dk240t said: foghorn19 said: So, OP, it would be great if you could take an analytical look back and explain what were the SIGNIFICANT factors bhind your succes and how much did each count: Technical chops, contacts/network, money, sheer hard work, people skills, VC/angels, being in the right place (stanford/SF/Palo Alto?), incubators, mentor(s), luck, family. How much would it have cost you if each of the relevant factors wasn't there?
Unfortunately, winners practically always underestimate their luck, and losers practically always overestimate it. In the mind of most people who strike it huge, there were no lucky breaks. In the mind of most people who stay on the bottom, if it wasn't for bad luck they'd have no luck at all.
In addition to the impact of random chance the problem with studying success stories only (and OP is clearly an extreme success story--congrats OP) is that they have an inherent survivorship bias. You need to study the failures and even less extreme success stories to distill out what makes somebody/some company successful. OP is clearly smart, articulate, worked really hard, took risk, and is probably well educated. But there are also thousands of "failures" in silicon valley who probably have the exact same qualities as OP and his company. Thus those while those were probably necessary for success they were probably not the causes of the success. That is the problem with biographies of successful people and even books such as the Millionaire Next Door which only looked at those who had assets of a million or more rather than including those who failed or who "only" had a net worth of a half million. Without looking at the "failures" it is hard to figure out what really makes those who are successful different.
An example of survivorship bias would be like interviewing survivors of the Titanic disaster and finding out they all prayed to their god to survive. You might conclude that praying to one's god was the way remain alive from that disaster. But if you were able to interview those who perished very likely many/most of them also prayed to their god so that was probably not a factor that led to survival.
Some good reads on both the impact of randomness/chance on success and survivorship bias (the Taleb book only for this one) are: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. Please note I am not trying to take away anything from OPs hard earned success just pointing out that his experiences are unlikely to provide the rest of us anything like a blueprint to follow. That said I do look forward to reading them if he decides to share on his blog.
Tagtile is not a 1.2B buyout. The op said the total worth of the buyout is 1.2B, and if so it will be massive news, every tech blog from techcrunch to non tech media will be talking about it. They don't happen every day.
secstate said: dk240t said: foghorn19 said: So, OP, it would be great if you could take an analytical look back and explain what were the SIGNIFICANT factors bhind your succes and how much did each count: Technical chops, contacts/network, money, sheer hard work, people skills, VC/angels, being in the right place (stanford/SF/Palo Alto?), incubators, mentor(s), luck, family. How much would it have cost you if each of the relevant factors wasn't there?
Unfortunately, winners practically always underestimate their luck, and losers practically always overestimate it. In the mind of most people who strike it huge, there were no lucky breaks. In the mind of most people who stay on the bottom, if it wasn't for bad luck they'd have no luck at all.
In addition to the impact of random chance the problem with studying success stories only (and OP is clearly an extreme success story--congrats OP) is that they have an inherent survivorship bias. You need to study the failures and even less extreme success stories to distill out what makes somebody/some company successful. OP is clearly smart, articulate, worked really hard, took risk, and is probably well educated. But there are also thousands of "failures" in silicon valley who probably have the exact same qualities as OP and his company. Thus those while those were probably necessary for success they were probably not the causes of the success. That is the problem with biographies of successful people and even books such as the Millionaire Next Door which only looked at those who had assets of a million or more rather than including those who failed or who "only" had a net worth of a half million. Without looking at the "failures" it is hard to figure out what really makes those who are successful different.
An example of survivorship bias would be like interviewing survivors of the Titanic disaster and finding out they all prayed to their god to survive. You might conclude that praying to one's god was the way remain alive from that disaster. But if you were able to interview those who perished very likely many/most of them also prayed to their god so that was probably not a factor that led to survival.
Some good reads on both the impact of randomness/chance on success and survivorship bias (the Taleb book only for this one) are: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. Please note I am not trying to take away anything from OPs hard earned success just pointing out that his experiences are unlikely to provide the rest of us anything like a blueprint to follow. That said I do look forward to reading them if he decides to share on his blog.
Praying to God on the Titanic?
