What 250 Millionaires in dollars Do for a Living — Here Are the Results 

What 250 Millionaires in dollars Do for a Living — Here Are the Results

I broke down their answers per job type and industry

Aaron Vankampen is a 25-year old TikTok star who knocks on mansion doors and asks their owners what they do for a living. He also recompiles his short formats into longer Youtube videos titled “Asking crazy homeowners what they do for a living”. Once in a while, he’ll ask if he can come in and take a few shots of the house, and people will sometimes say yes.

Even better, people sometimes agree to an interview with him, and they’ll have him over at their house to answer questions everyone wants to ask them: how they got successful, what their best tips are, how long it took them to hit it big…

Daniel Mac is a Youtube who does the same thing with car owners, sometimes also asking them what their first job was, and if they ever went to college. I find this type of content inspiring for entrepreneurs in general because it gives a clear idea of what’s possible if you decide to go your own way, in any industry and at any age. There’s no rule for success as long as you’re willing to put in the work, and the people featured in the videos are living proof of that.

With that in mind, I went back and watched over 250 of Vankampen and Mac’s short videos and took note of each profession mentioned. I then analyzed the data and categorized all the answers per job type/industry. This gives a clear picture of where the money is at in our current economy.

In this article, I’ll quickly cover the ups and down of each industry, as well as what its future looks like in 2022 in beyond. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or own an established business, I hope you find this inspiring.

Note: I did not include unclear answers and/or people who inherited their wealth. The goal here is to only include serious answers and legitimate ways of becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Business owner — 24.8%

By far the most popular way to become financially independent is to create and develop your own business. You not only get to create your own success story, but you also choose how you want to work and the people you want to work with. Although popular, this approach is not easy at all, because it requires you to step out of the ordinary path. Becoming an entrepreneur usually means working for free for a very long time before getting a salary, and failing many, many times. The key is to always get back up.

For these reasons, many entrepreneurs will give up before becoming successful. Some are just not cut for it and will fare better in the comfort of an office job. Others may decide to get back to entrepreneurship later in life. Regardless, keep in mind that the rewards of the entrepreneurship path are directly proportional to its difficulty. As long as you keep pushing, you’ll get closer to reaping the rewards of your hard labor. You have to think long-term.

A lot of people mentioned owning a franchise as a great business: 7–11, McDonald’s, Gyms… Many people also mentioned online retail: cannabis was mentioned a lot, but also apparel. Businesses related to housing and construction also seemed to be very successful: independent architects and interior designers mainly.

Getting started

Because of the major shifts in the economy following the coronavirus pandemic, entrepreneurship will most likely keep rising in 2022. With the surge in remote work, more than 50% of companies are started from home. People are looking for alternatives to a regular paycheck from a boss. In 2021, 64% of small enterprises started with a $10,000 capital.

This means you don’t need to quit your job, go broke and/or find investors to get started. Starting a website or even an online store is done in a matter of hours. In the US and most European countries, you can start a company with as little as $1. You don’t have to be excellent at design either. Here are 2 examples of businesses run by mansion owners that don’t look that great but make millions:

Savvysox.com: Online retail, fun socks
Tavalifestyle.com: Multi-level marketing
Real estate — 16.5%

Real estate has been booming all over the world for nearly a decade now. Many anticipated a slow down in the gold rush, but so far the market is not showing any signs of exhaustion. The US house price index percentage shot from around 80% to 193% in the past 10 years. The average price for homes has never been higher in many countries around the world, and it’s made some people a lot of money. The craziest cars and houses featured in Aaron Vankampen’s videos are definitely the ones of people who work in real estate.

The real estate business is in theory really simple: find a home seller, find him a buyer, and keep a portion of the price as your commission. A real estate commission typically ranges from 5 to 6%, in the US and elsewhere. Keep in mind that the commission is usually split between the seller’s agent and the buyer’s agent. The luxury real estate market can be very lucrative but also very competitive because only a few people can afford houses worth millions of dollars. There are many real estate agents for very few sellers and buyers, and this makes for a field that’s very hard to enter as a new player.

