Profile of Chris Liddell

An interesting profile of Chris Liddell in Stuff. Like many top flyers, he comes from a very modest background. Some key details:

• After all debts were settled, Laurence Liddell (his father) left his family with $5.
• Mum worked at a cafe where she was able to bring home any unsold food to help feed five children.
• In recent years, he and his brother John have donated $1 million to Mt Albert Grammar. And Liddell has contributed $450,000 to send Auckland University students to do postgraduate studies at Oxford – providing young “all-rounders” the scholarship he missed out on.
• “I try to never forget that in my good years, I have earned in one year more than my father earned in his lifetime. Perhaps because of that I value experiences much more than possessions. I’d like to eventually give away all the money that I have earned during my lifetime.”
• Liddell had expressed increasing alarm at the depth of intergenerational social problems in New Zealand, according to Hinton. Many people of their generation had, naively, grown up thinking such social deprivation happened elsewhere. “He and I would have a problem with a lot of theory on the Left that throwing money at something is the solution.”

150 years ago if you were born into a poor family, you would probably spend your life poor. Today we have numerous examples of people born into poor families and doing incredibly well – John Key and Chris Liddell being great examples.