Billionaire Falls First by Julie Capulet
Chapter One
~ Dallas ~
“Thank you for having me tonight.” I’ve just given an hour-long speech to fifty thousand people and my voice is husky as it carries across the stadium. “New Orleans, it’s always a pleasure.”
The place erupts in applause.
Usually I avoid giving speeches. I’m too busy. Gigs like this feel more like a hassle than an ego boost.
I’m not sure if I could ever get used to fifty thousand people hanging on my every word, but I’m not here for the limelight. In fact I prefer to stay entirely out of it. I’m only here because New Orleans has always had a draw. After all, I have roots here. And I needed a break from the brutal New York winter. So when my executive assistant kept forwarding the barrage of requests from the event planners of the Elite Investor Conference, which included a stay in “the luxuriously modern but authentically charming penthouse in the quaintest 5-star hotel on Bourbon Street,” I finally relented.
The Superdome had to be booked for my speech because the number of people who wanted to attend couldn’t be accommodated in the Convention Center. Now, the entire crowd is on its feet.
People tend to love you if you’re helping them make shitloads of money.
The massive screen behind me still displays the final slide of my keynote, which includes ideas and numbers that change the way markets think.
I have a knack. I’ve known this since I was seven years old. I’ve been called “the Benjamin Graham of the 21st century,” “a young Warren Buffett with the added bonus of his family’s famously good looks,” and countless other banal descriptions I don’t pay much attention to.
My parents weren’t investors. My father was the successful movie director Jack Wilder and my mother, Hattie Carson, was his obsession and his muse. She was also one of the most famous actresses of her time.
My mother was a diva, a genius, and one of those rare people who absolutely refuses to toe any line. She drank too much, lived too hard and died young because of it. To say my parents fought like cats and dogs would be an understatement. Even so, their love affair was one for the ages. And the headlines throughout my childhood made sure the whole world knew it.
The headlines also made sure the whole world knew exactly how out of control my mother was, how tragic her sudden death was, and how my father never recovered from her loss, either personally or professionally.
As if we didn’t know all that. My three younger brothers and I lived through every nitty gritty detail of it.
We all have our scars. I bury myself in work to forget about mine. Rhett recently decided to spend time at the Montana ranch our father bought for our mother when she was deep in the throes of her decline, hoping some fresh mountain air would cure her. It didn’t. Which reminds me I need to call him and see how things are going.
I’m also overdue for a phone call with Apollo. He’s been the headlining star in at least ten different Hollywood movies in the past few years and he’s hard to get a hold of.
When Apollo was only six, our mother insisted the director of one of her movies cast him as her neglected cherubic child (a little too accurate, unfortunately). At that point he was too young to refuse. The camera absolutely loved him, then and even more now. He’s been acting ever since, mostly because he enjoys it but also because Hollywood adores him and he’s inundated with work offers. He can pick and choose the best roles and is now one of the highest paid stars in the world.
And Boone, the youngest of us and the free spirit of the bunch is … Boone. Still playing the field and still figuring things out. Luckily for him, he has the charm of our mother at her best and also inherited the family knack for making money.
Somewhere in the middle of all the storms and the drama of our childhood, my father noticed that I could always predict which of his movies would make bank.
They say it’s impossible to tell. That no matter how many stars you cast and how much cash you throw at a project, it never guarantees box office success.
But I could see it a mile away.
Call it a sixth sense or whatever, but I can see things other people can’t seem to see. Maybe it’s an ability to read how people will react to commodities more than anything else, who knows. All I know is that I can predict the direction in which money will move, and with uncanny accuracy.
I sat down at the breakfast table one morning when I was seven years old and the newspaper happened to be open to the financial pages. It felt strangely like reading my own kind of music. Without even needing to be taught, I could see patterns in the chaos.
I remember the moment and the feeling vividly. I was enthralled and I was hooked.
From there, I read every book I could get my hands on. With my father’s help, I opened a brokerage account when I was nine years old. And I started to use it, play it and follow my instincts.
By the time I was twelve I was a millionaire.
I started my own fund when I was fourteen and the numbers started to grow exponentially from there. I was offered a full ride to Harvard Business School when I was sixteen (my family name didn’t hurt, but it was the fund they were drooling over) and finished my MBA when I was twenty-one.
They called me a prodigy. A visionary. The talent of a generation.
I don’t know about any of that. Reading numbers just happens to be the one thing I know how to do.
I’m good at making money—serious money—and people tend to listen when I speak. Which is why the stadium is packed tonight.
The standing ovation continues.
But I’m not here for adoration.
In fact, why am I here?
To check out the quaintest little hotel on Bourbon Street, that’s why ...
