Jean Paul DeJoria - How I Turned $300 Into $5.1 Billion; Jean이 정의하는 '성공'이란 신체적으로 건강하고, 인생이 행복한 것으로 부의 크기와는 무관하다; 한 때 세계 제일의 부자였지만 전혀 행복하지 않았던 J. Paul Getty의 사례 (하워드 슈즈도 떠오른다)

 
How I Turned $300 Into $5.1 Billion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWwMr1jYIDE


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paul_Getty_Jr.

Son's kidnapping
Main article: Kidnapping of John Paul Getty III
After his second wife's death, Getty became reclusive for a time and his heroin addiction worsened, fueled by guilt over his wife's death.

In Rome on 10 July 1973, 'Ndrangheta kidnappers abducted Getty's 16-year-old son, John Paul Getty III, and demanded a $17 million (equivalent to $112 million in 2022[14]) payment for his safe return. However, the family suspected a ploy by the rebellious teenager to extract money from his miserly grandfather.[15] Getty Jr. asked his father J. Paul Getty for the money, but was refused, arguing that his 13 other grandchildren could also become kidnap targets if he paid.[16]

In November 1973, an envelope containing a lock of hair and a human ear arrived at a daily newspaper. The second demand had been delayed three weeks by an Italian postal strike.[15] The demand threatened that Paul would be further mutilated unless the victims paid $3.2 million. The demand stated "This is Paul's ear. If we don't get some money within 10 days, then the other ear will arrive. In other words, he will arrive in little bits."[15]

When the kidnappers finally reduced their demands to $3 million, J. Paul Getty agreed to pay no more than $2.2 million (equivalent to $14.5 million in 2022[14]), the maximum that would be tax-deductible. He lent Getty Jr. the remaining $800,000 at four percent interest. Getty's grandson was found alive on 15 December 1973, in a Lauria filling station, in the province of Potenza, shortly after the ransom was paid.[17] Nine people associated with 'Ndrangheta were later arrested for the kidnapping, but only two were convicted.[18] Getty III was permanently affected by the trauma and became a drug addict. After a stroke brought on by a cocktail of drugs and alcohol in 1981, Getty III was rendered speechless, nearly blind and partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. He died on 5 February 2011, at the age of 54.[18]

Nine of the kidnappers were apprehended, including Girolamo Piromalli and Saverio Mammoliti, high-ranking members of the 'Ndrangheta, a Mafia organization in Calabria.[19] Two of the kidnappers were convicted and sent to prison; the others were acquitted for lack of evidence, including the 'Ndrangheta bosses. Most of the ransom money was never recovered.[20][21]

Reputation for frugality
Many anecdotal stories exist of Getty's reputed thriftiness and parsimony, which struck observers as comical, even perverse, because of his extreme wealth.[45] The two most widely known examples are his reluctance to pay his grandson's $17 million kidnapping ransom, and a notorious pay-phone he had installed at Sutton Place. A darker incident was his fifth wife's claim that Getty had scolded her for spending too much on their terminally ill son's medical treatment, though he was worth tens of millions of dollars at the time.[45] He was well known for bargaining on almost everything to obtain the lowest possible price, including suites at luxury hotels and virtually all purchases of artwork and real estate. In 1959, Sutton Place, a 72-room mansion, was purchased from George Sutherland-Leveson-Gower, 5th Duke of Sutherland, for £60,000, about half of what the Duke paid for it 40 years earlier.[46]

Getty's secretary claimed that Getty did his laundry by hand because he did not want to pay for his clothes to be laundered. When his shirts became frayed at the cuffs, he would trim the frayed part instead of purchasing new shirts.[47]
Re-using stationery was another obsession of Getty's. He had a habit of writing responses to letters on the margins or back sides and mailing them back, rather than using a new sheet of paper. He also carefully saved and re-used manila envelopes, rubber bands and other office supplies.[48]
When Getty took a group of friends to a dog show in London, he made them walk around the block for 10 minutes until the tickets became half-priced at 5 pm, because he did not want to pay the full 5 shillings per head.[45]
Getty moved to Sutton Place in part because the cost of living was cheaper than in London, where he had resided at the Ritz. He once boasted to American columnist Art Buchwald that it cost 10 cents for a rum and coke at Sutton Place, whereas at the Ritz it was more than a dollar.[45]
Getty drove his own car to work every day.
Author John Pearson attributed part of Getty's extreme penny-pinching to the Methodist sensibility of Getty's upbringing, which emphasized modest living and personal economy. His business acumen was also a major factor in Getty's thriftiness. "He would allow himself no self-indulgence in the purchase of a place to live, a work of art, even a piece of furniture, unless he could convince himself that it would appreciate in value." [49] Getty claimed his frugality towards others was a response to people taking advantage of him and not paying their fair share. "It's not the money I object to, it's the principle of the thing that bothers me ..."[9]

Coin-box telephone
Getty famously had a payphone installed at Sutton Place, helping to seal his reputation as a miser.[50] Getty placed dial-locks on all the regular telephones, limiting their use to authorized staff, and the coin-box telephone was installed for others. In his autobiography, he described his reasons:

Now, for months after Sutton Place was purchased, great numbers of people came in and out of the house. Some were visiting businessmen. Others were artisans or workmen engaged in renovation and refurbishing. Still others were tradesmen making deliveries of merchandise. Suddenly, the Sutton Place telephone bills began to soar. The reason was obvious. Each of the regular telephones in the house has direct access to outside lines and thus to long-distance and even overseas operators. All sorts of people were making the best of a rare opportunity. They were picking up Sutton Place phones and placing calls to girlfriends in Geneva or Georgia and to aunts, uncles and third cousins twice-removed in Caracas and Cape Town. The costs of their friendly chats were, of course, charged to the Sutton Place bill.[51]

When speaking in a televised interview with Alan Whicker in February 1963,[52] Getty said that he thought guests would want to use a payphone.[53] After 18 months, Getty explained, "the in-and-out traffic flow at Sutton subsided. Management and operation of the house settled into a reasonable routine. With that, the pay-telephone [was] removed, and the dial-locks were taken off the telephones in the house."[54]

Quotations
J. Paul Getty has one entry in the 8th Edition of The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. “If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.”[60][61]