At 28, Cassidy O’Hagan lives a life that few can imagine and fewer still can hope to imitate. She spends her winters in Aspen and summers in the Hamptons. In between, she travels to Puerto Rico, India, Maldives, Dubai and other exotic destinations, all on a private jet.
A nanny to a billionaire family opens up about her salary, perks and more.
All of these trips are paid for by her employer. O’Hagan works as a nanny to a billionaire family — and the Colorado native gets a host of other benefits besides getting to see the world.
According to a Business Insider article, she has a 401K, healthcare benefits, meals cooked by a private chef, paid time off, her own “nanny wardrobe,” and much more.
Cassidy O’Hagan is part of a growing number of Gen Z employees who feel that white-collar jobs cannot compete with the perks of working for the ultra-rich.
“My orthopedic medical sales job could never compete,” she says.
Her salary is testament to the fact. In 2019, O’Hagan, 22, was looking to earn extra money while preparing for the MCAT when she started seeking work with a high-net-worth family. Soon after starting her first job, she said, “I realized very quickly after moving in that I had stepped into this completely different world.”
Doubling her salary as a billionaire nanny
Still, she hoped to have a corporate career and quit nannying. In 2021, she moved to New York City for a job in medical sales at a large company. She was earning $65,000 (nearly ₹60 LPA) and felt burnt out.
In less than a year, she quit her medical sales job and went back to nannying. “I realized that I had walked away from work that actually aligned with who I was,” she says, “someone who’s very nurturing and personable and intuitive and service based.”
The switch has allowed her to more than double her salary in four years.
O’Hagan refused to disclose her current salary citing a non-disclosure agreement, but confirmed that it is between $150,000 to $250,000. Even at the low end, that means a salary of more than ₹1.3 crore a year.
The billionaire boom
In 2000, Forbes listed 322 billionaires worldwide; today, there are over 3,000. At the same time, what a recent UBS report calls “the rise of the everyday millionaire” shows that the number of people with $1–$5 million in investable assets has quadrupled over the past 25 years, reaching 52 million.
As the ranks of the ultra-rich have grown, so has the demand for staff to manage their mansions, private jets, and yachts.
Meanwhile, many in Gen Z are increasingly disillusioned with traditional corporate life.
O’Hagan’s career shift isn’t unique. A 2025 Deloitte survey found that only 6% of Gen Zers aim for leadership positions, with some even deliberately avoiding managerial roles—a trend called “conscious unbossing”—to prioritise work-life balance. At the same time, they expect far higher earnings than older generations; a recent Empower survey found that Gen Z defines financial success as a salary of nearly $600,000, around six times what Baby Boomers considered enough. Even so, many postgraduates are struggling to find work, as US hiring slows and AI increasingly shapes corporate strategies.
