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I Stop Celebrities from Blowing Their Money
- Zaheer 8y agoMildly interesting article but mostly reads like an advertisement. Great content marketing piece though!
- bredren 8y agoYes, the tone is well done. Sort of a “let me give this to you straight” message. Sort of subtweety in referencing real clients.
- charmides 8y agoThe short, simple sentences and the unassuming vocabulary made it feel like an ESL piece for college students. I also found it moderately interesting, but it really could have benefited from a more personal touch (why and how did she get into this business?) and longer, more engaging anecdotes.
- zer00eyz 8y agoA long time ago, in a job (thankfully) far far away I had to have a fair bit of interaction with famous people. Some of them are crazy - one of the artists (now dead) demanded "more goat heads" on his project. This was an actual client request. I still do take pride in getting one of the most difficult clients in the roster to admit we did a "good job". Famous people can be weird, and some do really exist in their own special bubble.
- raverbashing 8y agoTheir recklessness is usually what makes them "good" (in the sense of public appealing) artists. There are exceptions, surely. It makes sense that they behave this way, but it is certainly annoying for those who have to deal directly with this.
- elgenie 8y agoWealth/power/fame don't change who people are, they just allow them to express it unconstrained. For fame and fortune as an artist, though, the chances of "making it" are so remote that the proportion of sober and rational people who choose to take the first steps down that path has to be rather low, and that of the ones that just keep going down the path even lower.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- gadders 8y agoI had a friend who worked as a concierge for an ultra-rich family, and didn't like the toll it took on his personality. He said "The attitude is contagious, but sadly the money isn't."
- AllegedAlec 8y agoReminds me of Kevin Smith's Prince story [1]. 1: https://speakola.com/arts/kevin-smith-on-prince-2002 https://speakola.com/arts/kevin-smith-on-prince-2002
- omarchowdhury 8y agoThe actor that "died suddenly" sounds like it might have been Anton Yelchin.
- nickpsecurity 8y agoHe did a great job in Odd Thomas. That movie got too little attention. I say that not even knowing about the book. Interesting enough, one person who watched it with me yawning or nearly falling asleep during most of it was at edge of couch during last scenes. They totally flipped its style on audience. I'll remember him that way in a movie where he played a great character dedicated to entertaining and protecting the rest. :)
- dlhavema 8y agoThats what i was thinking.. super sad.
- catsmat837 8y ago"I felt like I had failed him, or could have done more." -- This sounds like the actor died as a result of a wrong choice, not from a freak car accident.
- omarchowdhury 8y agoMaybe she feels like she could have researched a better car for him? The parents did sue the car manufacturer after all. Just speculating.
- myroon5 8y ago"I charge a 5 percent commission rate, which is pretty standard" 5 percent of what?
- nixgeek 8y agoI presume it’s their income, or assets under management. Pretty sweet deal if so compared to the 2-and-20 a lot of investment managers make.
- scurvy 8y agoAUM
- wrich5011 8y ago2 and 20 is what premier hedge funds make (many charge less nowadays). 1% is a standard financial advisor fee.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> 2 and 20 is what premier hedge funds make (many charge less nowadays). 1% is a standard financial advisor fee. Hedge fund managers and financial advisors meet with their LPs/clients from time to time. They don’t “get all of [their] clients’ mail — bills, fan mail, business-related mail, everything” nor “oversee payments for their mortgages, phone, rent, utilities, and all the little things that keep their lives going and the lights on.”
- sincerely 8y agoWhat is "2-and-20" ?
- craftyguy 8y agoYea that's kind of key. 5% of total income for financial advising seems a bit steep, BUT if they're a high risk of spending it all on hookers and blackjack then maybe it's best for them? I'd rather see 5% go towards financial education in schools, but hey, then this person would be out of a job.
- godot 8y agoThought this bit was interesting: "... actors, recording artists, producers, writers, and athletes with personal net worths ranging from $1 million to $50 million..." I kind of feel bad for the low end of her clients whose net worth is only $1 million. Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money. But it also doesn't go that far nowadays, especially if you live in SF Bay area (though most of her clients are probably in the LA area; slightly better but not by much). You can't even afford a decent house with cash for that amount of money. I feel bad for the client who has $1m but thinks he/she has a lot of money, and needs to pay a financial adviser (5% even!) to manage it for him/her. In this day and age and in California, if you have $1m, you'd better be working hard still and save up for retirement.
- charmides 8y agoI would guess that those clients are young and with high income, so their net worth may not be that meaningful yet. Otherwise, they would be well-advised to fire their financial manager, take their million dollars and live somewhere less expensive.
- rurban 8y agoThat does not work, because you are out of work then. Nobody will meet you or call you out of the blue.
- charmides 8y agoThat depends on your age and what you do for a living.
