The Super-rich: Arrogant or Super- polite?
I watched “ The Crazy Rich Asians” today, and recalled my encounter with the American-Chinese super-rich (their status was contemporaneously unknown to me, hence the encounter caused considerable anguish) ). True Story –the names are real –Google them for more fun!
DeMin Wu was a senior foreign –born faculty in Kansas when I joined. A very polite man, conscientious and unassuming – we worked together for about twenty years before he retired in early 2000’s. Not rich, not very famous , just a solid middle-class econ professor with two nice children, Larry and Clara. I saw them coming to their father’s office in the 80’s. Mid 1980’s Larry graduated from High School and went to Stanford, Clara graduated high school later and went to Stanford as well.
I followed their progress over the years when internet came around, saw that Larry was a Business School Professor after getting a Ph.D. from Chicago and later became a head honcho in Nera consulting – the premier anti-trust consulting group in USA. And Clara got an MBA from Harvard, was a finance executive who got married to a Canadian-Chinese finance guy and a businessman. I was very proud of both of them . I saw them as children of my friend (and colleague) who have done well in life!
I never got a chance to talk to either kid for long when they were growing up. Said hi to them in Demin’s house at the wonderful parties where his wife cooked fantastic food, or made small talk to them when they visited DeMin’s office in the university.
Fast forward to 2013, when Demin had already retired and lived in California, his children announced the establishment of a foundation in his name at our econ department in Kansas. The modest foundation money will be used to provide a modest fellowship to a young outstanding faculty member every year.
On a Firday night in March, the foundation was inaugurated, and I was there (kind of half-heartedly, I always tried to avoid the institutional meetings). Several people were giving speeches about Demin’s accomplishments. I noticed Demin was absent, it was a long trip from California to Kansas – he was probably in poor health. I noticed Clara with two young kids near the podium, and Larry standing near the back of the hall, alone. I recognized both of them. Clara’s husband, Joseph Tsai, who I never met before, appeared to be absent.
I went up and introduced myself to Larry.
“Hi, I am Gautam Bhattacharya –I was a colleague of your dad. Are you Larry?”
He looked at me with his inscrutable eyes , smirked and said “ No, I am not Larry”.
I asked him again, perplexed now, and he told me again that he was not Larry. I slowly walked away.
I was shocked and seriously insulted – there was no way he could not have known my name – the gathering was also by invitation only!!
I actually had problems sleeping that night!
How low have I fallen? How stupid does the world view me as? Or is there a reason why Larry did not even want to say hi to me?
I was so disturbed that the next morning that I decided to do something very rare. There was a follow up breakfast meeting at a hotel near the university where the first of the Demin Wu Fellow’s name will be released . Ordinarily I would never go to this follow up meeting – it was a waste of time- but I went just to get to the bottom of this.
I located Clara at the breakfast meeting. I introduced myself to her. She did not deny she was Clara. I made small talk for exactly sixty seconds then went directly to the point
“You know I met your brother Larry last night – but he said he was not Larry! Do you know why?”
She paused briefly, then looked at me with her inscrutable eyes , smirked and said “Oh, Larry is weird”!
This is about a 45 year old professional man denying to acknowledge his name to an older professional man! – He is weird!! – WTF!!
Anyway, I left it at that. While taking a smoke break in the hotel parking lot, I saw them all leaving in a large rented SUV –Clara and Larry and Clara’s two children! They did not look different from the standard Chinese-American professionals that you see all over USA.
A big WTF moment – I have not figured it out as of yet. But the following is my conjecture
Larry had actually become mega-successful as an anti-trust consultant during the years prior to 2013 – my info was about ten years out of date. He was a multi-millionaire and did not consider himself to be at par with an economics professor any longer. Instead of wasting his time talking to me, it was more efficient to deny that he was Larry! This was the Arrogant Super rich!
On the other hand, Clara’s husband Joseph had given up his huge salary in Wall Street and joined Alibaba in China in its formative years. He was the only Western-trained accountant and finance guy and became the right hand of Jack Ma. To cut a long story short, Frank and Clara have become Multi-billionaires (one billion is one thousand million dollars) when I saw them in 2013. Clara was not staying in a five star hotel in Lawrence because there were no real five star hotels in Lawrence hahaha ! Clara was not going to the airport in a stretch limo because there were no stretch limo service in Lawrence. She was not taking a helicopter to Kansas City airport from the hotel because the hotel did not have a helipad!
But she diffused the situation with me politely and quickly when she realized that I may be upset that Larry did not want to talk to me. This was a Super-polite, Smart, Super-rich woman.
Clara and her husband Joseph Tsai , in their early fifties now, are independent business people. They own a professional basketball team that they purchased for 4000 million dollars ! They just donated 50 million dollars to a charity a few weeks ago. I am still very proud of both DeMin’s Children.
If you detect a tinge of sarcasm throughout the entire narrative, this was intended!!