The world’s ultra-wealthy primarily live in these 10 cities—only 3 are outside the U.S.

Nearly a fifth of the world’s richest people live in just 10 cities worldwide, according to recent data from wealth intelligence platform Altrata.

The city with the most ultra-wealthy people — those with a net worth above $30 million — by a large margin: New York. It’s home to 21,380 such residents, up 23% from 2024, according to the report, which contains data through June and was published on September 30. The report didn’t specify whether that increase comes from ultra-wealthy people moving to New York, extant residents joining the ranks of the ultra-wealthy or both.

New York is one of the world’s biggest financial hubs, meaning it may be close to work for many of the ultra-wealthy. Banking and finance is the most popular industry to work in for affluent people across all generations, according to the report.

Hong Kong, the city in the No. 2 spot, also has a growing population of ultra-wealthy people: approximately 17,215, up nearly 23% in the first six months of 2025, the report found. Like New York, Hong Kong has a booming finance industry. IPO valuations on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange jumped roughly eight times in the first half of 2025, up to $14 billion, according to a July CNBC report of data from financial markets platform Dealogic.

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Beyond other global financial hubs Tokyo and London, the rest of Altrata’s list exclusively features cities in the United States. That’s not particularly surprising: The U.S. is home to more than three times as many ultra-rich people as the next-closest country, China, said the report.

The ultra-wealthy hold an outsized proportion of wealth compared to their some of their peers: People with a net worth of more than $30 million make up 1% of the global millionaire population, but hold nearly a third of their overall combined wealth, Altrata found.

The population of ultra-wealthy is growing, too, the report said. At the time of its publishing, an estimated 510,810 people in the world had a net worth of more than $30 million. That number could rise to nearly 677,000 by 2030, Altrata projected.

Here are the report’s top 10 cities with the highest populations of ultra-wealthy people:

1. New York

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 21,380

Percentage increase from previous 12 months: 23.4%

2. Hong Kong

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 17,215

Percentage increase from previous 12 months: 11.5%

3. Los Angeles

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 11,680

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 24%

4. San Francisco

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 8,270

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 24.9%

5. Chicago

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 7,530

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 21.7%

6. Tokyo

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 6,940

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 8.4%

7. London

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 6,660

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 9.7%

8. Dallas

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 6,530

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 23%

9. Washington, D.C.

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 6,460

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 23.6%

10. Houston

Number of ultra-wealthy people: 5,900

Percent increase from previous 12 months: 22.0%

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Leading happiness expert’s morning routine includes a 4:30am wake-up and a high-protein breakfast

The most successful people have morning routines that set them up for greatness. Data shows that the way you structure the start of your day can have significant effects on your energy, creativity and happiness.

Arthur Brooks, a professor who teaches a class about managing happiness at Harvard and author of a happiness column for The Atlantic, has a set of practices that he can pick and choose from each morning to boost his mood for the rest of the day.

“I have used all of my background in behavioral science, and everything I’ve learned about biology as well, to put together a morning protocol that is enhancing of my well-being,” Brooks said on his podcast, “Office Hours with Arthur Brooks.”

Here is Brooks’ morning routine, and what he says we can all do “to start your day in the best possible way.”

Arthur Brooks’ 6-step morning routine

To get a better understanding of himself, Brooks determined his baseline emotional state using a tool in psychology called the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). After taking the test, people are placed in one of four categories depending on how intensely they lean towards positive or negative emotions.

Brooks would be considered a “mad scientist,” who experiences high positive affect and high negative affect. “I feel things very intensely, and that’s great on the positive side. But I need to manage the negative side,” he said on the podcast.

To avoid allowing the intensity of his negative emotions to affect his quality of life, Brooks has created this six-step morning routine:

