What Does Extreme Wealth Do to the Brain?

"I'm still not acclimated to being rich. I find even saying these words to you now a bit disturbing. It's just not part of my identity. I might be deluding myself about my perspective not shifting that much, but the contradiction between my frugal habits and extreme wealth suggests something deeper has changed in how I navigate the world."

"For two months, I interviewed people with extreme wealth, asking them how money had changed the way they think—how their view of the world shifted once financial constraints disappeared. How did becoming rich alter their perceptions of status, friendship, obligation, and maybe even reality itself? Many said no, some ignored requests, but those who participated revealed reluctance to acknowledge transformation."

A journalist conducted two months of interviews with extremely wealthy individuals to understand how financial abundance transforms their worldviews, perceptions of status, friendship, and obligation. Many wealthy subjects initially resisted participation, but some agreed, including a former CEO, company founders, and Mark Cuban. When interviewed, most wealthy respondents were reluctant to admit that wealth had changed their thinking, deflecting with hedges and hypotheticals. A former CEO with an eight-figure net worth exemplified this contradiction—maintaining frugal habits while acknowledging discomfort with his wealth and questioning whether he was deluding himself about unchanged perspectives. The research reveals a pattern where the extremely wealthy struggle to articulate or accept how their financial circumstances have fundamentally altered their psychological and social realities.

Read at Intelligencer