When a child is exposed to the bad habits of their parents, they tend to pick up those habits in their development.  Take Glitterdust, for example, she'd been working hard and making money since a very young age.  Her parents were foreigners from a land far away, one that provided little in the way of food or opportunity, so they moved their six year old daughter and themselves out to Equestria.  Being foreigners, the family had to work as hard as they physically could to make their ends meet, often surviving on one bit a day between the three of them.  The values of hard work and sacrifice quickly set into Glitterdust, prompting her to fit right into the society that her family had brought her to.  She had a job before she turned ten, she finished all of her homework the instant she got home, and she spent her off time reading equestrian books with the hopes of learning to fit in, so not a single hour in the day was wasted.  She became intelligent, compassionate, and very well educated, which meshed extremely well with a hardworking attitude and the willingness to apply oneself fully to even the most menial tasks.  Anypony that met her as she was growing up knew that she would go far in her life.

It didn't take her very long to do so, either.  By the time she graduated High School, Glitterdust was already a senior employee at the ore processing office that she worked for.  Having gone to work with the mines with her family was something that Glitterdust had gotten very used to, so she stuck with the job as she grew, worked her way up until finally she became management material.  Even as a foreigner, with her perfect, bilingual nature Glitterdust became a fantastic foremare, taking over the very first leadership position that her family had had since before their recorded history.  Glitterdust brought her impressive attitude to the workplace even as a leader, often inspiring the best in her workers, and making sure that each and every one was at optimum efficiency.  She quickly became selective, judgmental, and of course, focused entirely on one thing: Money.  

Glitterdust's family had always focused on money.  They loved acquiring it, they loved hording it, keeping it safe, and using it when necessary.  They loved being able to say they had more of it than others, and they loved being able to keep on making it.  In her country only the powerful had money, so money literally translated to power. Power meant the respect of many and honor for every generation that continued to hold that power, and it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that power and money had so recently become synonymous.

The family worked the mines as long as they could remember, with that being the most reliable way to make a respectable living that any could find, and so they even named Glitterdust after the very first time they learned how to describe gold in Equestrian common.  They wanted their daughter to do great things, to which she lived up as an agent of fate.  She saved every single bit that she earned, from an early age all the way into adulthood.  Not a single gold piece ever slipped between her hooves without her knowledge of it, and she had reflexes and intuition quick enough to seal any cracks before they became holes.  Her accounts were airtight and always growing, and her investments were picked so carefully that they always granted record-holding returns.  The term "rich" didn't hold a candle to her wealth.  She pulled the strings that Filthy Rich and his entire corporation danced from, and Celestia even took out a loan from her in preparation for the changeling invasion; just to "make sure all debts remained domestic in a time of crisis," so she said.

Glitterdust became reliant on her money flow, addicted almost, and it grew so out of control that she even fired secretaries over misfiles that may have hindered progress reports.  The ponies directly in her employ needed to be money-minded machines, with only enough conscious thought to pick out the best long-term investments the very instant they appeared.  If she could get away with it, some theorize that she would have had hooves chopped off if she found out that sompony had cost her money on a return.

As she got on in years, Glitterdust's beautiful blonde mane and off-white coat began to fade toward gray.  Her amber eyes, not dulled by age but definitely softened, never lost their quickness as she scanned over her finances.  She had accumulated a dragon's horde over her lifetime, yet made few friends, and realized that she would need an assistant if she were to keep herself up at her optimum efficiency.  Who she was looking for was a cross between a personal secretary and an accountant, full time, to be by her side and take orders perfectly.  

Working as Glitterdust's protégé was something that a great number of ponies (quite literally) chomped at the bit for, but it certainly didn't take the frugal pony very long before she narrowed down the competition to only two.  The remaining ponies were a black mare with bright yellow eyes and a white mane, and a purple stallion with a blue mane and green eyes.  Both were somewhat of an oddity, and both were definitely known for their efficiency and coldness in making financial decisions, so they both appeared to be perfect.  What really set them apart, however, were their social records.  The stallion had performed several hours worth of volunteer time each week of his life, as well as having worked in a social field in nearly every part of his career.  He was a caring, generous pony who, if he wasn't so obscured by his own humility and refusal to announce large donations, would have been famous for his kindness.  Maggie, the black mare, didn't have a single outstanding mark, however, in either a good nor bad way present on any of her known records.

When Glitterdust found out the stallion's agenda, id est to convince her to perform charity work with her abundant wealth, she simply fired him and hired Maggie full time, taking the black pegasus under her own metaphorical wing and teaching her the trade.  Maggie did great work, being an absolute natural at every single project that Glitterdust gave her.  The old pony finally found someone to pass her fortune onto after she died.  Glitterdust had absolutely no one in her life that was able to tolerate her attitude long enough to give her children, and she certainly didn't have a long lived set of parents or siblings.  Most of them died long before she did due to the hazardous and often toxic work being done down in the mines, so she was left completely alone on the world, seeking only somepony enough like herself to leave her wealth with in good faith.  With nopony else but her student, it was obvious where the money would have to go, and Glitterdust knew that her time was coming.  The old woman never really accepted her mortality, but she was conscious of it.  Often times she chose to simply live each day frivolously, clinging onto her money with just as much of a stingy nature as she had always had, and once she could even be caught saying that if death came for her she'd just pay for another lifetime.  

Death, however, did come for her eventually.  She died peacefully in her bed, with a small pouch sitting next to her along with a revised will and a scrap of paper.  Maggie walked into the room and found her this way; the scrap of paper read as follows.

Dear Maggie,

You've been so much more to me these past few months than just an assistant.  I cannot stress how close we've become, nor could I put it into words even if I had the skill.  You were like my daughter, and you're the only pony I can think of that deserves to be my heir.  I know you'll be wise with the money I'm leaving you, so I've placed it into an account that belongs to you now.  I also want you to take this pouch and keep it to yourself; it contains six bits, which represents a week's pay back when I was a child.  My very first week of work, the foundation upon which I built my entire life, resides there, so keep it safe for me.

~Glitterdust.

Glitterdust's death sparked a great deal of change in the way many ponies did business.  Since a large source of monetary loans and stability had just disappeared, and with nopony alive left in her will (that anyone could track down), the fortune was spread around Equestria, put to use by Celestia for public service projects, charities, and a great deal of other programs that desperately needed some private funding, overall increasing the quality of life in the nation for everyone.  Only one pony showed up to Glitterdust's funeral, however, and she kept her face veiled the entire time.  She was buried on a Saturday, and all the enemies that she had made had better things to do than to watch her be buried.  She only had the one mysterious friend, and that friend remained anonymous forevermore.