1EQQ8ZzGD

wealthy people and families
What's it like to come from a
billion-dollar family?
John H. Hillman, V, sorry about the Roman numeral.
In my case it is pretty normal. To be clear, I am not "of the
wealth" that flows through my family, I benefit from a minor
tributary of the original fortune. I am not a poor person by
any means, and I am super grateful for my family history, tradition,
and the regional respect given towards us. Something
that not only I, but the patriarch and matriarch Hillmans,
have always tried to repay. The reality is: the city that helped
us, comes first.
Without giving a full family history — which has already
been done way better than I could — the gist of it is: I had
a relative seven or eight generations ago who did very well
cooking iron in Kentucky/Tennessee in the 1850s. A generation
continued that success though the U.S. Civil War with
some pitfalls until around the 1900s when some southerner
Hillmans traveled to a city which was a perfect fit for industrial
steel revolution: Pittsburgh. When the U.S. steel industry
began to slump beginning in the 1960s my great-uncle Henry
diversified into many things, notably an early Kleiner Perkins
investment, international real estate, and others. I believe he
has been on the Forbes 400 since the first list, though I may
be wrong. The rest can be found via Google.
How does it feel for me? Aside from knowing that I come
from solid stock, which I try to live up to, I have constant
reminders such as the Hillman Library, which was named after
my great-grandfather and is the main library of the University
of Pittsburgh. The question I most often hear about
that building is: "Don't you like, own a library or something?"
other than that there is The Hillman Cancer Center, which
is a fantastic facility, every once in awhile, I have misguided
people thanking me because their cancer was "cured." I don't
like that at all, it makes me feel uncomfortable. The Hillman
Center for Future Generation Technologies part of Carnegie
Mellon University is cool-looking (inside and out) and is a
423