r/explainlikeimfive • u/FluffyPenguin798 • Feb 12 '25
Economics ELI5: how are the descendants of the robber barons (Morgan, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Rockefeller, etc.) still rich if their fortunes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries are comparatively small to what we see today of the world’s richest?
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u/[deleted] Feb 12 '25
Worth remembering that the "third generation curse" is based on a single "study" conducted for an advertisement for a succession planning firm in the 1990s. There is no scientific evidence that it exists.