There is a lot to respond to here.
@CAPSLOCK BANDIT and
@characternote Bring up a the truth to a lot of this, which is guys that are full blown frauds OR were from tremendous wealth. I know a guy from LA that I consider a friend that I enjoy talking to and spending time with. However, he is definitely a bit of a phoney and exaggerates a lot about his accomplishments lol. Anyway, he has made this claim for a while now of running a very successful company in medical device sales. It always felt like a bunch of b.s to me, I just didn't really care because I enjoyed his company and it made no difference to me. Anyway, I later found out that his parents were incredibly wealthy and that they paid for everything. He literally just went to the gym, played basketball and had sex with women lol. The company was legitimate, it's just the success of it was severely exaggerated haha.
Hell, I'm a fan of Donald Trump but that guy had massive success because of his familial wealth that got him started. You could take the same individual with the same work ethic and all that but give him an upper middle class background and he'd never have become anywhere near as wealthy as he is/was.
Making 6 figures or being a millionaire really doesn't mean all that much and you need to take things into context. A millionaire could be someone with a paid off house in a major metro area for instance, which is actually a liability. A millionaire could also be a person with 7 figures in investments, which is a way more impressive place to be in my opinion. A 6 figure earner sure might bring in 250k, but he lives in NYC and after taxes and basic cost of living how much is remaining? You could have a dentist that is pulling 250k in a medium sized metro at his private practice, but you aren't factoring in his costs to run his business and the fact that he has over 500k in student loans.
As for the bottle service, that's a bunch of b.s These are just dudes that throw money around but it doesn't mean much. There is a guy in my metro I've known of for years that is super popular and hits up the clubs, gets bottle service, etc. Anyway, I found out through someone that knew him that he was a huge fraud and was crazy deep in debt lol. There are a few other examples similar to this that I can cite, it's a big thing in the Scottsdale nightlife scene.
Here is the thing, this type of stuff exists but it's so unusual that its not worth considering. You guys are on here talking about celebrity status type wealth, which is a tiny subset of the general population. BTW, most millionaires actually live pretty normal lives and don't engage in reckless lifestyles like this.
The examples you mentioned I can easily break down.
- ICO guys that had massive wealth honestly got lucky and got in at a good time, trust me I'm familiar with this lol.
- Private Pilot is believable but there's way more to that story than what you mentioned. I'd also be wary of the possibility he was just paying for escorts.
- The tech guy making 150k is believable, though depends on the metro. Most guys in this field are nerds and don't do well with women, this is an exception.
- The 28 year old example seems the most reasonable, though again being a millionaire does not mean you have some crazy lifestyle.
There's a huge misconception that being a millionaire means you live like Shaq or something.
A millionaire could have a nice 3/4 bed house paid off in a nice place/area like AZ, NV, IDAHO, etc. Then he could have 500k in say investments. A guy like this could easily blow his wealth, only a total moron would live a crazy lifestyle like is being mentioned here lol.