What's the best birthday present you've ever received? For my 25th birthday, my parents gave me a Tag Heuer watch that I still wear daily. I actually bought the domain name "celebnetworth.com" on the morning of my 27th birthday. That present turned out pretty awesome. What about you? Maybe some people out there got a new car on their 16th birthday? Or some cold hard cash the day you turned 18? Who knows. What I do know is that none of us have ever had as good of a birthday present as the one Lynsi Snyder just got.
Lynsi Snyder turned 35 years old this morning. By crossing the 35th birthday milestone today, Lynsi just inherited 97% of the West Coast fast food restaurant chain In-N-Out Burger.
At it's most recent valuation, In-N-Out was worth $1.3 billion. That means Lynsi technically just inherited a $1.26 billion paper fortune. Some have pegged the value of In-N-Out at as much as $3 billion which would mean she is worth $2.91 billion.
Lynsi's path to billionaire status is complicated.
In-N-Out was founded in 1948 by Harry and Esther Snyder in Baldwin Park, California. They were the first drive-through fast food restaurant that enabled customers to place their orders via two-way speakers. Throughout the 50s and 60s, In-N-Out was a small local burger chain with only 18 locations.
In 1976, founder Harry Snyder died at the age of 67 and left control of the company with his 24 year old first born son Rich. Rich spent the next twenty years expanding the chain throughout the West Coast. He increased the number of locations from 18 to 90 before he died in a plane crash in 1993. After Rich's death, the company passed to Rich's younger brother Harry Guy Snyder, commonly known as Guy.
Guy Snyder was Lynsi's dad.
Guy Snyder continued to expand the company aggressively into Arizona, Nevada, Utah and Texas. He would eventually grow the company from 90 locations to 140 before he died in 1999 of an accidental prescription drug overdose when she was just 17 years old. At this point, Esther Snyder, the matriarch of the family, re-took the reigns of In-N-Out until her death in 2006 which left 24 year old Lynsi as the sole heir. She was not yet ready to be the president of a major fast food corporation so her brother-in-law, Mark Taylor, took control of the day-to-day operations through 2010.
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According to the terms of Esther's will, Lynsi would inherit 50% of In-N-Out on her 30th birthday, May 5, 2012 then receive another 47% on her 35th birthday, May 5, 2017. AKA, today.
Upon inheriting 97% of the company, Lynsi now has the full control of the burger empire. She now has the option to sell the chain entirely, expand it further or do nothing at all.
Today there are 313 In-N-Out locations. The company generates north of $700 million per year in revenue.
Lynsi has been married three times. Once to Richard Martinez, with whom she shares two children. Before Richard she was briefly married to her high school sweetheart Jeremiah Seawell. Today Lynsi is married to a contractor named Val Torres Jr. They are passionate about drag racing and compete competitively.
They live with her children and Val's daughters from an earlier marriage, in a palatial $17.4 million mansion in Bradbury, California which she bought from former baseball player Adrian Beltre. The house is 16,600 square feet and has seven bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, batting cage, tennis court, basketball court and much much more.
So there you have it! I hope someday you have a birthday present that is awesome as the one Lynsi just received!
