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 What
Happened to just plain millionaires?
I was having one of my infamous conversations with a
Wall Street elitist, renowned for their
intelligence, ingenuity and financial acumen; in
other words an investment banker. The meeting’s
purpose was to elicit my writing expertise to draft
a business plan to raise capital. Once we completed
the rapport building small talk, which generally
last 3-5 minutes, he began to describe his current
deal flow.
With vigor, I took mental note of every word spoken
believing that each sentence contained valuable
information needed to complete the project. However,
the more he spoke the less disciplined my listening
skills became. Right about the “deployment of
capital through the Caymen Islands” comment, my ears
ostensibly refused to put forth any effort and shut
down completely.In an attempt to summarize the
conversation I would list the following key
identifiers: each “deal” involved a few
billionaires, that they personally knew, from whom
they now have exclusive rights to pursue, some had
an international play, and, of course, all had
promises of a huge upside.
The fast flowing deal conversation abruptly ended in
an anticlimactic fashion as he turned to me and
said, “So do you find these interesting and do you
want in?” I then learned, of course, part n parcel
with the deal, each said billionaire for individual
reasons such as ego, need to trust, desire to share
more on the upside and a slew of other similarly
justifiable reasons was not paying anything upfront.
For involvement, I would be awarded the golden
opportunity to participate for a generous 10% on the
back-end. At my protest, it was stated that they
understood and respected my need for some upfront
monetary value and agreed to award my 60 plus hours
time investment with a check for $5000. To which I
just sat motionless for a moment as if needing to
swallow my stomach after having survived a massive
storm at sea where the ship had violently rocked
from side to side.
Even if I temporarily suspended judgment regarding
the ridiculous pittance, and decided to engage in
writing a business plan, I would have no idea what I
was to write about. My only surmise would be a
comedy stint describing the interplay that I had
just witnessed. However, given the fact that I do
not proclaim to be an entertainment writer, I was at
a total loss for words and not sure how to proceed.
My mind began to feverously strategize an exit
strategy; my own. The plan was to act interested,
politely decline and exit out the back door. My need
for an escape route suddenly became unnecessary, as
the investment banker surprisingly looked at his
watch noting his plane was to leave in 45 minutes.
He then publicly announced the need for a ride to
the airport to which I happily stated the
limitations of my two-seater car unless he found
comfort in riding on the roof. I left him to his
cohort to fulfill his logistic requirements and
proceeded to the closest Starbucks to replenish my
lost energy and find some sanity.
As I sat there aggressively clinging to my non-fat
latte, I reflected upon what had happened and
unsuccessfully tried to make sense of it all.
Recalling the other nonsensical conversations I had
witnessed from decades long past, I wondered when
bragging rights for known millionaires fell out of
fashion. It now appeared that those who proclaim to
be “in the know” must brag of relationships with
billionaires instead. This thought led me to
contemplate the exact number of billionaires that
actually exist in the world. Does there need to be a
2-1 ratio given all the investment bankers who now
claim allegiance with this elect group of
individuals? More importantly, I questioned what had
happened to the business models of the past, whereby
you sold a tangible product or value-added service,
profiting a few bucks per transaction and through
business prowess and acumen built an empire, which
incidentally did not require deployment of capital
through the Caymen Islands. Finally, I just remained
amused and bewildered and wondered how two seemingly
bright and talented men could sit there through such
a discussion and not note how ridiculous it sounded.
I ended my reflection as I sipped the last few drops
of my latte and congratulated myself on the ability
to keep a straight face during it all. Although this
experience has now left the forefront of my mind, I
must admit that part of me is still waiting to hear
the famous line, “Smile—you’re on candid camera”.
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