Generational Wealth: How Long Fortunes Actually Last
Does wealth really vanish in three generations? The real data on the 70/90 rule, the Vanderbilt collapse, and how the Rockefellers and Waltons engineered fortunes that lasted.
Does wealth really vanish in three generations? The real data on the 70/90 rule, the Vanderbilt collapse, and how the Rockefellers and Waltons engineered fortunes that lasted.
About 90% of family wealth is gone by the third generation. Inside the trusts, governance, and heir prep that separate the dynasties that last from those that don’t.
How wealthy households actually defend their digital lives in 2026 — deepfake CFO scams, SIM swaps, family-office breaches, and the band-by-band cost of doing it right.
How wealth actually moves between generations in 2026 — the $15M exemption, the step-up in basis, lifetime gifts, dynasty trusts, and the talk-to-the-heirs problem.
About 80% of $1M+ households sign a prenup, vs. ~15–20% of the general public. What that contract actually does — and the two things doing more work behind it.
Wealthy parents spend $70K a year on a Manhattan kindergarten and $500K on a college consultant. The genuine risks to their children are not what most of them are buying against.
About 2.2 million people work in private homes in the US. At the top, household help is a six-figure profession; at the bottom, a workforce the FLSA only partially covers.
There are about 8,030 single family offices in the world — private companies that run one family’s money, taxes, household, and philanthropy. Inside how they work.