Product Description

Published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Forbes 400, All the Money in the World, the work of a team of prominent editors and business writers, goes behind the celebrated list to paint a vivid and revealing portrait of the wealthiest Americans of the past quarter century. Abundantly anecdotal, with insights gleaned from original research, interviews with Forbes 400 members, and never-before-compiled data, it is filled with illuminating “infographics”—tables, sidebars, factoids. The book shows how the superrich succeed, how fortunes are made in various industries, and how, once made, they are saved, enhanced, and sometimes squandered.

From Wall Street to the West Coast, from blue-collar billionaires to blue-blood fortunes, from the Google guys to hedge fund honchos, All the Money in the World gives us the lowdown on, among other things: the all-time richest Americans, who made and lost the most money in the past twenty-five years, the fields and industries that have produced the greatest wealth, the biggest risk takers, the most competitive players, the most wasteful family feuds, the trophy wives, the most conspicuous consumers, the biggest art collectors, the most and least generous philanthropists.

Produced in collaboration with Forbes magazine, All the Money in the World is a vastly entertaining, behind-the-scenes look at today’s Big Rich, a subject of enduring fascination to all Americans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15004 in Books
• Published on: 2007-09-04
• Released on: 2007-09-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 432 pages

Amazon.com
In All the Money in the World, Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan--in conjunction with Forbes magazine--take an unprecedented and fascinating look at the lives, culture, and financial habits of the unbelievably rich. Examine these excerpted "infographics" and discover for yourself that they really are different...

Which colleges has the richest grads?	Who's richer: East or West?	The high (and low) cost of living well	The all-time richest Americans

From Publishers Weekly
Two accomplished New York writers, Bernstein (coeditor of The New York Times Practical Guide to Practically Everything) and Swan (coauthor of Pulitzer Prize-winning bio de Kooning) delve into the Forbes 400, that august group of rich folks ranked each year since 1982 by the business magazine of the same name. Not only businessmen and women, but sports stars, entertainment figures and wealthy heirs are profiled in fascinating detail, but the authors eschew the magazine's list format for a topical taxonomy that includes "blue collar billionaires," "West Coast money," "giving it away" and, naturally, "power and politics." Among dramatic stories of cutthroat competition, outrageous spending habits, skirmishes with the law and family feuds, intriguing observations abound, such as the admonishment that "as a rule, the Forbes 400 is not for the fainthearted," but those with the fearlessness and "winner-take-all outlook" to "turn convention on its head, or destroy an old business model in the interest of a greater good and larger profits." Sidebars cover tangential topics like trophy wives, palatial homes, the small Silicon Valley town (Woodside) that's the nation's sixth wealthiest, and blurbs from the original Forbes lists. Full of colorful characters and meticulous research, this book is inspired, insightful and lots of fun.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From AudioFile
The rags-to-riches stories of Americas wealthiest people, those on the Forbes 400 list, are told in epic fashion by Rick Adamson. His voice has the quality of a movie voice-over, which keeps listeners engaged through the hundreds of anecdotes on millionaires and billionaires, bankruptcies of huge proportions, and listings of approximate net worth to the tune of billions of dollars. Listening to the biographies of the hundreds of people who have been on the Forbes 400 since the lists inception is informative and often amusing. Adamson treats each vignette like an anecdote, told to a friend, with all the requisite pacing to build suspense. M.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Billionaire gossip at its best
This book is similar to "Richistan" in nature in that it profiles many wealthy people and how they obtained and spend their wealth.
It's quite a bit more detailed in terms of comparisons, statistics, historical information than Richistan, however.
But again, if you are looking for explicit and detailed information of what you should and shouldn't do to obtain your own wealth you'll want to look elsewhere.
It does give examples of how some of the super rich got their money but that's a fairly small part of the book.
To summarize, the rich got rich by taking advantage of underserved markets by creating businesses, inheritance, finance deals, and sometimes just plain dumb luck.
If you want to know about other rich people and what you can do with your money once you have it then this is a good reference to have.

