Anthony Scaramucci has had quite a career arc. There was Goldman Sachs, then founding SkyBridge Capital, then that famously brief 11-day stint as White House communications director. But the real origin story? That starts with an 11-year-old kid hustling for grocery money during the Ford administration.

When The Recession Hit Home

In a 2023 appearance on the Desperately Seeking Wisdom podcast, Scaramucci walked through how the 1975 recession became a formative moment that forced him to grow up fast. He grew up in a working-class Italian-American household on Long Island where his father came from coal-mining roots in northeastern Pennsylvania. Money was tight. Stress was constant.

Then came the day his father walked through the door angry. His work hours had been slashed. "He was an hourly worker. He needed that money by hour, but we were in a recession," Scaramucci recalled. The financial pressure didn't just strain the budget—it spilled into everything. "When you're living day to day, paycheck to paycheck ... a lot of things [are] outside your control," he said, describing how economic anxiety can harden people over time.

Scaramucci was 11. And instead of feeling helpless, he decided to do something about it.

A Newspaper Route And A Plan

He picked up a newspaper route, then added a stock boy gig at the local supermarket. Between the two jobs, he was pulling in about $45 a week—decent money for a kid in the mid-1970s. But he wasn't spending it on comic books or candy.

"I was hustling for money," he said. Every week, $25 went straight to his mother to help with household bills. The rest? He pocketed it. "I wasn't spending it. But I was pocketing in case, God forbid, they needed it."

After nearly a year of this routine, he had saved around $1,000. Not for himself. For security. Just in case things got worse.

Fear As Fuel

Looking back, Scaramucci describes his drive not as ambition but as something closer to fear. "I was there because I gotta make sure that these people are okay. And so there was a tremendous amount of anxiety in the house," he said.

That anxiety shaped his family in different ways. His older brother later struggled with drug addiction. Scaramucci became what he calls a workaholic, channeling that early pressure into a relentless work ethic that would eventually carry him to Wall Street.

From The Mooch To The Money

Scaramucci—often called "The Mooch"—is probably best known outside finance circles for lasting exactly 11 days as White House communications director during Donald Trump's first term. The tenure was so brief it spawned a unit of time: "a Scaramucci."

But his actual career has been considerably longer. After earning a bachelor's degree in economics from Tufts University and a law degree from Harvard, he worked in Goldman Sachs & Co.'s private wealth management division. He later co-founded Oscar Capital Management, an investment firm that Neuberger Berman acquired in 2001. Then came SkyBridge Capital, which he launched in 2005.

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Scaramucci now has a net worth of $90 million. Not bad for a kid who started out just trying to make sure his family had enough to cover the bills.