- caseysoftware 8y agoSince they're "actors, recording artists, producers, writers, and athletes" they're often in LA, NYC, and a handful of other places that are expensive to live. They usually have to be near their projects, sets, studio, or team for a significant part of the year. We're not talking about remote software developers or launching a new startup here.
- holman 8y agoIf any of this is at all interesting to you, I'd recommend checking out the very excellent ESPN documentary "Broke": http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke ESPN's 30 for 30 docs are really great, even if you're not particularly huge into sports. Broke is one of my favorites (after a "The Two Escobars"). It goes into a lot of detail about how ill-prepared many professional athletes are for the lifestyle, how they overestimate their net worth and their projected career duration, and digs into all of the different pitfalls new signees might face as they enter sport. It's easy to blow it off and say "whatever, they're all soft, tattooed millionaires anyway", but there's a lot of heartbreaking instances where people did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt. Anyway, worth a viewing.
- acchow 8y agoCan you give some examples of "did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt."?
- TwiztidK 8y agoSo, doing the "right thing" might not be the way to phrase it, but there are many athletes who lived within their means themselves and were taken advantage of by people they trusted. A recent example of the is Jack Johnson [1], whose parent's spent all of his money and left him $10M in debt. [1]: https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-and-left-him-mill-1663583325 https://deadspin.com/how-jack-johnsons-parents-screwed-him-a...
- iamatworknow 8y agoTim Duncan's another example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financial-adviser-sentenced-to-four-years-for-bilking-nbas-tim-duncan-idUSKBN19J2PZ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nba-duncan-adviser/financ...
- meestaahjoshee 8y agohe got screwed over but he's far from bankrupt.
- wrich5011 8y agoFIVE PERCENT FEES? After inflation that basically brings your ROI from holding risky equities down to savings account rates. She gets paid better than the world’s most successful hedge funds to be a glorified baby sitter to grownups? I picked the wrong career.
- simonbarker87 8y agoI imagine that’s the fee her firm takes, assuming she has some employees, a snazzy office etc there will be overheads out of that - but yeah, accountants do well.
- elgenie 8y agoThe main services she mentions aren't accounting. They're more financial advisor/personal assistant/psychologist/business manager/property manager.
- rahimnathwani 8y agoProbably 5% of income, not assets. But even if it's of assets, she's not just managing money. A hedge fund manager isn't going to help choose your drapes, at least not within the management fee.
- 2muchcoffeeman 8y agoSeems reasonable considering the amount of babysitting they do. Managing assets and making sure certain bills get paid on time seems reasonable. But having to talk them out of impulse buys they may not be able to afford sounds terrible. It’s like these stars are not fully functioning human beings.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> It’s like these stars are not fully functioning human beings Or that the personalities that (a) go into low-probability high-payoff careers like entertainment and (b) do well in entertainment (through further selection or the perso al transformations necessary to succeed in Hollywood or the NFL) are also bad at saying no to competitive luxuries and short-term impulses.
- tempestn 8y agoReminded me immediately of Ballers, and now I see the third season was released—thanks!
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- iamtew 8y agoThe cookie wall won't let me continue without agreeing to cookies. I can reject them in the Cookie Policy, but that too is protected behind the cookie wall. Obviously, this doesn't comply with the GDPR, and makes the site unreadable for some.
- jgtrosh 8y agoThese wall designs are really surprising; I would expect bad designs to come from difficulty of implementing data collection management, not the wall UX. Just imagine you're a user seeing this, do you not feel antagonized?
- krageon 8y agoThey're not surprising if you assume the ground state for every company that does not fear the teeth that come with this legislation is malice. They're doing the bare minimum they need to so they can pretend to think they have complied if anyone knocks on their door, while still trampling all over everyone's rights.
- zeta0134 8y agoSince the data collection management would traditionally be stored as a cookie... It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Without tracking, how do you track that consent was revoked? The cookie law bugs me because it's feels like it's being applied in completely the wrong place. Isn't the browser perfectly capable of restricting third party cookies and presenting the necessary legal warnings?
- elgenie 8y agoThe US does a terrible job of inculcating basic financial literacy in the populace. The only way that paying someone 5% of assets / income just to avoid ruination can be a sound investment is if the person is utterly clueless about how money in general, and compound interest in particular, works.
- marvin 8y agoThat jumped out at me too, 5% for these incomes is an absurd number. Albeit worth it if the person is completely clueless.
- lagadu 8y agoFrom reading the article these aren't just accountants or financial managers: they're on call 24/7 and ready to handhold you through everything and seem to be willing to manage every aspect of your life that you throw at them (love life included, like mentioned in the article). Seems like it's a ton of work.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Retric 8y agoDepends on how much work these people put in. If they are going over every contract including insurance etc it would be an extremely valuable service. On to of that they are sorting all their mail, doing bill payments etc. 'I was at his house every single day, helping to oversee contractors, pick out windows, pick out drapes.'