A Fascinating Book on Wealth and the Superrich
I have always been fascinated with wealth, and have enjoyed reading about the Forbes 400 for years. "All The Money In The World: How The Forbes 400 Make - And Spend - Their Fortunes" by Peter W. Bernstein and Annalyn Swan was an extremely fascinating and enjoyable read. If you are interested in the superrich, this book paints a revealing portrait of the wealthiest of the rich and shows how they succeed, how fortunes are made in various industries, and how, once made, they are saved, enhanced, and sometimes squandered.

This thoroughly researched book provides abundant anecdotes and insights as well as compiled data in illuminating tables, sidebars, and factoids. Did you know that Bill Gates comes in as the thirteenth richest American if you converted past riches into today's dollars? (Actually 2006 dollars when the book was being researched) John D. Rockefeller's wealth would be 305.3 billion dollars when converted to 2006 dollars. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined don't make a third of that. Did you know that in 2006 the average net worth of 400 members without a college degree exceeded the average net worth of those with a degree by a considerable margin - $2.8 billion? That's partly due, of course, to the Gates factor. Did you know there were 97 immigrants from 34 different countries that made the Forbes list over the last twenty-five years? The book is filled with so many interesting stories and facts.

The book also shows that money is not everything. The superrich have problems just like everyone else, and sometimes those problems are at a greater scale. So while this book describes those that may seem unobtainable to most, you also realize that they are still people just like everyone else. Well, maybe not like everyone else, but they are still people.



Chapters include:

Part One: What It Takes
1. Education, Intelligence, Drive
2. Risk
3. Luck - and Timing
4. Winning Is Everything

Part Two: Making It
5. Blue - collar Billionaires
6. West Coast Money
7. Entertainment and Media
8. Beyond Wall Street

Part Three: Spending It
9. Conspicuous Consumption
10. Heirs
11. Family Feuds
12. Giving It Away
13. Power and Politics

Afterword: Money and Happiness

Appendix: The Forbes 400, 1982-2006

This is a vastly entertaining behind the scenes look at the superrich. I found it fascinating to read about those billionaires I was familiar with, but also those extremely wealthy that you never really hear about. It made me feel good to read about the money these Forbes 400 members give away to help others, and then sometimes shake my head wondering when you see what some of these people spend money on. Forget about the enormous cost of purchasing a yacht, but think about the upkeep running into tens of millions of dollars a year and you may wonder as I did why Paul Allen wants to own two of the top ten U.S. owned yachts. Octopus at 414 feet is number two, and Tatoosh at 301 feet 8 inches is number four. If you are wondering, Larry Ellison's Rising Sun at 452 feet 8 inches is number 1, and no one knows who owns number seven's Laurel at 240 feet and number nine's charter yacht Reverie at 229 feet, seven inches.

If you want to read an extremely interesting and fascinating book about wealth and those that have accumulated the most of it, read "All The Money In The World." Besides being entertained, you just might learn some insights to help you accumulate more wealth yourself. After all, you will see that if these people can do, so can you or anyone else.

Reviewed by Alain Burrese, author of Hard-Won Wisdom From the School of Hard Knocks and the dvds: Hapkido Hoshinsul, Streetfighting Essentials, Hapkido Cane, the Lock On Joint Locking Essentials series and articles including a regular column on negotiation for The Montana Lawyer. Alain Also wrote a series of articles called Lessons From The Apprentice.

Interesting
This was a satisfactory read, although if you are a diligent reader of Forbes and Fortune as well as WSJ and FT there probably won't be much in here you didn't already know. I did enjoy the sections on Family Feuds and Blue-collar Billionaires but got a bitter taste in my mouth while reading the Conspicuous Consumption section. All in all it was a decent book, and what you'll learn is that if you want to have billionaire status you need to have drive and determination as well as be a workaholic.