Thursday, November 21, 2013

Bothering billionaires

Having worked on a project for Canadian Business magazine a couple of months ago that involved chasing down retired CEOs, I can tell you that contacting billionaires for the Richest People in Canada feature was much much harder. I didn't talk to a single one, though I did chat with the son of one of them.

My billionaires mostly made their money on real estate development, food retail and franchises. Aside from that, it's hard to generate advice based on their successes. Some started poor, some were born into money. Some have been impressive philanthropists, others not so much. Some are highly social, others more reclusive and/or belligerent.

All of them, by the time they're worth billions, are pretty hard to get access to. Although there is no record that Louis Reichmann, for example, the most reclusive of the Reichmann brothers, has passed away, I had difficulty finding evidence he is still alive. So writing the simple sentence, "Paul Reichmann is survived by three brothers" was not so simple at all.

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