955, the La Sarthe circuit signs the blackest day in its history. Juan Manuel Fangio and Mike Hawthorn dispute the lead of the race. A few hours have passed since the start when Hawthorn, who has just lapped Lance Macklin’s Austin, notices that his mechanics are signaling him to stop in the pits. Hawthorn, traveling at maximum speed, hits the brakes with all his might to make his stop. In those days, the pits and the straight were not physically separated, so try to maneuver at the last moment. Macklin, who is not expecting the maneuver, avoids Hawthorn’s Jaguar as best he can. But to his left, Pierre Levegh (also doubled) arrives launched. Fangio follows behind, both with a Mercedes. The first of them collides violently with Macklin’s Austin with the misfortune that British car becomes a take-off ramp that throws him against the audience of the crowded main stand. Pierre Levegh and 83 spectators die, although the race continues. That day, however, was a point in the history of Le Mans. The 1955 accident began constant improvements in the safety of the circuit and the race itself. Although Le Mans has been a race in constant evolution and other accidents have forced safety criteria to be modernized, something changed that year. Because, until then, Le Mans was a wild race. 3,200 kilometers alone Le Mans is a fascinating competition. It is one of the few strongholds of motorsports where the elite of world motorsports compete with amateur drivers. Right now, a person with enough money can set up a team and participate in the competition but it is necessary to have the necessary licenses in force. The FIA ​​divides drivers based on their driving experience and milestones achieved. Depending on the category in which the team is entered, federative requirements are different. It’s what’s left of those gentleman drivers as james deanrich people who were fond of motorsports who participated in official competitions, setting up their own team to face the squads supported by the manufacturers themselves. A formula that has survived over time but whose participants have been reduced to the point of exception. Those gentleman drivers They were by no means a rarity in the first half of the 20th century, so no one was surprised to see Eddie Hall on board a 4¼ Bentley. What was surprising is that no one took over from Hall. And until after the 1955 accident, at Le Mans it was not mandatory to change drivers and until well into the 80s it was not mandatory to have three drivers who, in addition, were revealed to have a maximum and minimum number of hours competed. They count in MotorSport Magazine that Eddie Hall was born into a wealthy family with a textile business in his hands. He was born in 1900 and before he reached his thirties he was already participating in official motorsport competitions. In fact, his passion for speed led him to participate in the Olympic Games in bobsleighthe sport invented by the Swiss in which four members of the same team launch themselves in a sled through an ice circuit. Fueled by a hunger for speed, Hall contacted Rolls-Royce to participate with one of its sports cars in the Mille Miglia, a historic Italian race that was practiced in open traffic. At that time, Rolls-Royce manufactured Bentley cars (the company had already won Le Mans before being purchased), the latter focused more on competition and the former on great trips. Bentley maintained competitive fame under the umbrella of Rolls-Royce and Eddie Hall ended up buying one of them to participate in the Italian race and it was the one that he would later use in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1950. It was a Bentley 4¼ and by then, that unit was already 16 years old and in the report of MotorSport Magazine They wonder if this sports car was not the oldest to complete the endurance test. With it he stood on the finish line of the La Sarthe Circuit, Eddie Hall would take the start since the car was his and, basically, he had put up the money to get there. Waiting for him in the pits was Tom Clarke, an Aston Martin driver who had been assigned as a teammate because at that time the teams had only two drivers. But although Clarke appears in the official race statisticsEverything indicates that he did not get into the car at any time. The reason was simple, Eddie Hall didn’t like sharing his cars and, after all, that was his car. In fact, they say that Hall’s own wife had to console her increasingly depressed companion when she became convinced that he was not going to travel a single meter that day aboard that Bentley 4¼. How did Eddie Hall do it? In Road & Track They only understand that the feat was possible by using drugs. In those years, Amphetamines were frequently used in all types of sports and it seems the most likely recipe for understanding how a man could stay awake and have enough reflexes to drive all night… and get his Bentley to the finish line in eighth place after covering more than 3,000 kilometers. The use of all types of drugs was known in the competition world. In Motorsport.comStirling Moss confessed to having used amphetamines, benzedrine or dexedrine. Coffee, alcohol and drugs was a more than usual cocktail for those who squeezed the most out of their bodies. A year later, Eddie Hall again participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans aboard a Ferrari but this time he had to abandon mid-competition. No one has repeated the feat and no one will do it again since since 1985 the teams must have three drivers and none of them can drive more than four hours in a row in blocks of six hours, nor can they accumulate more than 14 hours throughout the entire competition day. Photo … Read more