- walshemj 8y agoI think she also meant but didn't say stopped contractors ripping her client off. Charging for Italian Marble but actually using crap materials or billing for more days worked than they did would be a couple of good examples.
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- Animats 8y agoA lot of people who are making $300K a year in Silicon Valley are going to be in that situation around age 50.
- ainiriand 8y agoThat can be accurate, but keep in mind that the people ins Silicon Valley are there using the brain and therefore more aware of the financials of their lives. Artists and sportists on the other hand can be a bit more detached from how much they make. I am not saying that this happens in 100% of the cases but there is a correlation.
- sh4z 8y agoI kind of agree with your sentiment but you make it sound a bit like artists don't use their brain, or are outright stupid - which I don't think you meant and I don't think is true.
- ainiriand 8y agoI am not responsible of how it sounds to you. But you are free to think that I have directed an insult to millions of people out there, of course.
- tom_ 8y agoWell, it goes both ways. No shortage of tech worker manchildren who despite their financial situation still have no idea how to behave in a way that will encourage people to like them.
- jerf 8y agoThere's going to be a lot of difference in practice between accumulating a lot of money over the course of decades until you're in a pretty good place in your 50s, and having all of that dumped on you in one fell swoop when you're 19. Among the things that a SV engineer who manages that has to think about is if they have children, what happens when they die. It's nice to pass some things on to your children, but at the same time, plopping a million dollars in assets down on your kid all at once may not be doing them favors. Best to look at your options. (I'm not going into it here just because it's really more than fits into an HN message, nor should you take the advice from me; I'm aware that there are options.)
- Theodores 8y agoIs Mick Jagger primarily a musician or a businessman? Rock and roll has always been a business - 'the music business' - and usually those that succeed have an excellent business partner that looks after the books. You would be surprised at the property and stock portfolios of the truly successful 'musicians'. Even John Lennon was a 'businessman'. Although he did put peace and love first and foremost he made sure those Russians paid him in furs when he sang a few ditties there. The same goes in the 'art business'. Is Damien Hirst an artist or a businessman, first and foremost? Again, an excellent business partner takes care of business for him whilst the army of interns/students/wannabees do the hard work of assembling the dead animals into 'art' (for the status-anxiety celebrities to buy). So-called 'celebrities' have to be smart otherwise they end up with accountants skimming off '5%' of their earnings.
- smadge 8y ago“One thing that’s surprisingly inexpensive for a lot of our clients is health insurance. The insurance policy for members of SAG-AFTRA is amazing. For the money, it is the best health insurance out there. It’s only about $400 per quarter for an individual, so you’re looking at about $1,200 or $1,500 a year for the best PPO coverage in the country. It travels with you everywhere, and you have access to emergency care facilities and 24/7 mental-health care. It’s great. I wish I could get it.” For me, this is the most surprising quote from the article. It really shows how us Plebians are ground into dust by the healthcare industry.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> It really shows how us Plebians are ground into dust by the healthcare industry Or the benefits of collective bargaining, even in limited context like procuring healthcare.
- carlmr 8y agoThis is one of things I always wonder about. Libertarians and other free-market enthusiasts should actually be for collective bargaining and unions. Because in an actual free market it's legal to form unions, just like it's legal to form a corporation. Collective bargaining is a feature of a free market. If you don't like the idea of unions and collective bargaining, you don't like free markets.
- rorykoehler 8y agoActual libertarians rather than the confused type so popular in the US are all for it. Look at anarcho-syndacilists for example
- RA_Fisher 8y agoYep. Though we're a rare breed I'll admit, I'm an American libertarian and I'm supportive of unions and collective bargaining. I have a caveat in that I don't support laws that interfere with such bargaining or artificially increase one party's market power (closed shop laws). In the US this identifies me as being "right to work" which is often seen as anti-union. For example I don't support the UAW due to their long history of using the state to increase their market power.
- amelius 8y agoI wish there was a service like this for people with an average income. There are lots of artists out there who are in this category, and who could use such a service. Also, the typical "mad scientist" probably doesn't care much for personal finance, so they could benefit as well. And lots of other people.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago> I wish there was a service like this for people with an average income I pay my accountant roughly $1,000 a year to, once a quarter, look over my credit card and bank statements with me and talk about how much I should be contributing to which accounts and where I may be spending too much. (This is preferable, for me, to a financial advisor because I like to pick my own investments.)