Wake up before dawn: Research shows that getting up before the sun rises can improve your creativity, focus and memory, he said. Brooks wakes up at 4:30 a.m. nearly every day, and has experienced positive effects on his mental health as a result.
Engage in physical activity: “Fifteen minutes after I wake up, I’m in the gym,” said Brooks who has a gym in his home. He exercises for an hour a day, seven days a week, and alternates between cardio and resistance training.
Get metaphysical: Taking a page out of the Dalai Lama’s book, Brooks practices his version of analytical meditation each morning, by attending Mass or praying a Catholic meditation in his car, “calibrating the work of the soul,” he said. If you aren’t religious or into meditation, you can gain similar benefits from journaling for 20 to 30 minutes, Brooks added.
Delay coffee intake: “I love coffee for sure, but I don’t drink it when I first wake up,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I don’t have my first cup of coffee until 7:30 in the morning.” He finds that it prevents him from having a 3 p.m. slump later in the day.
Eat a high-protein breakfast: Brooks eats between 175 and 200 grams of protein each day, so he gets about 60 grams of protein for breakfast by eating unflavored, non-fat Greek yogurt with whey protein, walnuts and berries. “It makes me feel great. It keeps me full all through the morning and fueled up,” he said.
Enter a flow state: Instead of using the energy that his morning routine gives him to check emails, take phone calls or read the paper, Brooks starts working right away. “When I do that, I can actually get two hours of super high-quality creative work,” he said. “I’m in the flow for the rest of the day.”

Though Brooks encouraged listeners to try his morning protocol, he also suggested altering it to fit their personal experiences.

“Experiment on yourself,” he said. “This is the result of my experiments. You need the result of your experiments.”

‘Bring your whole self to work’ is bad advice, Ivy League psychologist says—here’s why

If someone tells you to “bring your whole self to work,” don’t listen, says psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic.

Like many other workplace platitudes, the intention of the phrase is “truly positive, even if naive,” according to Chamorro-Premuzic, a professor of business psychology at Columbia University.

“It’s an attempt to tell particularly individuals that are part of the outgroup that they should not feel any pressure to conform to the norm,” he tells CNBC Make It, adding that it’s “an invitation to feel free to express themselves.”

People tend to be more engaged and satisfied when they feel that they can bring “more dimensions of themselves,” if not their entire selves, to work, Chamorro-Premuzic says.

Still, he wouldn’t recommend that employees take “bring your whole self to work” too literally.

At the end of the day, “the workplace values professional demeanor over personal idiosyncrasies,” he writes in his recent book “Don’t Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead),” and employees who take the phrase to heart may find themselves in awkward social situations.

No matter how much your company promotes authenticity, “parts of your self are best left at home,” Chamorro-Premuzic writes.

Better in theory than in practice

One issue with telling people to be themselves at work is that “more often than not, it’s not a genuine invitation,” says Chamorro-Premuzic.

“Authenticity may be celebrated in theory, but in practice, it tends to succumb to the age-old requirement to ‘fit in,’” he writes in “Don’t Be Yourself.”

As a rule, conformity is rewarded in the workplace, Chamorro-Premuzic says.

The invitation to ‘bring your whole self to work’ is often “constrained to those attitudes, beliefs and preferences that happen to match existing cultural norms,” he writes.

People whose behavior and beliefs align with their company’s prevailing culture may benefit from sharing more about themselves at work, Chamorro-Premuzic says.

However, people who express “authentic” opinions that run counter to the group’s views may risk damaging their reputations or relationships.

Due to their limited knowledge of workplace etiquette, young professionals are especially vulnerable to being misled by “be yourself” rhetoric, he says.

In scenarios like job interviews, when candidates should be making a conscious effort to showcase their best qualities, following advice to “bring your whole self” will put them at a significant disadvantage.

“You’re never going to get a job if you do that,” he says.

It ‘rarely ends well’

Most people’s “whole selves” encompass a range of emotions, behaviors and actions, some of which are less professionally and socially acceptable than others.

“For most people, the authentic self is the one that doesn’t want to get out of bed on a Monday morning to go to work,” Chamorro-Premuzic writes.

In most workplaces, your career is likely to suffer if you engage in unprofessional conduct like snapping at co-workers, stealing other people’s lunches or taking naps at your desk, regardless of how ‘authentic’ those behaviors may be.

Conversely, a company culture that prizes ‘being yourself’ over social etiquette is likely to enable bad behavior, especially from higher-ups, according to Chamorro-Premuzic.

When authenticity is valued more than accountability, people in power may feel empowered to behave in “very antisocial and discouraging” ways toward others, he says.

“They may become entitled and they say, ‘Well, I don’t need to be accountable for anything I do. I can do whatever I want,’” Chamorro-Premuzic says.