turn the retiree into a millionaire industry

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In Japan there is a curious business tradition: some companies they continue hiring retirees so that they continue working after officially retiring. They do so because labor shortages and an aging population have turned the elderly into a resource increasingly valuable for the economy. Now it is China’s turn. Beijing no longer expects a baby boom. For years, Beijing tried stop the collapse birth rate through incentives, regulatory changes and campaigns aimed at encouraging families to have more children. However, the demographic reality has imposed with force. Births continue to fall and forecasts point to an increasingly aging China. Given this scenario, he had the financial times that the country is changing its approach: instead of focusing all its efforts on increasing the number of young people, it is building an economic strategy around an increasingly evident certainty, that hundreds of millions of citizens They will be over 65 years old in the coming decades. The silver economy. Yes, because the answer is named “silver economy”a concept that seeks to convert the needs, consumption and services aimed at older people into one of the great engines of the Chinese economy. The Government estimates that this market could reach 30 billion yuan by 2035, a gigantic figure driven by an elderly population that will exceed 400 million people and will represent more than 30% of the national total. At a time when the real estate crisis has weakened one of the main pillars of Chinese growth, the authorities see in retirees a new source of economic activity capable of mobilizing investments, companies and employment. A fair that shows the future of the country. The best demonstration of this transformation could be seen at a big fair held in Shanghai dedicated to elderly care, rehabilitation and health. More than 600 companies came to exhibit products specifically designed for an aging society. The event offered a very different image from China just a decade ago: exoskeletons for walking, robotic assistance systems, rehabilitation devices, smart beds, adapted furniture, specialized health products and technological solutions aimed at improving the quality of life of elderly people. Technology turns to the elderly. Many of the innovations presented had a common element: automation. Companies from very diverse sectors are trying to apply advanced technology to reduce the physical and economic burden associated with aging. Among the products displayed there was everything from connected diapers to mobile applications, to sensors installed in shoes capable of analyzing the way you walk and detect risks of falls or vibration therapy systems inspired by space technologies, also devices intended to facilitate the care of dependent people. Basically, the idea is to use technology to replace heavy tasksrepetitive or difficult to cover by human personnel, a challenge that will become increasingly important as the elderly population increases. Companies that change objectives. One of the most revealing aspects is how many companies are redirecting your businesses. Products originally designed for children are being adapted for adults. For example, companies specializing in infant milk have begun to develop nutritional formulas for the elderly. Educational technology manufacturers that previously sold tools for schoolchildren now market devices aimed at teaching calligraphy, music or new skills for retirees. The business logic is simple: while the children’s market contracts due to the drop in births, the older segment grows year after year and offers much more attractive prospects. A new generation of retirees. The change also reflects a social transformation. Today’s Chinese seniors have more income, more free time and different expectations than previous generations. They are no longer limited to covering basic needs, but demand leisure, training, cultural activities, physical well-being and personal experiences. Senior universities, music courses, sports activities and learning programs are gaining popularity among a population that wants to stay active for longer. For many companies, this group is no longer seen as a dependent group and is becoming in a consumer with own spending capacity. Turn a problem into an opportunity. It’s the end, obviously. The silver economy represents an attempt to transform one of China’s biggest structural threats into an economic opportunity. An aging population will continue to pose enormous challenges for pensions, healthcare and the labor market, but Beijing is trying extract economic value of a trend that he already considers irreversible. Instead of waiting for a recovery in birth rates to solve the problem, the country is reorganizing entire sectors to serve an increasingly aging population. In a way, China has assumed that it will have fewer children than it dreamed of and is betting on something different: turning its retirees into the center of a multi-billion dollar industry capable of sustaining part of its future growth. Image | Pixabay, timquijano, World Bank Photo Collection In Xataka | In the midst of a race towards immortality, China believes it has found a way for us to live 150 years: with grapes In Xataka | China knows that its population is going to collapse but it already has a long-term plan to solve it. Of course, thanks to AI

sexual deepfakes out, mandatory AI label and millionaire fines to the private sector