In 2022, Zillow predicts home values will rise by 11% on average. The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates to fight inflation, which usually contributes to a decrease in people willing to buy property. For luxury real estate (where the big money is), the main hurdle will remain low inventory. In September 2021, there were 36% more luxury homes sold than new inventory entering the market. That being said, the target audience has increased in size. More than 5 million people became millionaires across the world in 2020 despite the pandemic, and more than 1% of adults became millionaires for the first time.

Getting started

Getting your real estate license takes anywhere between 40 and 150 hours of studying and costs from $300 to $1,000. In the US, some states have online courses, but most of them require you to complete the final exam in person. In 2019–2020, real estate agents earned an average of $83,886 so you’ll have to rank in the top tier of the job if you want to make even more money there.
High-paying office job — 13.8%

This category includes a lot of lawyers, CEOs, and high-ranked managers in general. Government jobs were also mentioned a few times, as well as high positions in the oil and gas industry. The high-paying 9–5 option is one of the most reliable ones to become financially secure because it doesn’t require you to step out of the ordinary path.

Getting started

If you focus on being good in school, studying well, getting a good job, and outperforming your peers, you’ll most likely succeed and make more money than average. The upside of this approach is that it’s safe, and you also get a somewhat guaranteed pension/retirement account for your old days. You also get vacation days and the money keeps coming in even if you can’t work because you’re sick. Maybe you even get health and dental insurance from your employer.

The downside of this approach is that you always work for someone above you, and this means you’re not the master of your time. Many highly paid 9–5 employees have to stay late in the office, attend meetings at odd hours of the day and work on the weekends instead of seeing their families.

That being said, office work has become increasingly flexible due to the Covid pandemic. All around the globe, companies started caring less if you show up at the office, and more if you put in the work and get results. As usual, the big players in the field are the most ahead. Facebook will let all employees who can work away from the office do so after the Covid pandemic is over. Microsoft has also announced plans to let employees work from home permanently. Working from home for an employer while being able to manage your time freely will be one of the most impactful factors in the entrepreneurship world in 2022 and beyond.
Entertainment — 12.2%

Although now taking up only 12% of the pie, this category will increase in size over the coming years. Content creation platforms like Youtube, Patreon, or Skillshare have never hosted as many creators and users as today. Youtube has more than 2 billion logged-in monthly users. Its ad revenue amounted to over $5 billion in 2021. Patreon had more than 200K creators with at least 1 patron in September 2021, and it awarded more than $2 billion in earnings during the same year. Top teachers on Skillshare earn $3,000 per month on average.

That being said, the big bucks in entertainment are not only found in content creation, but also in setting up, organizing, and taking part in events and venues. The entertainment folks who responded to the question “What do you do for a living?” mentioned things like:

Music producer
Musician
Festival and concert organizer
Singer
Getting started

With the pandemic, the entertainment industry has taken a massive hit, and you’re more likely to be successful on content creation platforms for now. Youtube requires its creators to clock in 4,000 hours of watch time and 10,000 subscribers before being able to apply for their ad revenue sharing program. Whatever industry you decide to tackle, content creation is a long-term game, and you have to be willing to work for free for a long time before seeing your first dollars.
Health sector — 8.7%

A lot of jobs in the health sector require many years of study. Although these jobs will usually lead to very high salaries, keep in mind that you usually don’t choose how much you make. You’re paid a salary by the organization which you work for (often a hospital) or if you have your own practice you can’t raise prices indefinitely. Unlike in other businesses where you can increase your number of customers using advertising or expanding across the country/world, medical practices are usually limited to a neighborhood or a city.

Getting started

The path to get to a top-earning health job is pretty straightforward: get good grades, get in a top school, be excellent at what you do, open your practice and get clients.

Here are a few of the professions mentioned in the health sector, along with their average salaries in the US. It is worth noting that somebody mentioned owning 4 different dental practices.

Dentist: $155,600
Cardiologist: $454,000
Primary care physician: $237,000
Radiologist: $429,390
Anesthesiologist: $402,600
Pediatric surgeon: $430,972
Investments — 7.1%

2021 was the big year for cryptocurrency. It is estimated there are now as many as 100,000 people who own $1 million or more in Bitcoin. A lot of people also made millions off Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and other meme coins.

