True Lies
Randy Jones | May 13, 2009
As I was conducting the research for what became The Richest Man in Town, I ran into a huge problem: How was I to write a book about the secrets of creating wealth, when in interview after interview, my subjects denied that they had set out to create any wealth at all? Almost invariably, the RMITs gave me some version of the line, “It’s not about the money.” Randal J. (RJ) Kirk, a biotech billionaire and the richest man in Belspring, Virginia, told me, “It’s a Zen thing—if you seek money alone as your ultimate goal, you are almost assured of not receiving any.” My initial reaction to statements like that was skepticism: Well, yeah, that’s easy for you to say as you sit comfortably upon your billion-dollar wallet. I thought this was simply a white lie, one of those things wealthy people say so as not to sound arrogant or greedy. And when I questioned them further, many of my subjects admitted that in youth what they wanted to be when they grew up was—rich. I can tell you, it’s very much about the money.
But after a hundred of those interviews, I can also tell you that for RMITs, money is just a yardstick, an indicator of something deeper.