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Spain has approved the draft Organic Law for the good use and governance of artificial intelligence. The standard adapts the legislation to framework established by the European Union with the AI ​​law and establishes a series of obligations and prohibitions based on the risk classification of these systems. The regulations impose mandatory human supervision in high-risk systems and extend responsibility beyond the company that deploys these systems, also reaching those who use them. Sanctions. In mild cases, penalties range from 6,000 euros, such as not cooperating with the authorities, to 500,000 euros or 0.5% of the total turnover. In more serious cases, turnover shoots up to 35 million or, failing that, 7% of global turnover in very serious cases. Fines of 15 million or 3% of turnover are also proposed when high-risk systems are used without human supervision. The double standard. The controversy arises because these fines are not applied when it is the administration that fails to comply with the rule. If, for example, the police or a ministry uses an AI system classified as prohibited, the law contemplates reprimands and disciplinary actions, but no fines. The Government defends that it has “raised the bar for self-demand” with transparency measures, among which is the creation of a public inventory of all AI systems used in administrative procedures. It also introduces the figure of the AI ​​delegate who will be in charge of coordinating its use. Deepfakes. The creation of deepfakes of a sexual nature and also the creation of child pornography with AI tools is prohibited. Deepfakes that do not fall into these categories (for example of a politician or a public figure) are not prohibited, but must be labeled as AI in a “clear and distinguishable” way from the time they are first shared. AI content tagging. The ministry establishes that videos and images must have a watermark in a corner of the image in which the acronym AI is clearly read. For audio generated with AI, that same seal must appear in the corresponding application, whether it is Spotify, Apple Music or another service. If you do not choose this label, it will be the audio itself that must incorporate a warning that it is generated with AI. The date to begin applying this labeling is August 2 of this year. Who will be in charge of controlling it. Supervision will fall mainly on AESIA, the Spanish AI Supervision Agency, but will be supported by other authorities such as the Spanish Data Protection Agency for biometric data, the General Council of the Judiciary for the judicial field and the Bank of Spain for everything related to the financial system. According to The CountryAESIA plans to hire 50 analysts before the end of the year to carry out this task. When it comes into effect. The law is intended to come into force before the end of 2027, but the obligation to label data with AI will come into force on August 2. However, as the law is not yet applied, in practice it means that for more than a year there will be obligations in place, but with no real ability to impose fines on companies that fail to comply. Image | Moncloa In Xataka | Deepfakes are much more than a bad joke. Now the Government wants them to be a violation of the right to honor

a millionaire is looking for ideas because money has not given him happiness

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Some people think that the only thing you need to be happy is a checking account whose balance looks like a phone number. This is a fact confirmed by science. Others, on the other hand, cannot even use all the money in the world to achieve happiness. This is the case of Vinay Hiremath, a 34-year-old engineer of Indian origin living in the US who became a millionaire in a short time. but he doesn’t know what to do with his life to be happy. So he didn’t hesitate to make it public. from your personal page to see if anyone would give him ideas about what he could do with his life. “I know. It’s an absolutely otherworldly situation,” the millionaire wrote. Millionaire with all the time in the world Hiremath co-founded the startup Loom in 2015 alongside Shahed Khan and Joe Thomas. The company developed software that allowed screenshots and video capture in third-party applications. At its height, the pandemic meant that we all suddenly needed record meetings and taking screenshots of video calls, so the company’s valuation skyrocketed. In 2023, Atlassian purchased the company he had founded for $975 million, of which Hiremath would receive $60 million as a compensation salary package. for leaving the company. After formalizing the purchase, the young millionaire found himself with a fortune in your pocket and all the time in the world to spend it on things that made him happy. That was the first disappointment. “I have infinite freedom, but I don’t know what to do with it and, honestly, I’m not the most optimistic person about life,” Hiremath said on his blog. The first weeks were spent meeting with entrepreneurs and robotics experts in the hope of finding an exciting idea with which to get involved and help it grow as he had already done with his own company a few years ago. It was useless since none of the proposals inspired him. “I began to realize that what I really wanted was to look like Elon (Musk), and that is incredibly embarrassing. It hurts me to even write this,” the millionaire acknowledged. Since he didn’t know what to do with his money, thought that perhaps it would be a good idea to give a good part of his fortune to his parents so that they could retire earlier. He also tried to have fun traveling the worldand he did that accompanied by his girlfriend for six months. Unfortunately, that didn’t work either and, not only did it not make Hiremath’s life make sense, but he ended up breaking up with his girlfriend after “two years of unconditional love.” “We started arguing frequently and I knew it wasn’t her fault, it was mine.” It’s not what you have, it’s what you do After his romantic breakup, the millionaire understood that nothing he did would make him feel fulfilled if he did not first do an introspection exercise: he needed to “face himself completely.” Founding the company had made him feel fulfilled and, suddenly finding himself without a purposeleft him disoriented and without a vital goal to pursue. Hoping to find himself, he left Himalayan climbing without prior preparation and without any experience. On the verge of hypoxia lack of oxygendecided that his “inner self” was definitely not going to be in the peaks of the Himalayas, so he came to his senses and returned home, but not before climbing two of the peaks of that mountain range. “I completed the two summits I had planned and I realized again how important it is for me to do difficult things. It is the heart of my life and I don’t understand 100% why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that I didn’t have the best childhood,” said the millionaire in his writing. Upon returning home and telling his friends about the conclusions he had come to while hanging from a rappelling rope in the Himalayas, his friends joked that “I should work for Elon and Vivek at DOGE and help America get out of its current crisis and not pay its own debt. So I contacted some people and they accepted me.” For a month, the millionaire was talking to the army of candidates to be part of the new “extragovernmental” department“which created, with more pain than gloryElon Musk. “I learned about the power of urgency and having an undeniable mission. I didn’t read it somewhere, I experienced it.” However, the young millionaire also realized that That wasn’t going to be his battle.. “After four intense and intoxicating weeks, I canceled my plans to move to Washington and embark on a journey to save our government with some of the smartest people I have ever met. And I booked a one-way ticket to Hawaii,” Hiremath said. After a journey through the desert of the human condition, the engineer has “learned to accept that I am happy learning physics.” However, that was not going to be his destiny either. As a restless engineer, Hiremath has found a purpose. Recovering one of the thoughts that went viral from his blog, the young millionaire has managed to “lay the foundations of my basic principles and be able to start a company that manufactures things in the real world.” He has discovered a new passion developing sensors and automation for startup Specterwhich is responsible for implementing “physical intelligence” to control the security data in public and strategic facilities. In the end, happiness was in something as humble as a weld of tin in a silicon circuit. He who has more is not richerbut who needs it least. In Xataka | If the question is whether money brings happiness, a Harvard expert answers: it’s not having money, it’s what you do with it Image | Unsplash (Danka & Peter, Clark Tibbs) A version of this article was published in January 2025.