However, there are two main dangers with cryptocurrency. The first one is its insane volatility. You shouldn’t invest in cryptocurrency unless you can afford to lose the money, because you likely will. Meme coins especially are notorious for exploding in value then being worth nothing in a matter of weeks.

The second danger is scammers. With so many people interested in cryptocurrency, it’s easy for scammers to blend in and either hack accounts or trick people into sending them money. FTC data released in May 2021 shows that 7,000 “investors” lost more than $80 million in crypto scams.

Getting started

A safer way to make money investing is to look into the stock market. Although they probably won’t make you a millionaire, index funds like the S&P500 or Vanguard Russell 1000 have proven safe and reliable over the years. Most people who make a ton of money on the stock market do it by getting lucky with one investment, or by investing other people’s money and taking a commission on successful trades. In fact, 4 people mentioned “making money for other people” as their occupation.

Remember that most traders go broke, because timing the market is an extremely difficult game to play. Unless you’re willing to study how the economy works for a long time and understand how the different factors in play react together, don’t expect any results from this. Principles by Ray Dalio is a great book to get started.
Tech sales — 6.7%

Here are the top 10 largest companies in the world as of December 2021:

Apple Inc.
Microsoft Corp.
Alphabet Inc.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co.
Amazon.com Inc.
Tesla Inc.
Meta Platforms Inc. (Facebook)
NVIDIA Corp.
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd.
Notice anything? Except for 3 companies, they’re all part of the tech industry. The surge in online teaching/meetings due to Covid, the rise in people with access to the internet, and the rise in more affordable electronic devices are all indicators that the tech industry is still a hot market. It is expected to be worth $5.3 trillion in 2022. Another factor helped boost the importance of the tech industry in 2021, and especially of IT security sales: cyber attacks.

In July 2021, 500 supermarkets in Sweden were forced to close due to a virus affecting their whole IT infrastructure. While it managed to recover, the retail chain lost millions in the process.

In May of the same year, a group of hackers breached Colonial Pipeline’s systems and shut down a major fuel supply for the East Coast. It cost the company $4.4 million in ransom money.

With such dramatic financial consequences, businesses are willing to spend more money than ever on keeping their tech infrastructure safe. How much money? Global cybersecurity spending is expected to exceed $1.75 trillion from 2021–2025.

Getting started

You don’t have to get top-level education to get started in tech, but you have to study hard one way or another. Whether you decide to become an expert in a specific coding language or one in server security infrastructures, you have to be better than others somewhere. The nice thing about this industry is that it covers so many different areas that there are still plenty of opportunities for newcomers, the hard thing about it is that it’s a very complex and deep field of expertise.
Engineer — 5.1%

The world around us is constantly getting more and more complex, so we need engineers to run it. Again, engineering jobs are usually 9–5 jobs. These people work for a boss, put in long hours, and probably work on the weekends. The entry salary for such positions is usually higher than average but won’t get you a mansion. The only way to get in the top-earning category of those jobs is to work harder than your competition.

Getting started

Like with office jobs, the path to become a top engineer is relatively straightforward: be great in school and excel at your job. Here are the average salaries for the top 10% in each of the engineering jobs mentioned in the videos:

Chemical engineer: $168,960
Software engineer: $170,100
Electrical engineer: $159,520
Mechanical engineer: $141,060
Biomedical engineer: $149,440
Other — 5.1%

Here is a quick list of random jobs mentioned by some people.

Personal shopper
Human organs business
Writing camps for children
Baby photographer
Recovery camps for addicts
Conclusion

I thought I’d end this article by listing down some of the answers people had to the question “What was your first job?”:

Pizza delivery guy
McDonald’s
Bagging groceries for customers
Putting stuff on shelves at a grocery store
A lot of the people in the videos generally recommend staying in school, going to college, and getting an education. You don’t have to follow the “classic path” to become successful, but getting educated is the most reliable way to get a shot at making good money in life. It will give you a strong foundation for prosperity.

I hope you found this article inspiring, and I wish you great success in your entrepreneurial journey.

CONTRIBUTED BY Joseph Mavericks

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