flâneur

Founders: #103 Hetty Green (The Richest Woman in America)

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What I learned from reading The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age by Janet Wallach. ---- [0:10] She was the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade, a reliable source for city funds. [0:19] “I have had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country. Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hetty Green?” [1:10] I go my own way, take no partners, risk nobody else’s fortune. [1:29] She was considered the single biggest individual financier in the world. [1:58] A Mind at Play: How Claude Shannon Invented the Information Age by Jimmy Soni and Rob Goodman (Founders #95) [2:55] Watch your pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves. [3:31] Don’t close a bargain until you have reflected on it overnight. [4:00] I am always buying when everyone wants to sell, and selling when everyone wants to buy. [4:51] I never set out for anything that I don’t conquer. [5:55] To live content with small means; To seek elegance rather than luxury, And refinement rather than fashion; To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich. [7:27] Her father’s advice: Never owe anyone

[00:00:00] A passerby might say she looked as poor as a church mouse, but her clothes were merely a costume to conceal her incredible wealth. Hedy Green was the richest woman in America. She was the smartest woman on Wall Street, a financial genius, a railroad magnate, a real estate mogul, a Gilded Era renegade. I've had fights with some of the greatest financial men in the country, she said. Did you ever hear of any of them getting ahead of Hedy Green? The public resented the somberness of her clothing, the plainness of her diet, the austerity of her home. But Hedy Green refused to yield to…

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