Suddenly, I was getting invitations to charity gallas, investment opportunities, and social events that I’d never been invited to before. Business acquaintances who had barely acknowledged my existence were suddenly my best friends. It was like someone had flipped a switch and transformed me from an invisible nobody into the most popular guy in town.

But here’s what I learned from the whole experience. When people only want to know you because of your bank account, you’re not actually popular. You’re just a walking ATM machine. The invitations, the friendships, the business opportunities, they were all contingent on what I could do for other people, not on who I was as a person.

So, I did what any rational person would do in that situation. I kept my wealth exactly where it had always been, working quietly in the background while I lived my life on my own terms. I bought a smaller house in a different part of town, kept driving my reliable car, and continued wearing jeans and comfortable shirts because that’s who I was, not who my money said I should be.

These days, when I walk past a Summit Bank branch, and yes, they still exist, though they’re shadows of their former selves, I can’t help but smile. Not because I destroyed a family or ruined careers, but because I learned something valuable about human nature. People will judge you based on the most superficial criteria imaginable, and they’ll treat you accordingly.

But money, real money, has a funny way of revealing who people really are when the masks come off. The Morrison family thought a high school diploma meant I was nobody worth knowing. They learned at the cost of $7 billion and their family legacy that education and worth aren’t the same thing. Sometimes the most important lessons are the most expensive ones and sometimes the people who need to learn them the most are the ones who can least afford the tuition.

And every now and then, justice actually does have a sense of humor.

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