Trustafarians

The spoiled trust fund baby is a stereotype, though, and not necessarily the norm. Lots of wealthy young people have gone on to become great successes. Consider Megan Ellison, daughter of Oracle co-founder and chairman Larry Ellison, recently the seventh-richest man in the world. Her company Annapurna Pictures has produced three films that were nominated for the Academy Award for best picture: Zero Dark Thirty, Her, and American Hustle. Another independently successful trust fund baby is Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, daughter of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy Onassis and our current ambassador to Japan. Gloria Vanderbilt (yes, those Vanderbilts) is another successful scion of the wealthy, having made her own fortune in the fashion industry. (Her son, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, is not a trust fund baby, as his mother expected him to make his own way in the world.) Gloria Vanderbilt’s attitude is not uncommon among wealthy parents. Many wealthy people are on record saying they do not plan to leave great sums of money to their children. Warren Buffett famously said that he wanted to leave his kids — now adults — ”enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing.” Several years ago it was reported that Bill and Melinda Gates planned to leave their kids $10 million each — a pittance compared to their parents’ billions.