After the Titan millionaire submarine disaster, China plans to take more rich tourists 1,000 meters under the sea

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The depths ofto Mariana Trench or exploration from the deep ocean It has always been a thing for scientists and remotely controlled machines. China wants it to stop being so and already has an ambitious plan in motion: taking wealthy tourists to 1,000 meters deep, where sunlight does not reach and where there is no turning back for an engineering failure. The project comes three years after the Titan tragedythe OceanGate submersible that imploded in June 2023 while I was visiting the remains of the titanic in which its five occupants died. Far from stopping its efforts, China is moving forward with a proposal that, unlike the Titan, is backed by decades of naval engineering developed with the support of China. Four highly sought-after seats. Ye Cong, director of the China Naval Scientific Research Center, counted to ChinaDaily that “after more than four years of research, engineers have finalized the structural design” and that, once the prototype is built, “they will carry out sea trials and then improve the design based on the results.” The submersible will have enough space to accommodate four peoplepilot included, so, to begin with, the availability of places is very limited. This shortage of vacancies is expected to contribute to skyrocketing prices for filling each seat. One of the most complex problems of the small submarine has already been solved: the panoramic viewfinder. Your designers they describe it as “one of the most difficult structural codes to decipher on a deep-sea submersible.” And it makes sense since at 1,000 meters deep the pressure is about 100 times greater than on the surface, and that window has to withstand it without giving way. An unprecedented leap into the abyss. This is not the first submersible that Chinese engineers have operated. However, such andhow do they count in South China Morning Post The new projects that are being tested far exceed the depths at which current submersibles operate, which do not go below 20 meters deep. They are used for lakes, reservoirs and shallow coasts, so going from there to 1,000 meters is multiplying the operating depth by 50. The same naval engineering center that is now building this new generation of manned mini-submarines already built The Huandao Jiaolong 1 and 2, two tourist submersibles with capacity for seven passengers and a limit of 40 meters. However, on that occasion, immersion operations were suspended due to regulatory restrictions, but everything learned then has been applied to the new design. China plunges into the field of underwater exploration. The West has been designing submersibles for decades for deep dives. Companies like Deep RoverTriton and U-Boat Worx have been manufacturing submersibles over 1,000 meters since 1985 and until now had no Chinese competition in that segment. The new project developed by the China Naval Scientific Research Center changes that scenario supported by the previous experience of the Jiaolongthe Deep Sea Warrior and the Fendouzhe, three ships that last year completed more than 300 dives around the world and accounted for more than 50% of all manned deep-sea expeditions on a global scale. Ye Cong assured the Chinese news agency that the submersible: “will be a valuable asset for cruise lines, high-end tour operators and oceanographic researchers. It will offer the most demanding travelers an unforgettable experience in ocean exploration.” The prototype should be ready before the end of 2026, with the commercial debut expected before 2030. Much more than a tourist “toy”: it is a key strategy. This submersible is not just a mere product intended for tourist use of millionaires with adventurous concerns. It is part of China’s strategy to become strong in the blue economy, the sector of economic activities linked to the sea, a developing sector in which China seeks to play a leading role in the future. The Asian giant already leads manned deep-sea exploration and wants that this technological advantage is amortized in the form of a private business for their companies. After the Titan catastrophea good part of the luxury underwater tourism industry came to a screeching halt. China is the first to step on the accelerator again in this area, and this project is supported by State resources, which gives it a considerable advantage over projects that, like the Titan, are developed with private funds and investors. In Xataka | There is a new chapter in the Titan submarine tragedy: the memory card of its camera survived the implosion Image | CSSC

