Janny Scott grew up on an 800-acre estate near Philadelphia. The descendant of railroad barons and financial magnates, Janny tracks the effects of her family’s multi-generational wealth in her book, The Beneficiary: Fortune, Misfortune, and the Story of My Father. In the book, she lays the details of both the opulence and the tragic complications of her family’s vast resources. While things appeared perfect from the outside, alcoholism, suicide, divorce, and idleness derailed many of her relations. In this conversation, we discuss what it was like to grow up on property the size of Central Park and how the presence of so much wealth affects her attitudes about money today. We also cover the tragedies that befell many of her ancestors as they struggled to find purpose amidst massive affluence.  Janny worked for fourteen years as a reporter for the New York Times where she was a member of the team that won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting. Prior to the NYT, she reported for the LA Times and The Record of Bergen County (NJ). Her first book, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother earned her a nomination for the PEN/Jacqueline Bogard Weld Award for Biography and was named to Time magazine’s top ten nonfiction books of 2011. Her recent book was one of the NYT 100 Notable Books of 2019 and NPR’s Favorite Books of 2019. Janny has made appearances on The Colbert Report, Today, C-Span, Fresh Air and many other national TV and radio shows. She is a graduate of Harvard College and spoke with me from her home in New York City. Learn more about Janny’s work on her website. Download Peter Singer’s book,The Life You Can Savefor free hereor listen to the audiobook on Spotifyor Apple Podcasts. You can also listen to my interview with Peter here. Join the new Crazy Money Listeners Group on Facebook here. 

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Crazy Money is produced and edited by Mike Carano. Topics addressed on Crazy Money include:Philosophy, Happiness, Contentment, Meaning, dreams, purpose, Success, Rat Race, Society, mental health, Buddhism, Stoicism, the hedonic treadmill, morality, Mid-Life Crisis, Business, Work, Careers, Authors, Books, Consumerism, Values, capitalism, economics, investing, saving, spending, personal finance, charity, philanthropy, altruism, affluence, wealth, wealth management, culture, society. Status.

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