Of course, plenty of leaders continue to behave in “a humble and considered way,” Chamorro-Premuzic says, but those qualities more often stem from self-awareness and respect for others, than from ‘being themselves.’

If we spend less time exhorting people to be authentic, and more time encouraging respectful behavior, “the world will be a better place,” he says.

At 19, he drove a cab for $6 an hour—now his businesses bring in over $2 million a year

Money Singh wasn’t excited about his move to San Francisco from Punjab, India, at age 19 in 2006.

“I was [depressed] for that one year. I wanted to go back,” says Singh, now 38, adding: “Socially, I was very alone.”

He initially attended college in the Bay Area, but dropped out after some of his credits from school in India didn’t transfer over, he says. His mom urged him to find a job quickly, so he worked a short stint at a local drugstore, then as a dispatcher for his uncle’s cab company making around $6 per hour, he says.

Singh spent the next 12-plus years working in the cab industry, first driving for himself before amassing a five-cab fleet, running his own dispatch company, then launching Driver’s Network, an advertising and marketing agency for independent drivers.

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In 2018, Singh decided he needed to do something unrelated to taxis. So, in addition to running Driver’s Network, which is now known as ATCS Platform Solutions, he teamed up with a local barber to open Dandies Barbershop & Beard Stylist in Mountain View in June 2019. He got the idea from his partner Joypreet, who suggested that he follow the example of his mother — a hair salon owner in India and, later, Northern California, he says.

Last year, Dandies brought in $1.07 million in sales, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. ATCS Platform Solutions brought in $1.18 million in revenue, documents show. Both businesses are profitable, says Singh, who works at Dandies full-time and spends about 20 hours per week on ATCS.

Here’s how Singh built Dandies from the ground up while simultaneously running another business, and why he says he’s not done with serial entrepreneurship yet.

‘I had to sell everything’

Going from cab driver to barbershop owner might seem like a huge jump, but Singh says he had years of preparation. After pushing his mom to get her cosmetology license and open her hair salon in 2007, he helped her run, advertise and market her shop.

But the process to opening his doors was tedious, and he spent $75,000 in startup costs from his taxi driving and dispatching savings, he says.

“You have to go through permitting. You have to go through dealing with the city,” says Singh. “It took me a solid year to get the license to even open the shop, so I was paying rent for one year before I could open the shop.”

Singh had no experience as a barber, so he partnered with a barber friend of his to open the shop’s doors. Six months later, the Covid-19 pandemic hit. His business partner left the company due to a family matter, so he closed the shop for about a year, but rent still had to be paid, he says.

Singh received two Paycheck Protection Program loans from the Small Business Administration — one for $68,000, and another for $18,000 that was eventually forgiven, he says. He borrowed $20,000 from two friends, another $30,000 from his life insurance and took on $80,000 of credit card debt. He also liquidated his stock portfolio and spent less money on necessities like food “so the business could stay open,” he says.

“I had to sell everything,” he says. “I had to eat less. I literally had to focus on eating $1 per meal to make sure the business stays open.”

During that downtime, Singh enrolled in barber school so Dandies could serve a wider variety of personal grooming types when it reopened in 2021. “As we got more engaged with the community, I had a lot of people from every aspect of life: Men, women, LGBTQ, kids. Almost everybody wanted to come to Dandies,” he says. “So we started expanding into different skill sets and we wanted to cater to everybody.”

Today, Singh owns three Dandies locations, employs 25 people — 15 are barbers — and takes home a $7,000 per month salary, including $3,000 from Dandies and $4,000 from ATCS, he says. He’s paid off his life insurance loan and credit card debt, and is starting to chip away at his remaining PPP loan, which costs about $300 a month, he says. Dandies became profitable in 2023, he adds.

‘I’m doing the same thing that I was doing 19 years ago’

Going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt and cutting back on food to keep a business alive requires a certain kind of mental resilience. Singh’s resilience stems from a childhood in Punjab that was heavily impacted by conflict between Sikh separatists and the Indian government, he says.

In 1988, Singh’s dad was nonfatally shot by a terrorist. A bomb fell in front of his father’s convenience store — where the family spent more time than their own home, says Singh — in 1991. Floods further hurt the store, leading to even more struggle, Singh says.