Give me a fvcking break. Did you shut your brain down in early middle school?
Attributing ALL of this to randomness is pure bullshit. (see how it feels when I use your generalizing logic against your own thesis?)
And then you say you'll read his blog anyway. Why?
Despite all the survivorship biases, butterfly effects and other convolutions/noise, I am sure the OP could identify some signals and most importantly some DECISIONS that helped him survive, and similar things that helped him thrive.
I'd list some examples from other successful people but I think it's wasted on the foolish and unnecessary for those who get it.
company must be delivering a product or service that others can't replicate with out spending more money than just buying the business from OP outright
OP and his people created value that other people want --- that isn't random
germanpope said: company must be delivering a product or service that others can't replicate with out spending more money than just buying the business from OP outright
OP and his people created value that other people want --- that isn't random
I did not say it was all, or even mostly random or that OP did not have the skills and intelligence to take advantage of the opportunities that presented themselves or even to make sure that he was well positioned to find opportunities to build on (i.e., living in the Bay Area likely allows one to find more opportunities). I am just saying that some of all of our success mine included is due to random chance and luck. For example, one of OPs best decisions might have been to hire that CPA with a father in private equity but I doubt he could foresee that said CPA would be the catalyst that led to the sale of his company for $1.2 billion. That unless OPs says to the contrary was probably a piece of random good luck. I am just saying random chance has an impact that should not be understated. Things look a lot more predictable looking backwards than they did going forwards.
foghorn19 said: secstate said: dk240t said: foghorn19 said: So, OP, it would be great if you could take an analytical look back and explain what were the SIGNIFICANT factors bhind your succes and how much did each count: Technical chops, contacts/network, money, sheer hard work, people skills, VC/angels, being in the right place (stanford/SF/Palo Alto?), incubators, mentor(s), luck, family. How much would it have cost you if each of the relevant factors wasn't there?
Unfortunately, winners practically always underestimate their luck, and losers practically always overestimate it. In the mind of most people who strike it huge, there were no lucky breaks. In the mind of most people who stay on the bottom, if it wasn't for bad luck they'd have no luck at all.
In addition to the impact of random chance the problem with studying success stories only (and OP is clearly an extreme success story--congrats OP) is that they have an inherent survivorship bias. You need to study the failures and even less extreme success stories to distill out what makes somebody/some company successful. OP is clearly smart, articulate, worked really hard, took risk, and is probably well educated. But there are also thousands of "failures" in silicon valley who probably have the exact same qualities as OP and his company. Thus those while those were probably necessary for success they were probably not the causes of the success. That is the problem with biographies of successful people and even books such as the Millionaire Next Door which only looked at those who had assets of a million or more rather than including those who failed or who "only" had a net worth of a half million. Without looking at the "failures" it is hard to figure out what really makes those who are successful different.
An example of survivorship bias would be like interviewing survivors of the Titanic disaster and finding out they all prayed to their god to survive. You might conclude that praying to one's god was the way remain alive from that disaster. But if you were able to interview those who perished very likely many/most of them also prayed to their god so that was probably not a factor that led to survival.
Some good reads on both the impact of randomness/chance on success and survivorship bias (the Taleb book only for this one) are: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. Please note I am not trying to take away anything from OPs hard earned success just pointing out that his experiences are unlikely to provide the rest of us anything like a blueprint to follow. That said I do look forward to reading them if he decides to share on his blog.
Praying to God on the Titanic?
Give me a fvcking break. Did you shut your brain down in early middle school?
Attributing ALL of this to randomness is pure bullshit. (see how it feels when I use your generalizing logic against your own thesis?)
And then you say you'll read his blog anyway. Why?
Despite all the survivorship biases, butterfly effects and other convolutions/noise, I am sure the OP could identify some signals and most importantly some DECISIONS that helped him survive, and similar things that helped him thrive.
I'd list some examples from other successful people but I think it's wasted on the foolish and unnecessary for those who get it.
LOL, after reading Outliers and did some basic math on 'how much' his luck played a role. It was such a joke. Luck of being born at the right time and having proximity to valuable tools only narrows these guys down to like 1 in ~500k-2 million(depending on the subject). So much for the luck part, eh there Malcolm?
