He Made $171 Trading Futures When He Was Only 13–Now He's Worth $1.2 Billion—Investing Prodigy Tells His Story

Investor Chris Sacca is not as well known as his more famous contemporaries like Warren Buffett and Ray Dalio, but then again, he's only just getting started. The 49-year-old billionaire has been investing since he was 13 when he made $171 on an options trade. He has had a knack for picking winners ever since and made a fortune on early investments in companies like Instagram and Uber (NYSE: UBER).   

Today, he is the head honcho at the Lowercarbon Capital Fund and Forbes magazine estimated his net worth at $1.2 billion in 2021. As is the case with many successful investors, Chris' interest in investing was sparked by the mentorship of a family friend. He recounted the story of his first trade during an appearance last month on the "The Tim Ferriss Show" podcast.

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Sacca said it all started when he was working for a construction company run by his father's best friend Bob Haas. Haas was also an investor, and he showed Sacca his computer trading account. Sacca was immediately fascinated and Haas sweetened the pot with an interesting proposition. He offered to pay for Sacca to make one trade and eat the loss if it didn't work but split the profits if Sacca's trade made money.

Sacca said Haas summed up the deal by explaining, "That's called venture capital." At the time, neither Sacca nor his parents had any experience investing, so Haas gave him one week to do market research and figure out what trade he wanted to make. It would be an understatement to say Sacca took his first stab at being an investment analyst seriously.

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He told the podcast, “I went to the library, I started learning about Stochastics, about charts, and technical analysis. I went all in. I read everything. I studied everything.” He eventually settled on commodities and discovered an opportunity in live hog futures that piqued his interest. Sacca made the trade and it was a winner. He pocketed $171 in profits, which was a lot more than the $4.25/hour Haas paid him for manual labor.

He recalled being amazed that he could make that kind of money "by pushing a button and using my brain.”  Sacca knew where his future was from that moment forward and told the podcast, “I was like, ‘I want to be the guy who works upstairs.’ I can’t tell you how seminal that experience was for me, the rest of my life. There’s only so far you can lever a man-hour.”

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He became an avid stock-market observer and even remembers carrying a pager to school to alert him to big events in the market. Sacca completed his education in 2000 with a law degree from Georgetown University and then got a job working as an in-house attorney for Google. He continued his penchant for making great deals by becoming an early investor in Twitter.

After that, Sacca started his own venture capital firm, Lowercase Capital, and made early investments in a string of successful startups that included Kickstarter, Uber, and Stripe. His net worth swelled along the way and Sacca announced his retirement from traditional venture capital investing. His current project is an investment fund called Lowercarbon Capital, which focuses on funding startups that reduce carbon emissions.  

Wondering if your investments can get you to a $5,000,000 nest egg? Speak to a financial advisor today. SmartAsset’s free tool matches you up with up to three vetted financial advisors who serve your area, and you can interview your advisor matches at no cost to decide which one is right for you.

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