There are limitless thrilling and flashy methods to grow to be a billionaire these days. Crypto, the AI craze, betting apps, well being hacking, trendy warfare, and even social media are minting paper fortunes at a dizzying tempo. Simply final week, two Stanford dropouts have been anointed the youngest billionaires on Earth due to their wildly polarizing bet-on-everything prediction app, Kalshi.
As thrilling and futuristic as these paths to billionaire standing could also be, it’s nonetheless completely doable to affix the three-comma membership by operating a enterprise that’s as boring because it will get. A enterprise that by no means raises enterprise capital. A enterprise that by no means burns money in pursuit of “hypergrowth.” A producing enterprise that sells a product for a bit greater than it prices to make. A product that everybody wants and would not promise to make us smarter, richer, sexier, cooler, or dwell longer. A product whose sole goal is to maintain our vehicles clear by defending them from our personal filthy ft.
That product is the standard car flooring mat. And the corporate is WeatherTech. You in all probability step on a WeatherTech product each time you get within the automotive.
WeatherTech is owned by a man named David MacNeil. You have in all probability by no means heard of him, and also you in all probability would not acknowledge him if I confirmed you a photograph. And I can not even present you a photograph as a result of there are not any pictures of David on Getty Pictures.
A school dropout, David was working as a automotive salesman within the late Eighties when he took a trip to Scotland. Throughout this trip, he rented a automotive. Upon moving into the automotive, he was instantly impressed by the standard of its thick rubber flooring mats, which featured a raised lip to entice water and particles. That sparked an thought.
When he received dwelling, he tracked down the producer in England and negotiated a deal to import a 20-foot container of the mats to the U.S., taking out a second mortgage on his home to finance the acquisition. He known as his new enterprise WeatherTech. In these early years, he operated the enterprise out of his storage in Clarendon Hills, Illinois. The corporate’s 1-800 quantity routed by way of his dwelling line, so when a name got here in from Europe, he answered, even when it rang at 3 am.
- He made $40,000 in 1991
- He made $160,000 in 1992
- He made $400,000 in 1993
Because the enterprise grew, David pivoted from importing another person’s product to creating his personal. And that is the place he struck gold.
In 2025, WeatherTech will earn $800 million in income and generate round $200 million in earnings. And because the firm’s sole proprietor, 100% of these earnings stream to David. Based mostly on any cheap a number of of EBITDA, there isn’t any doubt that David is a billionaire. By our rely, David MacNeil’s web value is a MINIMUM $2 billion. And but, you will not discover him profiled by Bloomberg or Forbes as a billionaire.
Regardless of his under-the-radar success story, there have been some indicators of David’s success through the years.
In 2018, MacNeil made worldwide headlines when he bought a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO for $70 million. The acquisition set a world report for the costliest automotive ever offered on the time.
After which there’s this week’s information.
The Wall Road Journal simply revealed that David paid $75 million for a sprawling ocean-to-Intracoastal megamansion within the tiny, ultra-wealthy city of Manalapan, Florida. And this wasn’t simply any random property. The property sits on land as soon as owned by Billy Joel, who offered the 1.94-acre parcel again in 2018 to a retired businessman named Frank Mennella. The Mennellas spent a number of years and a small fortune establishing a 16,000-plus-square-foot, hotel-style trendy compound full with a bowling alley, movie show, spa wing, billiards room, 1,000-bottle wine cellar, non-public dock, and a tunnel that runs below Freeway A1A to an oceanfront cabana.
They listed the completed property this previous Could for $84.888 million. And now David MacNeil is below contract to purchase it, totally furnished, for round $75 million. Here is a video tour:
And this is the wild half: This isn’t David’s solely footprint in Manalapan. Not even shut.
Over the past two years, he has quietly spent $94 million shopping for two different large land parcels a few mile away. His unique plan was to mix them right into a single megamansion construct.
Add all of it up, and David MacNeil now owns roughly $170 million value of actual property in Manalapan alone.
The explanation for this newest buy is surprisingly down-to-earth. David’s daughter, who lives in close by Wellington, is anticipating a child. He wished to be nearer for the beginning and the early years, and the Mennella property supplied one thing no ground-up building venture might match: the flexibility to maneuver in instantly.
Most consumers spend years making an attempt to safe even a single waterfront parcel in Manalapan. David MacNeil now controls three. One is a move-in-ready, hotel-style compound constructed on Billy Joel’s former land. The opposite two are prime ocean-to-lake parcels so fascinating that he is casually providing them for $125 million whereas deciding whether or not he even desires to promote.
Most billionaires announce their wealth by way of tech IPOs, viral apps, crypto booms, or splashy venture-backed moonshots. David MacNeil? He did it by promoting rubber flooring mats. And right now, almost 4 a long time after answering WeatherTech buyer calls from his storage, he is one of the crucial highly effective — and least publicly identified — actual property gamers in certainly one of Florida’s most unique ZIP codes.