Malcolm acts like it narrows people down to a few hundred. It doesn't.
Give me a fvcking break. Did you shut your brain down in early middle school?
Attributing ALL of this to randomness is pure bullshit. (see how it feels when I use your generalizing logic against your own thesis?)
And then you say you'll read his blog anyway. Why?
Despite all the survivorship biases, butterfly effects and other convolutions/noise, I am sure the OP could identify some signals and most importantly some DECISIONS that helped him survive, and similar things that helped him thrive.
I'd list some examples from other successful people but I think it's wasted on the foolish and unnecessary for those who get it.
Where did I say this was all or even mostly due to chance? I never said that at all. I am sure OP contributed in large measure to his and his company's success I was just stating as others have that we should never discount the impact of random chance in our lives.
So my Titanic example might have been simplistic but the truth is you have to look at the whole population and not just the winners when doing an analysis to understand really differentiated the winners from the losers/less successful. Looking at the winners alone is not going to teach one the secrets of success. That is not to say that there is nothing we can learn from just looking at the winners, hence why I will read OPs blog and why I have read many bios on other successful people (I am sure OP story is also fascinating so just from that perspective it would be worth reading). I am sure OP can point to many things that led to his success but the question would be whether those who failed did many of the same things. For example every successful person, near enough, works extremely hard but so do many failures, thus working hard in and of itself is not sufficient for success though many successful people attribute all or much of their success to that.
I did not read the last 21 pages. First off, congrats on your success. I think people are mixing up two things that you need in this situation.
First off, you need a banker. Whiles the terms might seem amenable to you it never hurts to try to get more. They will ensure you are happy, and deal with the other side on your behalf. Additionally, since they do this for a living, they can recommend competent lawyers, accountants, ect and perhaps structure the deal in such a way that will save you millions in taxes. This is what they do, and they do it well.
Secondly you need do invest that money somehow. I'd recommend going the advisory route, unless you love to be in the markets, and just remember that fees are always negotiable.
So any large bank can handle this for you, I am biased towards Goldman so I say give their PWM arm a call and they can link you with the appropriate banking team. Depending on where you live they might even have an office you can go into.
People who attribute luck to others' successes usually are jealous haters.
I'm sorry but you don't generate $1 billion of value with luck. "Lucky" things such as hiring the son of a PE partner may attribute to getting the $200M sooner or later, or getting $50M vs $200M, but luck has nothing to do with vision and execution.
Luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparation. The unprepared never seize the opportunity. But nevertheless, opportunity knocks every day somewhere, are you ready?
The OP is lucky however, he built a business that got noticed and his payday was 1/4 Billion dollars. He's lucky that he got to do that doing something he's passionate about. He's lucky that instead of being set for life with a 50M dollar business he's set for life with 250M dollar pay day. But make no mistake, Even in the absence of "luck" he'd still be set for life. because he seized opportunities when they presented. Further, when opportunities failed to present, no doubt he grabbed life by the balls and squeezed until an opportunity presented. That is what successful people do.
blok said: You create your own luck, keep working hard and good things will happened. One of my companies was featured on Techcrunch this week, take that OP
Care to share? I'm sure the FWF would love learn more
jkimcpa said: People who attribute luck to others' successes usually are jealous haters.
I'm sorry but you don't generate $1 billion of value with luck. "Lucky" things such as hiring the son of a PE partner may attribute to getting the $200M sooner or later, or getting $50M vs $200M, but luck has nothing to do with vision and execution.
lol
Let me guess, you were not around during 1996-2001.
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.
gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.
So wait is it your contention that if you don't provide the cheapest price on everything you sell than 'you're ripping your customers off'? Because if that was the case there could only be 1 bank/credit union in each market that wasn't 'ripping their customers off' or for that matter any commoditized business.
blok said: You create your own luck, keep working hard and good things will happened. One of my companies was featured on Techcrunch this week, take that OP
Why only one? You haven't worked as hard on the others?
