5 ms·

I feel like he has the right idea but the concept of "risk", I feel, is pretty worthless when you've probably got a few hundred million in the bank. In fact, it

by acron0 13y ago

I feel like he has the right idea but the concept of "risk", I feel, is pretty worthless when you've probably got a few hundred million in the bank. In fact, it upsets me in general when filthy rich people talk about risk, because I have a mortgage and a family so for me, "risk" means maybe not being able to put a roof over my son's head.

nikcub 13y ago
He wasn't born a celebrity millionaire. He dropped out of college (scholarship, and his mother was a professor there who didn't approve) to pursuit a career in music, took him a decade to break out.
- Edmond 13y ago
  True. The interesting thing though about most successful rappers is that, while almost all of them come from poverty, they tend to achieve success early in life such that by the time they hit middle age they've been rich longer than they've been poor (Nas notes this in one of his songs)... A guy like Jay-Z talking about hardship increasingly sounds out of touch :)
  - domrdy 13y ago
    http://rapgenius.com/Nas-loco-motive-lyrics#note-880957 http://rapgenius.com/Nas-loco-motive-lyrics#note-880957
- pmorici 13y ago
  If his mom was a professor at a college that sounds like an indication of at least an upper middle class upbringing. Edit: Wikipedia says, "middle class" and the college he dropped out of was an art school so it isn't like he was giving up a sure thing to take a course that was more risky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > If his mom was a professor at a college that sounds like an indication of at least an upper middle class upbringing. Knowing what college professor's salaries are like, "at least upper middle class" is way optimistic, though "probably solidly middle class" is likely.
  - nikcub 13y ago
    Single mother in Chicago working at a state college? Straight up middle class. I don't buy the premise that you need to be poor to have an appreciation of risk. Risk isn't just financial, there is also career and personal risk. Think of all the well-off kids who didn't follow in their fathers footsteps or what their parents wanted and pursued their own dreams, at the risk of being alienated, disowned etc.
    - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
      He wasn't at risk of being disowned. He also wasn't at risk of going hungry. He may have been at risk of having to work a boring 9-5 for the rest of his life. But that's a risk shared by so much of the public that it seems pretty minimal.
- acron0 13y ago
  I don't think it matters how you make your money, just that once you've accrued a certain amount of wealth the concept of risk starts to fade...
guynamedloren 13y ago
Read the interview. You've got it all wrong. He actually says the risky thing for him to do is to not to anything. It has nothing to do with money. I'm sure he fully understands that he could sit on his bank account for the rest of his life, check out and not do anything. His risk isn't losing his home. It's a different kind of risk. He stresses that the most important thing to him is actually having ideas and sharing them with the world. He says this over and over again, and I can't help but believe him. > The risk for me would be in not taking one — that's the only thing that's really risky for me.
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  So how does that compare to start ups that usually require vast actual risks from their founders? His risk is sort of a philosophical/existential risk. Not what many would consider an 'actual' risk to himself. This really does seem to be a function of the fact that he is rich and a celebrity.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  >>important thing to him is actually having ideas Kanye's very fortunate that "having ideas" are "the only thing that's really risky for me." Personally I don't find a lot of value in his "ideas" nor do I agree that he's risking very much. For all his nonsense about liberation from evil, he seems hellbent on integrating himself with the fashion world.
ctide 13y ago
Do you think he was born with a few hundred million in the bank? He eschewed all the standard hip hop trappings and didn't go all 'gangsta' when that's how people made money. When he produced The Blueprint (one of the greatest hip hop albums ever made) it was backed by soul beats which just weren't a thing in ~2000. He's always done his own thing, his latest album is a prime example of that. He's still just putting out shit he wants to listen to, not necessarily putting out what's successful at any given time in the industry. It's easy to look back and say, you're filthy rich now so you aren't actually taking risks, but taking risks is how he got there.
- benjaminwootton 13y ago
  +1. He could have churned out album after album in his trademark 'soul' style but he places it all on the line with each album just to mix it up and push boundaries. He's a great artist.
- tarunkotia 13y ago
  When you have more it is more scary to take a risk as you are risking everything you have. How I relate to it is this way, I have a fairly good paying job (equivalent to Kanye releasing albums what's popular) versus I solve a hard problem and quit my day job to build it (similar to Kanye sticks to what he believes in). Now you do the math who has more to loose? Having said that, I'm going through a stage in my life where I am getting to see the real character of people in terms of their risk appetite. Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur but when it really comes to doing it people chicken out. May be it's my circle but again that's my experience.
- tetrep 13y ago
  It is mere coincidence, however, that the music he wanted to make was also the music people wanted to hear. It's hardly laudable to do something you enjoy...
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    Also... Media Hype Machine. He's made himself into a symbol. For all most people (who follow his antics) care his next album could be 'Pip farting on a snare drum' to take a line from Air Heads.
ryderm 13y ago
Besides what others said about him not always being rich, there is more to risk than money. Doing something crazy on TV or coming out with an album nobody likes could make hundreds of millions of people think differently of him, say he is going downhill, whatever. That is pretty risky as far as I'm concerned.
bksenior 13y ago
sigh... You are a bit naive if you believe that money is the be all end all risk here.
jusben1369 13y ago
acronO that's the trap that a LOT of people fall into so you're not alone. But don't go to the grave realizing your decisions were based on making a mortgage payment or a 401K payment or a retirement payment or a college savings plan or a something other very "sensible" sounding. Trust me, your boy is going to love and remember his Dad way more if he saw him doing something he was passionate about and lived in a rental than living in a mortgaged house with a bigger room and a Dad with no spark.

by acron0 13y ago

nikcub 13y ago

He wasn't born a celebrity millionaire. He dropped out of college (scholarship, and his mother was a professor there who didn't approve) to pursuit a career in music, took him a decade to break out.

