FORTUNE Magazine — MAMAS, Willie Nelson is right: Don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys -- not if you want them to be rich. Better by far to be one of the crowd Willie calls ''doctors and lawyers and such. A Wall Street merger-and- acquisition specialist can pull down twice as much, even if he's honest; if he becomes a partner in the firm he can retire at All of the above would comfortably qualify for membership in what FORTUNE defines in the previous story as the working rich.

But Willie should sing another verse about the men and women who start their own companies.

Mamas, if you want your babies to become truly rich, raise them to be entrepreneurs. As it was in the beginning of the industrial age, so it remains. The great fortunes of the last century were built by men who created products and enterprises where none had been. Today corporate raiders are sucking up huge sums by threatening, and sometimes carrying out their threats, to dismantle companies others built. But their winnings are but a shadow of the riches created by men like Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores, and H.

Ross Perot, who started Electronic Data Systems. Most of those who have amassed similar wealth by ways other than inventing new corporations are ace stock pickers and real estate moguls. Close behind Buffett are men like Samuel LeFrak, the country's largest builder of middle-income apartments; Edward DeBartolo, the biggest shopping mall developer; and Donald Trump, the flashy developer and casino operator.

Trump and other real estate fat cats are also testimony to the fact that money begets money: They started the race a lap ahead using capital -- and expertise -- inherited from dear old dad.

But even tyros in hot markets like ; Manhattan can take a roll in the dough. Shapiro started in as what real estate types call a flipper -- not a pinball wizard or brainy sea mammal, but a speculator who buys apartments and ''flips'' them for huge profits.

Compared with some baby tycoons of high tech, Shapiro is an underachiever. Despite the fact that most start-ups fail within the first few years, the spectacle of so many successes in the electronics industry in the late Seventies and early Eighties has given new glamour to entrepreneurs.

William Henry Gates III, chairman of Microsoft, the software company, is among the richest. But with the semiconductor industry in intensive care see Competition and the computer business ailing, are any high-tech fortunes left to be made? Prospective backers of embryonic companies are still plentiful. Though no one is in a hurry to seed a new chip company, the venturers are still pouring money into computer hardware and software start- ups, biomedical engineering companies, and new telecommunications firms.

These days, however, the high-tech money men are targeting vertically integrated companies that offer a range of different products to the same narrow market. He was recruited to run CodeSmith by two co-founders, R.

Greg Lynott and Bill Paseman, who worked with him at Daisy. What if you have the entrepreneurial itch, but don't know a semiconductor from a semicolon?

While all those electronics wizards were inventing out in the proverbial garage, plenty of other men and women were making fortunes in low-tech businesses like retailing. The money piled up at a more leisurely pace, but pile it did.

He is the founder of Reebok International, the company that made the aerobic shoe de rigueur for yuppettes. And don't forget tough but tender Frank Perdue, 66, who made a sizable fortune hawking chicken.

HIRED HANDS can also make it big if they get to the top of a major corporation. But the ability to accumulate drops off steeply down the ladder as salaries and other rewards shrink from lavish to just lush.

Rich, but probably too little to keep the third generation in style. Webb Bassick IV, a Hewitt partner: And your self-esteem may be in a nose dive. Your Harvard MBA cost: You have just orchestrated the introduction of a new product that is grossing your company millions. You have been lavished with bonuses, a nice new company car, and choruses of kudos. Yet you're feeling positively poverty-stricken. What are you doing buried in this corporate bog? What you are doing is trading reward for security.

As any gambler or novice investor can tell you, you can't win big unless you take big risks. The man who starts Little Acorn Inc.

A doctor called his Stockbroker During A Delivery. It Will Cost Him $ Million. – Vessel News

He is more likely to fail than any other variety of businessman. In addition, because he all but kisses daylight goodbye as he struggles to make Little Acorn grow, the entrepreneur faces what L. John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, calls ''a tremendous personal casualty rate.

You, by contrast, are leading a relatively easy, worry-free life, but considerably less worry-free than in years past. The new reality of corporate restructuring has helped make small, emerging companies more appealing to middle managers, who usually have to take a pay cut in exchange for a piece of the action. Meyer, a managing director of Russell Reynolds Associates, the headhunting firm.