Thousands of miles away and decades later, Singh taps into the same work ethic and grit that helped him through his childhood, he says. “I just don’t feel any different. I’m doing the same thing that I was doing 19 years ago,” he says. “I still work 15 to 16 hours a day. I still work hard. I still do the things that I need to do … Those are the habits that I’ve developed since my childhood.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, Singh says he’s looking forward to adding a third concurrent business to his portfolio: an app called Barber’s Network, where barbers and their clients can reserve chairs and request appointments at barbershop locations across the country. He’s started building the app, which is similar to scheduling apps like Booksy or theCut, using some of Dandies’ profits, he says.

Though he works more than the average person, Singh says he wouldn’t have it any other way, and he doesn’t see that changing for the foreseeable future.

“I don’t think I’ll ever retire. I would want to work all the way through,” he says. “That’s just what I breathe.”

I retired in the No. 1 country Americans want to move to most: ‘We save about $5,000 per month’

In 2011, I walked away from a six-figure law career and retired at age 41. I thought I was prepared financially. But emotionally? Not so much.

After decades of working, I was used to the sense of purpose that came with a career, and I assumed I’d have to give that up once I stopped working. My biggest fear took the form of one major uncertainty: What would I do with all that unstructured time?

Fast forward 14 years later, and my days are anything but idle. My wife and I now live in Portugal, the No. 1 country Americans want to move to. I spend my free time enjoying local food with friends and hiking the wildflower-dotted coastal trails. Retiring early is one of the best decisions I’ve ever made … but I remember how overwhelming it felt at the start.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far in early retirement, and why I don’t regret it.

1. Uncertainty is an opportunity, not an obstacle

I followed a predictable path for most of my adult life: law school, summer associate gigs, and eventually a stable legal career. Then came the 2008 financial crisis. The firm I worked for collapsed — and with it, my sense of direction. I couldn’t picture myself doing anything other than practicing law.

I could’ve stayed in the industry. But instead, I chose the unknown. Most people think early retirement is about not working anymore. But it’s about redefining your identity without a roadmap. That required a mindset shift: I had to become an explorer.

That mindset brought us to Portugal, a country where we didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, and had no idea what to expect day-to-day. It was disorienting at first. But the uncertainty became our motivation to grow, learn, and build a fulfilling life from scratch.

If you’re delaying retirement because you don’t know what comes next, that might be exactly why it’s worth doing. Uncertainty could be your opportunity to travel down paths you’ve never imagined.

2. You can still get ahead financially, even without a paycheck

When we first retired, my wife and I assumed we’d gradually draw down our savings over time and hope it would last. But something surprising happened: Our net worth kept growing.

A major reason is that living in Portugal drastically reduced our expenses. Here’s what we save annually compared to our old life in Washington, D.C.:

$15,000 on state income taxes
$25,000 on health insurance and deductibles
$14,000 on property taxes
$20,000 on food, entertainment, and daily costs

In total, we estimate that we save about $5,000 per month just by living abroad.

We follow the same financial strategy we did while working: We live below our means, reinvest the difference, and let compounding do the work. The only difference is that now, instead of salaries, our income comes from investments.

Retirement doesn’t have to be the end of building wealth. It can even be the beginning of a more sustainable, intentional version of it.

3. Finding purpose in retirement is just as important as finding it in your career

Whether you’re working or not, most of us want the same thing: to feel like we matter and are making a contribution.

When we first retired, we had a built-in sense of purpose as parents to a young child. We joined school activities, studied the local language, and built a new life in Lisbon.

But when our daughter went off to college, we were back to square one. Our schedules emptied out, and we faced the same question we did in 2011: What do we do with all this time?

Before diving into hobbies or commitments, we made a plan. We identified six core priorities that bring meaning to our lives:

Building and strengthening friendships
Personal care and physical health
Quality time as a couple
Travel
Volunteer work and giving back
Learning new skills

Once we had those priorities in place, it became easier to build a routine that felt fulfilling.

Today, my wife volunteers at our tennis club, takes pottery and Dutch lessons, and plays sports. I’m focused on writing, freelance retirement coaching, and helping a local nonprofit as a consultant. We host dinner parties, explore new recipes, and take short trips around Europe.

With the right mindset, early retirement can be the perfect new starting point. You just have to be willing to embrace it.

Alex Trias is a retired attorney. He and his wife have been living in Portugal since 2015. He writes about tax planning, investing, early retirement and expat life on Substack.

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