Son unexpectedly inherits company from parents, gets revenge on brother

Man, I wish this happened to me, I have a similar story but in the completely opposite direction. A little over 10 years ago I began working form my Uncle and Aunt who ran a very successful construction company in Southern California, they hired me to run the 2nd location for them as my cousin and her husband ran the other half. Within like 2 months I completely revamped the way they operated, everything was on paper when I took over and I completely computerized everything, build a solid database, went totally paperless, etc. The company was doing excellent but my Uncle was basically retired, my cousin and her husband did everything wrong, they essentially drove the company into the ground the 2 years I was there. It was BAD, I petitioned that my Uncle completely retire and hand over 51% of the company to me in an effort to try and save this for him and my Aunt, they had built this business from the ground up over 30 years and I didn't want to see their lives work get wasted. My uncle basically said "they're my kids, what do you want me to do?' I assured him that if I took over I would be able to give all of his kids plus him and my aunt a sustainable income and continue to grow the company. They refused and I resigned. About a month after I left they had to close the 2nd location, my aunt tried to go on vacation to South America and she was detained because she found out they were being investigated by the feds for all these back tax issues I had warned them about years before. Fast forward to last year, the company shut it's door after nearly 40 years of supporting that side of my family. I left in 2007 and pursued another career, I co run a very successful eCommerce now. My uncle had to liquidate all his assets to try and keep some sort of retirement, my aunt moved in with my cousin (not the one who was part of the business, this one is normal), my cousin who ran the company to the ground divorced her husband and now basically lives off welfare. I recently finally reconciled with them after many years of being ostracized by them because I tried to take over and they felt betrayed, although I was just trying to make it better for all of them. My uncle met with me and told me the biggest mistake of his life was not listening to me when I tried to get him to essentially will me his business.

They're living such a different life now, they used to be millionaires and now they have almost nothing, my uncle thankfully had some property in South America he liquidated and has a decent retirement but it's peanuts to what he had 10 years ago.

To this day I think back and can't for the life of me understand how people who are given life on a silver platter, just go on and fuck it up.

I'm glad it worked out for the OP.

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