A millionaire has been fined 120,000 euros for exceeding the speed limit

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In Finland, breaking the speed limit can ruin your day. Above all, if you are a millionaire and they fine you for driving above the permitted limit. The latest example was experienced by Anders Wiklöf, one of the richest men in Finland, who was stopped by the police on March 22 after catching him driving at 59 km/h through an urban area of ​​Mariehamn, in the Åland archipelago, where the limit was 30 km/h. For exceeding 29 kilometers per hour, the police imposed a fine of 120,000 euros. ​The millionaire accepted it without question. Wiklöf is president and founder of Wiklöf Holding, a group of more than 20 companies with investments in logistics, aviation, real estate and tourism valued at more than 400 million dollars. When the police stopped him for speeding, he did not try to escape the problem. “The agents asked me if I wanted to take the case to court, but if I made a mistake, I accept it. They were polite and nice guys who were just doing their job,” declared to the local newspaper Nya Åland. Wiklöf will pay the fine for speeding without even appealing it, although he did take the opportunity to ask the Government that the money be used to cover the planned cuts in health, one of the hottest political debates of the moment in Finland. This unusual normality regarding the amount of the penalty is due to the fact that the Nordic country’s sanction system links the amount of the fines to the offender’s income. That is to say, for most mortals such a sanction implies ruin for life, for this millionaire it is little more than pocket change. Wiklöf has not learned his lesson. Despite the surprising amount of the fineit’s not the first time that police officers stop Wiklöf for speeding. The millionaire already accumulates four documented penalties for speeding: one of 95,000 euros in 2013, 63,680 euros in 2018, 121,000 euros in 2023 and this is 120,000 euros in 2026, which adds up to a total of 399,680 euros in those traffic fines alone. For these same violations, any driver in Spain would hardly have paid more than 600 euros in total, since the regulations in Spain establish a series of fixed penalties depending on the severity of the violation, but are not linked to the offender’s assets. Wiklöf himself already said it bluntly in 2013: “In Sweden they would have fined me about 450 euros. I don’t understand how I can be a bigger offender here than there, but the law is the law.” Nokia executives’ feet are heavy. The most famous case of this sanctions system Anssi Vanjoki starreda 44-year-old Nokia executive, who in January 2002 was traveling at 75 km/h on an urban road in Helsinki with a limit of 50 km/h. For exceeding 25 kilometers per hour, the authorities imposed a fine of 116,000 eurosfor years it was considered the highest traffic fine in history. Another Nokia executive, Pekka Ala-Pietilä, He also received a sanction of 35,000 euros for a similar violation at the same time. Vanjoki ended up appealing his fine, alleging a drop in income compared to the previous year, and got a reduction. In Finland, a fine can’t ruin you. No matter how high and disproportionate these fines may seem, in reality they will never cause the offender to go bankrupt. The key is in a calculation system in force since 1921. While in Spain everyone pays the same for the same offense depending on its severity, in Finland the police consult the offender’s previous year’s income database in real time and calculate the fine in days salary depending on the severity of the infraction. In this calculation, the monthly net salary is taken, the vital minimum of 255 euros is subtracted and divided by 60 to obtain the value of each “fine day” (Päiväsakko). The greater the speeding, the more days of fines are accumulated. For the majority of Finnish citizens, the result of this calculation translates into fines of between 30 and 80 euros for minor infractions such as those committed by Wiklöf. Astronomical figures only appear when the fined person is very rich. Despite the complaints of some affected (in 2015, millionaire Reima Kuisla threatened to leave the country after paying more than 50,000 euros for speeding), the model has great social support for consider it fair and proportional. A fine of 400 euros does not have the same deterrent character for someone with an income of 25,000 euros a year, than 25 million. In Xataka | In 2010, the owner of a Ferrari missed a radar in Switzerland at 137 km/h. He took home the most expensive fine in history Image | Unsplash (toine G)