Edmond 13y ago
True. The interesting thing though about most successful rappers is that, while almost all of them come from poverty, they tend to achieve success early in life such that by the time they hit middle age they've been rich longer than they've been poor (Nas notes this in one of his songs)... A guy like Jay-Z talking about hardship increasingly sounds out of touch :)
- domrdy 13y ago
  http://rapgenius.com/Nas-loco-motive-lyrics#note-880957 http://rapgenius.com/Nas-loco-motive-lyrics#note-880957
pmorici 13y ago
If his mom was a professor at a college that sounds like an indication of at least an upper middle class upbringing. Edit: Wikipedia says, "middle class" and the college he dropped out of was an art school so it isn't like he was giving up a sure thing to take a course that was more risky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanye_West
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > If his mom was a professor at a college that sounds like an indication of at least an upper middle class upbringing. Knowing what college professor's salaries are like, "at least upper middle class" is way optimistic, though "probably solidly middle class" is likely.
- nikcub 13y ago
  Single mother in Chicago working at a state college? Straight up middle class. I don't buy the premise that you need to be poor to have an appreciation of risk. Risk isn't just financial, there is also career and personal risk. Think of all the well-off kids who didn't follow in their fathers footsteps or what their parents wanted and pursued their own dreams, at the risk of being alienated, disowned etc.
  - ItendToDisagree 13y ago
    He wasn't at risk of being disowned. He also wasn't at risk of going hungry. He may have been at risk of having to work a boring 9-5 for the rest of his life. But that's a risk shared by so much of the public that it seems pretty minimal.
acron0 13y ago
I don't think it matters how you make your money, just that once you've accrued a certain amount of wealth the concept of risk starts to fade...

guynamedloren 13y ago

Read the interview. You've got it all wrong. He actually says the risky thing for him to do is to not to anything. It has nothing to do with money. I'm sure he fully understands that he could sit on his bank account for the rest of his life, check out and not do anything. His risk isn't losing his home. It's a different kind of risk. He stresses that the most important thing to him is actually having ideas and sharing them with the world. He says this over and over again, and I can't help but believe him. > The risk for me would be in not taking one — that's the only thing that's really risky for me.

ItendToDisagree 13y ago
So how does that compare to start ups that usually require vast actual risks from their founders? His risk is sort of a philosophical/existential risk. Not what many would consider an 'actual' risk to himself. This really does seem to be a function of the fact that he is rich and a celebrity.
wavefunction 13y ago
>>important thing to him is actually having ideas Kanye's very fortunate that "having ideas" are "the only thing that's really risky for me." Personally I don't find a lot of value in his "ideas" nor do I agree that he's risking very much. For all his nonsense about liberation from evil, he seems hellbent on integrating himself with the fashion world.

ctide 13y ago

Do you think he was born with a few hundred million in the bank? He eschewed all the standard hip hop trappings and didn't go all 'gangsta' when that's how people made money. When he produced The Blueprint (one of the greatest hip hop albums ever made) it was backed by soul beats which just weren't a thing in ~2000. He's always done his own thing, his latest album is a prime example of that. He's still just putting out shit he wants to listen to, not necessarily putting out what's successful at any given time in the industry. It's easy to look back and say, you're filthy rich now so you aren't actually taking risks, but taking risks is how he got there.

benjaminwootton 13y ago
+1. He could have churned out album after album in his trademark 'soul' style but he places it all on the line with each album just to mix it up and push boundaries. He's a great artist.
tarunkotia 13y ago
When you have more it is more scary to take a risk as you are risking everything you have. How I relate to it is this way, I have a fairly good paying job (equivalent to Kanye releasing albums what's popular) versus I solve a hard problem and quit my day job to build it (similar to Kanye sticks to what he believes in). Now you do the math who has more to loose? Having said that, I'm going through a stage in my life where I am getting to see the real character of people in terms of their risk appetite. Everybody wants to be an entrepreneur but when it really comes to doing it people chicken out. May be it's my circle but again that's my experience.
tetrep 13y ago
It is mere coincidence, however, that the music he wanted to make was also the music people wanted to hear. It's hardly laudable to do something you enjoy...
- ItendToDisagree 13y ago
  Also... Media Hype Machine. He's made himself into a symbol. For all most people (who follow his antics) care his next album could be 'Pip farting on a snare drum' to take a line from Air Heads.

ryderm 13y ago

Besides what others said about him not always being rich, there is more to risk than money. Doing something crazy on TV or coming out with an album nobody likes could make hundreds of millions of people think differently of him, say he is going downhill, whatever. That is pretty risky as far as I'm concerned.

bksenior 13y ago

sigh... You are a bit naive if you believe that money is the be all end all risk here.

jusben1369 13y ago

acronO that's the trap that a LOT of people fall into so you're not alone. But don't go to the grave realizing your decisions were based on making a mortgage payment or a 401K payment or a retirement payment or a college savings plan or a something other very "sensible" sounding. Trust me, your boy is going to love and remember his Dad way more if he saw him doing something he was passionate about and lived in a rental than living in a mortgaged house with a bigger room and a Dad with no spark.