The New Elite: Inside the Minds of the Truly Wealthy

by Jim Taylor, Doug Harrison, Stephen Kraus

We are all fascinated by them--that enigmatic class of peo-ple often referred to as the rich. With all the emphasis on the rich and famous in America, we would think we know everything about them. In reality, very few of us truly understand those who make up the very wealthiest Americans--those with liquid assets of $5 million or more. What is this new class of people and how did they get that way?



In The New Elite, the authors reveal what motivates our country's most powerful and influential class, what they want, where they shop, and how they really spend their money. With candor and unique insight, they reveal that the people who drive our economy are not Ivy league-educated, luxury-seeking socialites. While they include luminaries like Bill Gates, David Geffen, Ralph Lauren, and Donald Trump, they also include the small business owner next door. Based on unprecedented research with hundreds of interviews with members of this unique group, The New Elite uncovers the five classes of America's newly wealthy--including those who struggle with its implications, those who refuse to let it change them, and those who give it away, and how each of them is changing our culture and economy. This is an entertaining and enlightening look at America's ruling class, the profound ways they have redefined what it means to be rich, and how we court them.

Genres: Business, Sociology, Nonfiction, Economics, Finance

245 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2008

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Dimitri Derose · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for people who would like to learn more about how wealthy manage their wealth and describe how their image of wealth changes over time. It does not tell you how they become wealthy, but it gives you insight how they utilize money.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the same vein as "The Millionaire Next Door."

[Gwen Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

A crash course in the upper echelon that's informative and enjoyable for any advertiser like me who's targeting the affluent.

[Hatem · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have my doubts about how accurate the data is and how it was collected. Also, the fact that the book was written by 3 marketeers biased towards the wealthy makes me more and more skeptic about the whole rhetoric.

Some of the tables and graphs are not well documented/credited so I don’t really know how accurate the info is. In some graphs the numbers just don’t add up I did’t really know how to interpret the data.

However inaccurate the data, the book presents some very interesting insights. If I looked over the marketing stunts of the authors, I find it very useful to study the wealthy and their lives and how they accumulated their wealth.

At the beginning of the book, there were many references to other books about various topics like economics, history, and marketing who I find to be great selection of books actually.

The part about the wealthy spending habits is very informative. Despite the fact that the distinction between passion shopping and logic shopping is obvious, some of the insights in the book were unusual and and unpredicted. It’s clear that conventional wisdom on shopping habits doesn’t always apply to the wealthy.

I think the best part was the psychological analysis of the apprentices (the new wealthy) and how they may lose family and friendships and seek the “stealth-wealth” mode out of fear of bankruptcy.

Overall, the segmentation of wealthy done by the authors gives a very deep insight into the minds of the wealthy and why they behave differently.

[Alex Moskalyuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is very similar to Millionaire Next Door - a statistical approach to studying American wealthy. The authors extend their work to attempting to classify the survey respondents into a few buckets ranking by both amount of wealth and exhibited behavior. While Millionaire Next Door focuses more on dispelling common myths (most of truly wealthy do not have a wine cellar, while most of wine cellar owners are in the millionaire-wannabe category), The New Elite is written for the audience of people selling to the rich, so it concentrates more on preferred brands and experiences.

[BLACK CAT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marketing profile of the current elite: mostly entrepreneurs, 40-years +, that represent the 1% of the population and hold half or more of the world assets.

[Chunchun · Rating 3 out of 5]

样本量小，且代表性不一定够，不过有些点具有启发性

[Bojan Avramovic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bogatstvo je put a ne destinacija. Saznajte zašto...

[Omar El-Mohri · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you don’t want to waste time, “wealthy aren’t those who show off their money and are modest” I don’t know why you need to write a book about that

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good outline of New Elite

This book had a good theory on what makes up the new elite. However I don't think it's quite that different from the old money rich. The first generation of any wealthy family usually always comes from the middle class. As there wealth grows they change there thinking, spending, and protecting of there wealth to the time tested principles of old money. Thus the new elite of this generation is really just a description of pretty much every first generation of wealthy families throughout history.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors grouped the wealthy into types and categories, new money, old money, millionaires, and billionaires. They used statistics on how they live and the how’s and whys they make purchases. This was not the explanation I was hoping for. I was looking for a more in depth stuff on the traits and habits of the minds of the wealthy.

Of course I did find my habits and traits in more than a few types…..now to get the money!

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The authors focus a lot of the book on the misconceptions the super rich "suffer" in America, and delve into the origins of their vast wealth and their habits. If you've read "the millionaire next door" then you're gonna find this book to be somewhat related.

[Loren · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't a big fan of the book because I was looking for insight & tips & advice on how to become wealthy & the book was thin in that area. The book is mainly worth reading if you are just interested in how wealthy live such as their lifestyle. It's thin on how to accumulate wealth.

[Robert Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book delivered exactly what it promised and in an easy to read fashion. It's hard to write a review of a book like this. What I can say is that the book is full of insightful information and never bored me at all.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

About the rich and what we conceive and what actually is.
We all have our bias.

[Alex Linebrink · Rating 3 out of 5]

Awesome book of case-study after case-study looks into the minds of today's most successful entrepreneurs. Really interesting stuff.

[Alfajirikali · Rating 3 out of 5]

If the research compiled in this book is accurate, many stereotypes were dispelled.

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best book on the subject that anthropologically quantifies characteristics of this group beyond mass media stereotypes.

[Missie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read. It changed my views on small businesses

[Glen Alis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

I liked this book a lot. It is so interesting what kind of world we live in and how the new elite are shaping the new world.

[Sue48858 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and useful book for anyone marketing to the rich.