After 16 years, Mexico has managed to get a millionaire to pay his taxes. And they are going to use them to help young people

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One of the richest men in Mexico has been litigating for two decades to avoid paying what he owes to the treasury. In an unexpected turn of events, that money that was owed has ended up financing scholarships, soccer fields and cultural centers for young people at risk of falling into drug trafficking violenceat least that is what the Mexican Government has assured. President Claudia Sheinbaum has presented the social program “Young People Transforming Mexico” aimed at distancing young people from the influence of drug trafficking networks. During the explanation of the measures that includes the program, the president was very direct about the origin of the project’s financing: “Where does this resource come from? All this resource for young people, well, from the payment of a person who finally paid his taxes.” Sheinbaum was not referring to just any citizen, it was a direct reference to businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, owner of TV Azteca, Elektra and Banco Azteca, who at the end of January settled the largest individual tax debt in the history of Mexico. The largest payment in Mexican tax history The conflict between Salinas Pliego and the Tax Administration Service (SAT) dates back to 2009, when the Treasury concluded that the Elektra Group, owned by Mexican millionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, with a estimated fortune at $5.8 billion, it had declared non-existent tax losses to artificially reduce its bill between 2008 and 2013. As explained in the specialized medium LexLatinFor 16 years, the businessman used a strategy of systematic delay, filing appeals in multiple judicial instances and requesting recusals of judges in order to prolong the lawsuits that demanded payment of his tax debt. In the Supreme Court alone, the seven main trials generated 100 secondary processes, the majority at the initiative of the Salinas Group. The turning point came in October 2025, when Congress approved a reform of the Amparo Lawwhich limited the possibility of challenging already final tax rulings. In November, the Supreme Court used this new law to resolve the seven trials, confirming sanctions of more than 48,000 million pesos (about 2,367 million euros), including one of more than 33,000 million pesos (about 1,627 million euros) from the 2013 fiscal year. What began in 2009 as the claim of a tax debt of about 38,000 million pesos (around 1,874 million euros) had already exceeded 74,000 million pesos (about 3,649 million euros) due to accumulated interests, surcharges and penalties. On January 29, 2026, Salinas Pliego made a first disbursement of its tax debt with a payment of 10,400 million pesos (about 513 million euros), which were deposited that same day into the Treasury. The total debt finally recognized has amounted to 32,132 million pesos (the equivalent of 1,584 million euros), with the remaining balance to be settled in 18 monthly payments. This final amount represents a discount with respect to the 51,000 million pesos (about 2,515 million euros) that the Mexican treasury had initially set, since Salinas Pliego took advantage of the benefits of the Tax Code, which in this case represented a 37% reduction of the debt through voluntary payment. As and how I collected The CountrySheinbaum He did not hide his satisfaction after knowing the sentence. “It is the largest payment that has ever been made for a case of this type. And it is really good that he decided to pay it!” The president recalled that “for many years, based on negotiations and agreements, taxes were not paid. When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador arrived, the remission of taxes was prohibited in the Constitution.” A plan against youth violence As Sheinbaum pointed out at the presentation event, the money collected from taxes owed for years by one of the largest fortunes in Mexico was going to be used to finance the program “Young People Transforming Mexico“. This project includes the construction of new educational facilities, more places in secondary and higher education, as well as the expansion of the Gertrudis Bocanegra Scholarship for one million students. In the sports field, 4,208 football fields will be rehabilitated, 100 community centers will be created in high violence areas with capacity for 1,000 young people each, offering sports, cultural workshops, mental health and addiction prevention. The objective of all these measures is to offer educational opportunities, social support and leisure to prevent young people at risk of social exclusion and without professional opportunities from falling into the networks of the Mexican drug cartels. “That young people stop any activity that has to do with criminal groups,” the president stated Mexican. In Xataka | The chances of two superyachts colliding are few, but never zero: “You won’t believe it, but our yacht was hit” Image | Wikimedia Commons (JGTorresH), Unsplash (Jesus Herrera)

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