books/memoirs
speeches
favorable positions on boards/initiatives
much better access to which trends will continue/fizzle
strategic relationships with people who are already billionaires

Basically how any connected person becomes wealthy without creating or making anything, only with the luxury of knowing where many bodies are buried.

The Obamas are cozy with many of the movers and shakers in several industries. That alone is enough of a stepping stone. The opportunity is there but I personally don't see them being like the Clintons, trying to die on the throne and all. Pres Obama really seems to like windsurfing and golfing and other rich people pastimes.

Data maximized Zuckerberg's wealth but isn't really responsible for the bulk of it.

and while they wrote those essays on the internet, slim people just did a workout or went for a run.

well, wasnt obama a successful lawyer and law professor before becoming a politician? I'm sure if everything else fails, he could return to that and still make 300k+ a year...

and I think if he really wanted to, he could become a senator again at some point in the future. would be highly unusual, but he could prolly do it. not saying he should though, this would actually be a horrible idea lol...

That's a long way off from a billion (not saying you were claiming that just referring the previous claim by excellence).

I think people underestimate just how much a billion dollars is. Trump is worth under 4 billion after a lifetime of dedicating every ounce of energy to building wealth, with enormous initial capital, and being completely unaffected by legality or ethics. I really don't think the Obamas could become billionaires.

This post was edited by Voyaging on Feb 8 2017 03:11am

well, obama is still young, and being a former president, he can give speeches for $200k all year long, like hillary did. he also has an immense network of politicians and rich people to build on. he could quite easily start a charity fund and gather hundreds of millions for it, while retaining control, just like the clintons did with their foundation. he can sell his memoirs and probably make several millions. he could write insanely highly paid op-eds for big newspapers and political magazines. he could work as an unbelievably overpaid political lobbyist in washington... as in... millions per year. and he is young, cool, a celebrity - he could appear in a lot of guest rolls in tv series and movies.

if he really dedicated the rest of his life to making as much money as possible, he could probably make something like $20 million a year in income and another $10-50 mil in donations, so that he could become a billionaire in roughly 20 years. but yeah, it would be a stretch.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Feb 8 2017 06:20am

but...but trump is the only evil guy with rich friends and special interests