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DoubleF · 12-18-2020, 05:09 PM

I met Gary Tom quite a few times before he moved to be a top dog at Walton International. I've been in the house just north of Calgary downtown before he sold it to the Shaw family for record numbers. He must have been loaded as F, but honestly speaking, besides his house, everything else about him seemed like he lived a modest average O&G wage/lifestyle (car, electronics, clothing, travel etc.) as one would with a household income of like $100K (nice, but not full on opulent).

I did the accounts for a guy who owned a couple buildings downtown. He invested in a couple of junior O&G once upon a time in the 60s and 70s and once they got bought out, he had more money than he even know what to do with. He just sat on a ton of commerical buildings and annuities from there on out. He basically just let the cash add up. IIRC, he had like a net worth of something like 60-70 mil, but lived life one something like $60-70K a year. Nice enough, but nothing remotely close to what he could have. Weirdly enough, either he was damn good at hiding how much he was worth, or his kids literally didn't care, but his kids worked at his companies and honestly they looked like blue collar people who lived off of a household income of $80K a year.

I did the accounts for a few other guys with net worths around the $20+ mil range and always growing. All these guys look super blue collar. You'd assume they were the project managers at a construction site. No high end watches, vehicles worth over $60K, nothing like that at all. Dudes all live like they have a net worth of $500K (ie: Lives in a $750K home with $250K mortgage still left on it). Nope, they still work every day even though they can retire several times over and pay yearly taxes + tax instalments that are like 5-8x my total years wages... pre-tax.

I had a long interesting convo with a guy at the U of C once. He just kept asking how my experience at the Haskayne School of Business was like, presumably because he knew someone's kid who was thinking of attending. Near the end of the convo, he was like:

"You know my name, right?"
"You introduced yourself as Rick...?"
"Yep. That is correct."

Apparently I was oblivious to the fact I was chatting up a storm with Richard Haskayne. Somewhere along the lines I messed up Richard and Dick and he was playing along or just as mixed up as I, and I was talking to some random ass schmo "Rick" who was really the dude whose name was on the business school I was attending...

12-18-2020, 05:09 PM	#43
DoubleF Franchise Player Join Date: Apr 2014 Exp:	I met Gary Tom quite a few times before he moved to be a top dog at Walton International. I've been in the house just north of Calgary downtown before he sold it to the Shaw family for record numbers. He must have been loaded as F, but honestly speaking, besides his house, everything else about him seemed like he lived a modest average O&G wage/lifestyle (car, electronics, clothing, travel etc.) as one would with a household income of like $100K (nice, but not full on opulent). I did the accounts for a guy who owned a couple buildings downtown. He invested in a couple of junior O&G once upon a time in the 60s and 70s and once they got bought out, he had more money than he even know what to do with. He just sat on a ton of commerical buildings and annuities from there on out. He basically just let the cash add up. IIRC, he had like a net worth of something like 60-70 mil, but lived life one something like $60-70K a year. Nice enough, but nothing remotely close to what he could have. Weirdly enough, either he was damn good at hiding how much he was worth, or his kids literally didn't care, but his kids worked at his companies and honestly they looked like blue collar people who lived off of a household income of $80K a year. I did the accounts for a few other guys with net worths around the $20+ mil range and always growing. All these guys look super blue collar. You'd assume they were the project managers at a construction site. No high end watches, vehicles worth over $60K, nothing like that at all. Dudes all live like they have a net worth of $500K (ie: Lives in a $750K home with $250K mortgage still left on it). Nope, they still work every day even though they can retire several times over and pay yearly taxes + tax instalments that are like 5-8x my total years wages... pre-tax. I had a long interesting convo with a guy at the U of C once. He just kept asking how my experience at the Haskayne School of Business was like, presumably because he knew someone's kid who was thinking of attending. Near the end of the convo, he was like: "You know my name, right?" "You introduced yourself as Rick...?" "Yep. That is correct." Apparently I was oblivious to the fact I was chatting up a storm with Richard Haskayne. Somewhere along the lines I messed up Richard and Dick and he was playing along or just as mixed up as I, and I was talking to some random ass schmo "Rick" who was really the dude whose name was on the business school I was attending...