The world's next gen "nepo babies" carry the label of trust fund kids whose ultra-wealthy parents handle the burden of their spending habits. But the image of lavish lifestyles and free-wheeling cash flows isn't always the case. Some billionaire (and multi-millionaire) parents are trying to make sure their children aren't spoiled and know the true worth of hard work and earning each dollar.
Some scions, like Vanderbilt heir Anderson Cooper, have openly spoken of the "curse" of inheritance, arguing that inherited money is "an initiative sucker."
Certainly there are legal mechanisms that can also be put in place to protect fortunes - incentive trusts or conditional inheritance, for example - and ensure that heirs will be forced to earn their own paychecks.
But some wealthy offspring have also been encouraged to work in "real-world" jobs, despite their family's financial status.
There are several examples of children from super-rich families not only learning about the value of a buck from a young age, but also delving into the workforce on their own.
From pediatrician Jennifer Gates Nassar, daughter of Bill and Melinda Gates, to In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder, discover the nepo babies who created their own paths in the workplace.
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© YouTube/Pepperdine UniversityBillionaire In-N-Out heiress and President Lynsi Snyder
In-N-Out heiress Lynsi Snyder
In-N-Out scion Lynsi Snyder is now President of the fast food chain started by her grandparents Harry and Esther Snyder in 1948. By the time she was 27, Lynsi was running the empire after the untimely deaths of both her uncle and her father, but she didn't just step into the executive suite. Though today she's worth a whopping $8.7 billion, her beginnings were rooted in In-N-Out's kitchens and cash registers — she worked at one of the restaurants when she was just 17.
As to why she took on the minimum wage job, she told NBC's Today Show: "I think that there's a stigma that can come with being, you know, the owner's kid, and [I wanted] to be respected, like others, doing it the right way, and not having the special treatment."
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© GettyCNN anchor Anderson is a sixth generation Vanderbilt who has worked as a waiter and a fact checker
Vanderbilt heir Anderson Cooper
Anderson Cooper is a descendant of the wealthy Vanderbilts, and his mother was the famed designer Gloria Vanderbilt. Despite his heritage, the CNN anchor didn't receive an inheritance and was determined to work his way up.
He didn't just swan into a job at the cable news network - he had stints as a waiter before taking the plunge into the journalism world. In an Ask Anderson session on YouTube, he reflected on entering the media job market around 1991. "I tried to get an entry level job at ABC News as a desk assistant and I could not get hired. There was a recession at the time," he recalled. "I got a job as a fact checker at this thing called Channel One, which is a show seen in about half the high schools and middle schools in the United States." After about six months there, he "came up with a scheme" — a friend made him a fake press pass so he could travel the world "going to wars by myself", capturing the news through the lens of a borrowed home video camera.
"It was really stupid, I did a lot of really dangerous things, but it was really fascinating," he said. "I learned how to be a reporter. ABC News ironically, hired me after that. So they could have had me earlier as a desk assistant, but I was very, very happy that they hired me all the way back in 1995 as a reporter."
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© InstagramDr. Jennifer Gates Nassar shared this Instagram selfie taken during her medical residency
Bill and Melinda Gates's daughter Dr. Jennifer Gates Nassar
Bill and Melinda Gates have famously said their children will inherit only a small percentage of their fortune — Bill's net worth is an estimated $115 billion, while Melinda is worth $34.5 billion — and their children are forging their own way ahead. Daughter Jennifer may not have been working for minimum wage, but she did set her sights on a medical degree, building a complete identity separate from her family's tech empire.
During the PedsDoc Talk podcast she said of her mother and father: "My parents really focused on us carving our own paths in the world and not feeling like we either had to follow in their footsteps or that that was even really an option for us." She added: "So, that was kind of how I came to medicine... Medicine felt like the perfect way to combine those interests [biology and science], with my interest also in giving back and kind of challenging myself to take it to the next level."
Jennifer, who also has a master's degree in public health, admits that she has an advantage due to her parents' wealth. In a 2020 interview with Sidelines Magazine, she said: "I was born into a huge situation of privilege, and I think it's about using those opportunities and learning from them to find things that I'm passionate about and hopefully make the world a little bit of a better place."
"I've seen my parents' work ethic and it's always inspired me to be like them. Dad's always said, 'You put in the hours, you get results'"
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© InstagramGordon Ramsay and wife Tana with their youngest children Jesse and Oscar
Gordon Ramsay's children
Worth about $220 million, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay knew from the start that his children — who weren't allowed to travel in First Class growing up — wouldn't get a free ride. The father of six's offspring have found varied employment, both in entertainment, as might be expected, but also public service jobs. While daughter Tilly has been appearing with her dad on TV since she was a pre-teen, his daughter Megan is a police officer and son Jack is a Royal Marine.
Their jobs out of the spotlight mean that they did not appear in their dad's 2026 Netflix documentary, Being Gordon Ramsay. In an interview with Food Bible, Gordon explained: "Meg’s a police officer, so just out of security for her, that's crucial", noting that she and "busy boy" Jack "can't be anywhere near" the documentary for safety reasons.
Of his father's life lessons, Peter Buffett told the Freakonomics Radio podcast: "I grew up with him saying, 'Do what you love. There's nothing more important than that.'"
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© Getty ImagesPeter Buffett, left, with his dad Warren Buffett and sister Susie Buffett
Warren Buffett's son Peter Buffett
Peter Buffett, whose dad Warren Buffett is worth $140billion, was raised with his father's philosophy to give his kids "enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much that they could do nothing."
During their youth, Peter and his siblings were required to work entry-level hourly jobs, and although Peter briefly considered joining his father in investing, he eventually found his passion in music.
"While going to college, I realized that after taking everything that ended in -101 or -ology, there was nothing but music for me," he told Forbes. "So I left college, moved up to San Francisco, and started recording other people. I had no idea what I was doing. I got very lucky." He got a start doing brief spots for the newly-launched MTV, and wrote music for commercials. "It was very lucrative and a great business to get into," he said. "So pretty quickly I was able to turn my passion for music into a business."
He parlayed his advertising success into a career as a musician, composing for movies like Dances with Wolves and The Scarlet Letter and releasing his own albums. Alongside his musical career, he has also written a New York Times Bestseller, Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment, and is currently co-chair of the NoVo Foundation.
Does working a regular job have an impact on the super-wealthy? A wealth psychology expert weighs in
While no one would likely say these children are working their way to the top without resources, the experience and lessons learned may offer some protection from squandering the family fortune.
"People who are not raised to handle money might respond similarly to a lottery winner. The newfound wealth will make their current relationships challenging and they might lose a lot of it in their attempts to manage it," says W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Georgia.
"Young people who were raised to manage money and see that responsibility as part of their identity are less likely to be destabilized by a large inheritance. Most of the research shows that children who are raised learning how to handle money do better with it as adults."
"Rich or poor, a teen working for a paycheck is going to develop some financial literacy and some sense of independence and self-efficacy"
For the mega-rich, a taste of working life from a young age can help promote financial literacy and give real-world experience to what could be an unimaginably privileged existence.
"The research is pretty clear that young people who have high school jobs develop some early financial literacy," explains Dr Campbell. "It involves getting a paycheck, setting up a bank account, some basic budgeting, and even knowledge about taxes and retirement... I would speculate that the benefits of working for a paycheck as a young person would be beneficial across the wealth spectrum."