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- hyperpape 8y agoI can't find the story, but several years ago, an NBA player bought a bunch of fast food franchises, and there was collective head-scratching about why he'd do that. Matthew Yglesias pointed out that it was brilliant: the value of the franchises was that they were illiquid, so that he had a backstop against overspending or family members asking for money. About that last point: for those of us who come from middle class backgrounds, it's easy to think "just be reasonable about what you give people". It's a much harder proposition if your entire family has been struggling your entire life--especially if they made sacrifices for your dream (I think John Wall's mom once let the lights get cut off to pay for something basketball related for him).
- petecooper 8y agoJunior Bridgeman, most likely: https://www.themaven.net/blackwealthchannel/investing/how-a-former-nba-player-turned-350-000-into-400-million-FyRtXUpz5E6XFmVi6NhedA/ https://www.themaven.net/blackwealthchannel/investing/how-a-...
- hyperpape 8y agoI found it. It was Caron Butler. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/30/why_burger_king_franchises_are_a_smart_investment_for_caron_butler.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/01/30/why_burger_ki... Bridgeman's story is really impressive, but is the opposite of the one Yglesias was proposing about Butler.
- dalbasal 8y agoOn that last point... an analogy When the microfinance exuberance started dying back about 5 years ago, I heard the following interpretation of micro-credit: Poor rural people need credit because they can't save. They can't save because they owe their neighbours a moral debt. Jennifer really needs $50 to pay her kid's dentist bill. She looked after your grandmother, when she was sick and you were away. You owe her (and love her, you're friends). If you have $50 saved, you will get requests that cannot be refused. Everyone is broke and everyone owes eachother favours. Debt is the only way of getting a lump sum. The critic concluded that saving with a (big) negative interest rate is a bitter pill, but better than nothing. Fast food franchises sound like a great idea, if they aren't too failure prone. You lock up illiquid assets. You can give family members jobs, if necessary/appropriate. The bad idea side effects of this is that businesses can potentially lose money as well as value. The spanner in any such system will always be debt. You can lock up all your assets but if you have assets to your name, you can get credit and spend those assets regardless.
- ambicapter 8y ago> It is easy to become enmeshed in clients’ lives. I had one client who was young and impressionable and became very successful very quickly, and he was getting pulled in different directions by the people around him. He and I clicked and became very close. He bought a house and was away a lot, so I was at his house every single day, helping to oversee contractors, pick out windows, pick out drapes. I was a big part of his life. He died suddenly, and it crushed me. I felt like I had failed him, or could have done more. Pure speculation, but Anton Yelchin?
- dljsjr 8y agoContextually I wouldn't think so, his death was an accident caused by what ended up being deemed really poor design of the shift interface of his vehicle; the guilt implication from the author sounds more like maybe drugs or falling in with the wrong crowd or something.
- consumethreads 8y ago"Some times my clients call me and ask 'What is my social security number'" hollywood idiots these must be models and actors
- motohagiography 8y agoSo she's a family office for single people. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_office https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_office) The Varian Rule, which is about how the future resembles how the rich live today, the middle and poorer classes will have tomorrow, may apply here. Multi-family offices for middle net worth individuals seem like a plausible future. I can't seem to convince my lawyer and accountant friends that this is a viable service because (I think) they are basically not entrepreneurial, and big firms don't offer it because they are already fighting and maintaining position in the HNWI market. A one-stop shop that handles everything from taxes, to parking tickets, legal advice, to investments, insurance, and even medical, could be worth it for a lot of people. What makes it viable now is that families with the kind of money worth professional management are still actually working for it each day, that is, still making this kind of money on their labor instead of returns on capital, so they have the income (albeit less in assets), but not the time to manage it properly. I would look forward to using such a service...one day. :)
- Invictus0 8y agoLots of these services are being created piecemeal. Professional management works for these people because the clients are overwhelmed and don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to budget X million dollars for 4 years. Most average people think that they do know what they're doing. They have a few hundred in the bank, they're paycheck is the same and comes every 2 weeks, and they know the price and value of the things they need. They don't suffer from the illusion that they can buy jetskis on a whim without bankrupting themselves.
- motohagiography 8y agoArguably, that Lamborghini is even a thing suggests otherwise. There is tons of new and younger money out there that could be deployed to build real lasting foundations for families, at least enough for grandchildren to have private school and college taken care of.
- hyperpape 8y agoI shudder to think about how much time it takes to juggle all the different financial things I deal with, and how sub-optimal they are because it's too much of a pain to coordinate. Lovely example: I have autopay for all my recurring expenses except my water bill. Through some mixture of losing some information and the shittiness of their website, I can't get a login to set up autopay. So each month, I spend a few minutes on the phone to pay--it doesn't require authentication to pay over the phone, but it requires authentication to pay over the web.
- troydavis 8y agoHere’s a detailed view of the outcome she’s trying to prevent: https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/johnny-depp-lawsuit-marriage-w521671 https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/johnny-depp-law... > It's estimated that Depp has made $650 million on films that netted $3.6 billion. Almost all of it is gone.