Maconomics CEO Ross Mac is financially empowering urban communities.
While Ross Mac learned the value of money early on as a result of selling candy in third grade and through being raised by frugal middle class parents, he still did not have much understanding on the investment arena, credit building, or homeownership.
Instead, the South Side Chicago native — with ties to Wall Street through his roles at Morgan Stanley and Grosvenor Capital — credits exposure for serving as his “greatest teacher.”
During his freshman year at Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, he saw a peer who was trading while in class. A week later, he jump started his portfolio and began educating himself on various tax hacks, he told Will Lucas on “Black Tech Green Money” podcast.
His time on Wall Street was another turning point.
“I remember seeing a managing director check his 401(k) and he had a couple million in there. So, now I’m starting to think about retirement. And so I think by being submerged in it, but once again accidentally learning and then being intentional about, ‘How do I do this now,’” he expressed. “What do I need to do as a parent to ensure my kids never have student loans? What do I need to do to be intentional to ensure that my kids got the ability to, if they graduate, to say, ‘Hey, I want to take a gap year,’ or ‘Hey, I want to explore having a startup.’”
He continued, “The biggest thing is intentionality. It’s not taught in our school. So, you got to teach yourself.”
Since 2019, Ross Mac has been working to provide exposure to Black communities through Maconomics, which is a media company releasing digital content to educate users on finance.
Mac also shared some of his tips on “Black Tech Green Money” with several takeaways, like how to avoid get-rich-quick schemes.
Additionally, he suggests companies such as Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia for portfolio building and emphasizes the importance of patience and playing the long game.
“Wealth is made long term by being diligent, being consistent and disciplined. So whether that is you taking a thousand dollars every month or $200 or $100 every month, being disciplined and consistent in growing your wealth over a long course of time,” he mentioned. “I think way too often we get on social media and you hear this person’s day trading or that person is trading cryptocurrencies — or NFTs was a big fad, right? At the end of the day, they’re very well-trained marketers that go on social media and lure you into buying different assets. Sheeps in wolves clothing, etc. Unfortunately, we fall victim.”
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