4 ms·
Circa 2010, I met Tai and he wanted some work done for his portfolio of dating websites he had back then. (He had a whole bunch of them targeted to various ethn
by trollbridge 1y ago
Circa 2010, I met Tai and he wanted some work done for his portfolio of dating websites he had back then. (He had a whole bunch of them targeted to various ethnic groups, religious subgroups and so on.)
It became apparent that (a) he had a huge pile of messy PHP, WordPress-based sites, and then (b) expressed contempt for paying $35 an hour for programmers since his opinion was you could get programmers in the third world for $5 an hour. He negotiated me down to $25. I ended up declining.
Like many people who crow about how they’re a “millionaire”, when it came time to show the money, he was suddenly really concerned about very small amounts of money here and there.
- ariwilson 1y agoI don't know Tai Lopez and he seems like an asshole based on his public persona but I think you'd be surprised by the number of (especially first generation) millionaires who will negotiate over pennies. The easiest way to have a lot of money is to earn a lot and not spend a lot.
- loa_in_ 1y agoHaving money allows you to spend time elsewhere, like cherry picking desperate employees. I know temp agencies that have it as the whole business model. If you aren't desperate you don't fit.
- jimmydddd 1y agoA friend is in commercial real estate. If you own office or warehouse space, he finds you a company to rent the space, and help negotiate the deal. Then after the deal is done, the (very wealthy) building owner often will try to re-negotiate down the agreed to fee, or say he'll pay it in four years. The guy works for 6 months getting the deal done, is supposed to get like $25K, then the wealthy building owner says he'll give him $10K and will pay over 4 years. Crazy business.
- vintermann 1y agoEarning a lot does the heavy lifting here (and rent of various kinds does the heavily lifting of that in turn). It's far, far easier to be "frugal" in % of your income when your income is high. People like this Tai guy pay a premium for screwing people over, they pretty clearly could have made more money, more safely, if they didn't love the feeling of getting one up on you. That explains their attitude better than some virtue of frugality.
- qingcharles 1y agoI've known several very rich people and the first thing I learned was that they are rich because they never spend their own money on anything.
- bitwize 1y agoA study found that most American millionaires lived in modest homes and drove used American cars. They made their wealth by being concerned about relatively small amounts of money because it adds up. When we think "millionaire" we think of the dream that is sold to us by Hollywood—mansions, fancy cars, endless parties. But entertainers are paid in the millions and then encouraged to live like billionaires, so that they're desperate enough to continue being slaves to the entertainment-industrial complex to keep the gravy train going. But $35/hr was a pittance for a programmer even in 2010. Tai Lopez is a gigantic tool for cheaping out on that.
- DiscourseFan 1y agoWell actors have a very strong union in the US, they used to be paid peanuts. When you have that kind of labor power, your security comes from the union, not your stored wealth, so they can afford to spend because they know they will be well compensated for their work.
- hollerith 1y agoActing is notorious for being a bad career choice, and the small fraction of actors who become wealthy through acting do so because of the structure of the market for entertainment (namely, fame sells tickets, so the employers of entertainers all want to hire already-famous entertainers, making it very difficult for unknown entertainers to become famous, which is necessary to start earning good money), not because of anything to do with any union.
- lupusreal 1y agoSince ancient times, acting and prostitution have been considered closely related industries and I think this probably never changed. The actors who "make it big" are the ones that win favors with producers one way or another, probably in many cases by sating their perverted desires. Some of this was revealed in #MeToo cases, like all the Weinstein stuff.
- 1y ago
- iammrpayments 1y agoLately he has been promoting “AI automation agency” course. He says anyone can label themselves “AI automation expert” and charge thousands of dollars for it, then just use vibe coding tools to do the job or outsource it. He also says he built an entire app using replit.
- nextworddev 1y agoUnironically the gap between his AI automation agency and VC backed "Enterprise Automation" startups is smaller than you think..
- dragonwriter 1y agoIt is kind of fundamental to the nature of bubbles that near their peak they tend to feature more traditional investors backing ventures that in any other context everyone with any common sense would stay away from because the ratio of scam red flags to rational bases for believing it was a good investment are too high.
- walthamstow 1y agoQuite. Sounds as much like Builder.AI, the London startup where AI genuinely did stand for "actually Indians", as it does Amazon Go, whose pick-and-go stores had their cameras monitored by people in India to ensure it all worked as they said it did.
- nextworddev 1y agoDon’t forget most vertical AI “agent” startups
- rurp 1y agoI am so shocked someone like this would jump on the AI hype train!
- thr0w 1y agoNever met him personally, but one of his companies tried to recruit me for a database migration project. Part of the interview process included responding to the question "I enjoy having sex with people I hardly know" on a scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree.
- collingreen 1y agoDude what the actual F. This is a crazy thing to put into a job interview.
- userbinator 1y agoUnless it's for a job in the adult entertainment industry.
- cluckindan 1y agoOr if the ”recruiter” is foreign military intelligence looking to compromise people who may land in positions of interest during the next 20-30 years. People such as database administrators.
- collingreen 1y agoLol great point!
- nenenejej 1y agoThis guy loves court cases I guess?
- electroglyph 1y ago[flagged]
- usui 1y ago[flagged]