One year-old who joined a small West Coast company developed heart trouble as soon as he started the new job. In August , after 19 years with the company, he quit and headed west. Bauman's father thought he was nuts. He rode to business appointments in a chauffeur-driven car complete with cellular phone. And he had an ''executive staff'' of five who scheduled his time, worked out budgets, and, as Bauman says, ''catered to my needs.

In the meantime, he says, ''I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my life. Both varieties of broker can do nicely. Ernest Martin, 37, a broker for A. The torrid demand for MBA degrees has even propelled some business school professors into the ranks of the working rich.

With students plentiful and talented teachers scarce, the salaries of professors have climbed to surprising heights. Industrious profs can double or triple that. The really big money, however, comes from writing undergraduate textbooks. If none of these ways of getting rich fit your taste or talents, don't give up entirely. A few remote possibilities remain.

Which makes more money a year, a Stock Broker or a Doctor?? | Yahoo Answers

If you weren't born rich, you still might get lucky. A California furniture deliveryman named Jose Caballero did. Caballero, however, was no ordinary winner. When the press fell upon him to get the requisite story about his plans for the loot, Caballero let it slip that he had entered the U. The Immigration and Naturalization Service shipped him back to Mexico, but the state of California let him keep the money. Nobody had thought to make it illegal for illegal aliens to win.

Caballero, who used some of his winnings to buy a papaya ranch, became famous as el mojado y millonario, the wetback millionaire. And then there is crime, which may or may not pay, depending on the crime -- and the criminal. Cooper parachuted off Northwest Airlines Flight No. Cooper could be in the twilight zone, along with Jimmy Hoffa and lots of stray socks, but he just as likely is living the life of Vesco in some banana republic.

Ivan Boesky, on the other hand, looked pretty grim in his last public appearance. His crime certainly appears to have paid: According to Wall Street rumors, Boesky may have many millions left, though he could lose them in civil suits by angry investors and corporations. By contrast, Martin Siegel, the ex- Kidder Peabody investment banker who sold secrets to Boesky, gambled away his career for a pittance.

Pick the right crime in this land of opportunity and you could soon be swinging on a star. Barrows has been offered acting roles but turned them down. If you are still worried that fate has consigned you to a life of mere affluence, put aside the dejection long enough to consider the following.

Sure, there are plenty of lawyers out there making more money than you, but you know what Shakespeare said about lawyers. Doctors are crowding each other in big cities, and dentists -- thanks to the wonders of fluoride -- worry about where the next cavity is coming from. The new tax law wipes out most real estate shelters. That makes it hard for all but the smartest pros to profit, and puts fresh burdens on the working rich.

Consider also that most successful entrepreneurs didn't start out as fortune seekers; they were pursuing visions, not the almighty buck. A striking number of wealthy entrepreneurs interviewed for these articles had the same advice on how to get rich. As one put it, ''Do what you like and the money will come. Roman Weil probably could have earned even more as a partner in a large accounting firm, but he likes to teach. And our cowboy has the sun on his face and the great outdoors at his feet.

Neither fellow can claim the lifestyle of a multimillionaire, but both are probably just as happy. Would you believe almost as happy? WHY IT'S SO GREAT TO BE C. Few people are as sure to ascend to the status of truly rich as the chief executives of major corporations. As a rule, the bigger the company, the bigger the boss's compensation -- so big that it should be a snap for C.

Some, like Steve Ross of Warner, could rack up several times that see Corporate Performance. Not that he needs to do much investing on his own. The head honcho's real riches come from the stock options and other stock-related incentives that have become a standard part of executive compensation.

If the company has a special retirement plan for key executives, as many do, the C. The total at the end of ten years: HOW THE WEALTHY GET THAT WAY Doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and corporate officers are becoming plain rich these days, but the really big money goes to chief executives and company founders. By Monci Jo Williams REPORTER ASSOCIATE Susan Caminiti April 13, FORTUNE Magazine — MAMAS, Willie Nelson is right: