5 ms·

Wanted: Buyers for a 1% stake in all my future income

I'm a software developer in the UK, got >$1M to my name, and am 29 and unmarried. I'm looking for a mentor, and would like to reward the right mentor with a 1% stake in all my future income. If you mentor me well, you will earn lots. If I fail, you earn nothing. If you no longer want to be a mentor, you can pass it on to someone else. In a real company, you get voting rights, and the ability to direct how it's run. When mentoring me, you get no say whatsoever - but it will be in both of our best interests to work together. To pick the best mentor, I propose an auction. How much would you pay for this right? (There is a reserve price, offers also accepted for a 0.1% stake or a 0.01% stake)

londons_explore 7y ago
$20. While I'm sure you'll make more income than that even this week, theres no way I'll be able to ensure you pay up.
lun4r 7y ago
My usual rate is around 245 EUR / hour. Assuming we'd do at least one call of an hour every second week you'd have to be earning 637K a year before I got my hours fully paid..
- SellingMyself 7y ago
  Arguing against myself here... But: I need to earn much more than 637K per year to pay for your hours. Thats because if you were to decide to stop the 1:1 sessions, you'd still get paid the 1% of income. So the real question you should be asking is, 'If I invest 1 hour into mentoring this guy, will he earn EUR 24,500 extra in the rest of his life?' And that EUR 24,500 should be in todays money, so with a discount rate of ~5% annually for future earnings. So over a 40 year working life, that works out to EUR 77,689 extra. Quite a lot to earn for every 1 hour consultation!
gaspoweredcat 7y ago
what are you looking for in a mentor? a fellow developer, a manager, a promoter? also how will this work? are you basically thinking of a similar thing to BowieBonds?
- SellingMyself 7y ago
  > what are you looking for in a mentor? a fellow developer, a manager, a promoter? I don't know - if I knew what I needed to do, I wouldn't be asking for advice. I'm hoping that's what an auction can decide. Whoever thinks they can benefit me the most would offer the highest price.
- SellingMyself 7y ago
  > are you basically thinking of a similar thing to BowieBonds? I wasn't aware of them before, but yes. I guess I could publish tax returns each year, and then pay the mentor(s) their percentage of total income on a monthly or annual basis.
shinryuu 7y ago
This is fairly relevant. https://kmikeym.com/ https://kmikeym.com/ He started to trade himself as public person. The stockholders don't really get any monetary value from it. Though if the stock rise they can cash out.
- boltzmannbrain 7y ago
  How is there no About page?
natalyarostova 7y ago
You misunderstand why people enjoy mentoring. The absolute best mentors don't want money, they want someone that is receptive to their advice, and who they can watch grow. Relevant link: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136
bjourne 7y ago
I highly doubt your proposed contract would be legally binding. I don't think you can sign away 1% of your total (pre-tax?) remaining life-time earnings. But even if you could, your prospective mentor is very likely to be ripped off. Let me explain. I don't know how much time you want your mentor to spend on your development. But I'm assuming it is at least one month of full-time mentoring, so about 175 hours. From experience, I know that providing one hour of quality mentoring takes at least one hour of preparation. So the mentor would have to spend about 350 hours. The mentor wants to get compensated for this time. Since you want a highly qualified mentor and not just any random programmer, his or her hourly rate would be quite high. I'd say at least €60. So the mentor would be out about 350 * 60 = €21 000 before he or she starts making money of your salary. The UK median salary is about €50 000 per year, but we'll assume you'll make €60 000 per year thanks to the great mentoring. Assuming you'll work for another 30 years that's a measly 600 * 30 = €18 000 into the mentors pocket (I realize salary increases makes this calculation suspect) Clearly, the deal is not worthwhile. And that is not even taking into account the uncertainties (what if you die or get sick?) or that the mentor could have put the €21 000 in index funds instead, yielding about 3% per year or €50 000 over 30 years. I have had a mentor. A guitar teacher. I paid him €40 per 45 minutes of mentoring. If I had told him that he could instead pay me for the privilege of mentoring and get 1% of profits of all my future record sales, he would have rightly laughed in my face. I don't understand why you can't do the same? If you have >$1M then you can surely afford to pay someone an hourly salary to mentor you?
- bjourne 7y ago
  I wrote "ripped off" which implies malicious intent on your part. I should have phrased that differently since that is not the case. To late to change my comment now.
SamReidHughes 7y ago
Question: If I find you a spouse, do I get to keep 1% of her income, too?
thiago_fm 7y ago
The guy got >$1M, but has no idea what to do.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  $1M earned or inherited? Or won? Or lucky bitcoin investment?
jessehorne 7y ago
I'm a fellow developer. I'm younger and have less resources. What would you be willing to work out in exchange for my assistance/collaboration?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
quickthrower2 7y ago
The problem for the mentor is you can succeed and make no "income" but plenty of "capital gains". Or maybe your wife will on paper (nod to sister comment). A mentor would be incentivised to get you working for a high income, a job at Google for example, and not investing or running your own business. The problem for you is someone can come along for 1 hour, mentor you but not do much useful stuff. You then go away and are successful anyway by say using a normal hourly paid mentor, and the original useless mentor want's his 1%. If you are going the business route, pay the mentor per hour, then if appropriate offer them the opportunity to invest in the business once it is ready for it.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
zapperdapper 7y ago
You are 29 with greater than $1M. Assuming you didn't inherit that then you don't need a mentor. Get back to work! :)

londons_explore 7y ago

$20. While I'm sure you'll make more income than that even this week, theres no way I'll be able to ensure you pay up.

lun4r 7y ago

My usual rate is around 245 EUR / hour. Assuming we'd do at least one call of an hour every second week you'd have to be earning 637K a year before I got my hours fully paid..

SellingMyself 7y ago
Arguing against myself here... But: I need to earn much more than 637K per year to pay for your hours. Thats because if you were to decide to stop the 1:1 sessions, you'd still get paid the 1% of income. So the real question you should be asking is, 'If I invest 1 hour into mentoring this guy, will he earn EUR 24,500 extra in the rest of his life?' And that EUR 24,500 should be in todays money, so with a discount rate of ~5% annually for future earnings. So over a 40 year working life, that works out to EUR 77,689 extra. Quite a lot to earn for every 1 hour consultation!

gaspoweredcat 7y ago

what are you looking for in a mentor? a fellow developer, a manager, a promoter? also how will this work? are you basically thinking of a similar thing to BowieBonds?

SellingMyself 7y ago
> what are you looking for in a mentor? a fellow developer, a manager, a promoter? I don't know - if I knew what I needed to do, I wouldn't be asking for advice. I'm hoping that's what an auction can decide. Whoever thinks they can benefit me the most would offer the highest price.
SellingMyself 7y ago
> are you basically thinking of a similar thing to BowieBonds? I wasn't aware of them before, but yes. I guess I could publish tax returns each year, and then pay the mentor(s) their percentage of total income on a monthly or annual basis.

shinryuu 7y ago

This is fairly relevant. https://kmikeym.com/ https://kmikeym.com/ He started to trade himself as public person. The stockholders don't really get any monetary value from it. Though if the stock rise they can cash out.

boltzmannbrain 7y ago
How is there no About page?

natalyarostova 7y ago

You misunderstand why people enjoy mentoring. The absolute best mentors don't want money, they want someone that is receptive to their advice, and who they can watch grow. Relevant link: > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136

bjourne 7y ago

I highly doubt your proposed contract would be legally binding. I don't think you can sign away 1% of your total (pre-tax?) remaining life-time earnings. But even if you could, your prospective mentor is very likely to be ripped off. Let me explain. I don't know how much time you want your mentor to spend on your development. But I'm assuming it is at least one month of full-time mentoring, so about 175 hours. From experience, I know that providing one hour of quality mentoring takes at least one hour of preparation. So the mentor would have to spend about 350 hours. The mentor wants to get compensated for this time. Since you want a highly qualified mentor and not just any random programmer, his or her hourly rate would be quite high. I'd say at least €60. So the mentor would be out about 350 * 60 = €21 000 before he or she starts making money of your salary. The UK median salary is about €50 000 per year, but we'll assume you'll make €60 000 per year thanks to the great mentoring. Assuming you'll work for another 30 years that's a measly 600 * 30 = €18 000 into the mentors pocket (I realize salary increases makes this calculation suspect) Clearly, the deal is not worthwhile. And that is not even taking into account the uncertainties (what if you die or get sick?) or that the mentor could have put the €21 000 in index funds instead, yielding about 3% per year or €50 000 over 30 years. I have had a mentor. A guitar teacher. I paid him €40 per 45 minutes of mentoring. If I had told him that he could instead pay me for the privilege of mentoring and get 1% of profits of all my future record sales, he would have rightly laughed in my face. I don't understand why you can't do the same? If you have >$1M then you can surely afford to pay someone an hourly salary to mentor you?

bjourne 7y ago
I wrote "ripped off" which implies malicious intent on your part. I should have phrased that differently since that is not the case. To late to change my comment now.

SamReidHughes 7y ago

Question: If I find you a spouse, do I get to keep 1% of her income, too?

thiago_fm 7y ago

The guy got >$1M, but has no idea what to do.

quickthrower2 7y ago
$1M earned or inherited? Or won? Or lucky bitcoin investment?

jessehorne 7y ago

I'm a fellow developer. I'm younger and have less resources. What would you be willing to work out in exchange for my assistance/collaboration?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

quickthrower2 7y ago

The problem for the mentor is you can succeed and make no "income" but plenty of "capital gains". Or maybe your wife will on paper (nod to sister comment). A mentor would be incentivised to get you working for a high income, a job at Google for example, and not investing or running your own business. The problem for you is someone can come along for 1 hour, mentor you but not do much useful stuff. You then go away and are successful anyway by say using a normal hourly paid mentor, and the original useless mentor want's his 1%. If you are going the business route, pay the mentor per hour, then if appropriate offer them the opportunity to invest in the business once it is ready for it.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

zapperdapper 7y ago

You are 29 with greater than $1M. Assuming you didn't inherit that then you don't need a mentor. Get back to work! :)