I mostly kid, but I believe there's an important element of luck in any extreme case of success. You can't realistically be successful without talent and hard work, but extraordinary success also usually involves having the right idea at the right time. And I don't think that's something you can predict or manufacture.
This doesn't make JCarter 'undeserving' or anything, it just means that there are always going to be a lot more people with talent who work hard than people who are extraordinarily successful.
gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.Why is your service not cost $0.01 for everything in any situations? Pot, meet kettle.
dshibb said: foghorn19 said: secstate said: dk240t said: foghorn19 said: So, OP, it would be great if you could take an analytical look back and explain what were the SIGNIFICANT factors bhind your succes and how much did each count: Technical chops, contacts/network, money, sheer hard work, people skills, VC/angels, being in the right place (stanford/SF/Palo Alto?), incubators, mentor(s), luck, family. How much would it have cost you if each of the relevant factors wasn't there?
Unfortunately, winners practically always underestimate their luck, and losers practically always overestimate it. In the mind of most people who strike it huge, there were no lucky breaks. In the mind of most people who stay on the bottom, if it wasn't for bad luck they'd have no luck at all.
In addition to the impact of random chance the problem with studying success stories only (and OP is clearly an extreme success story--congrats OP) is that they have an inherent survivorship bias. You need to study the failures and even less extreme success stories to distill out what makes somebody/some company successful. OP is clearly smart, articulate, worked really hard, took risk, and is probably well educated. But there are also thousands of "failures" in silicon valley who probably have the exact same qualities as OP and his company. Thus those while those were probably necessary for success they were probably not the causes of the success. That is the problem with biographies of successful people and even books such as the Millionaire Next Door which only looked at those who had assets of a million or more rather than including those who failed or who "only" had a net worth of a half million. Without looking at the "failures" it is hard to figure out what really makes those who are successful different.
An example of survivorship bias would be like interviewing survivors of the Titanic disaster and finding out they all prayed to their god to survive. You might conclude that praying to one's god was the way remain alive from that disaster. But if you were able to interview those who perished very likely many/most of them also prayed to their god so that was probably not a factor that led to survival.
Some good reads on both the impact of randomness/chance on success and survivorship bias (the Taleb book only for this one) are: Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers and Nassim Taleb's Fooled by Randomness. Please note I am not trying to take away anything from OPs hard earned success just pointing out that his experiences are unlikely to provide the rest of us anything like a blueprint to follow. That said I do look forward to reading them if he decides to share on his blog.
Praying to God on the Titanic?
Give me a fvcking break. Did you shut your brain down in early middle school?
Attributing ALL of this to randomness is pure bullshit. (see how it feels when I use your generalizing logic against your own thesis?)
And then you say you'll read his blog anyway. Why?
Despite all the survivorship biases, butterfly effects and other convolutions/noise, I am sure the OP could identify some signals and most importantly some DECISIONS that helped him survive, and similar things that helped him thrive.
I'd list some examples from other successful people but I think it's wasted on the foolish and unnecessary for those who get it.
LOL, after reading Outliers and did some basic math on 'how much' his luck played a role. It was such a joke. Luck of being born at the right time and having proximity to valuable tools only narrows these guys down to like 1 in ~500k-2 million(depending on the subject). So much for the luck part, eh there Malcolm?
Malcolm acts like it narrows people down to a few hundred. It doesn't.
without taking this off topic, what Gladwell was pointing out was, all other factors being equal, being born at the right time/place CAN BE an imperative. When you hear of so many internet billionaires/millionaires being under 45, it is not due to their work ethic, it is because this demographic (under 45) is more computer/code savvy, than similar hard working persons over 45.
I see this in the health care profession everyday. The exact same person with comparable skills, work ethic, pedigree would not be as in demand 20 years ago or possibly 20 years from now. But at the moment, the timing of your birth makes you indispensable in your chosen profession.
gdrum said: He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.I think it you just stated "100% of them, their business model is to make money" everyone would agree with you. But what you consider a rip off may be different from what other people think. If you know about the fees, crap rate, etc upfront it is not as much of a rip off. However, if it was not disclosed to you when you signed up, then I would consider it a rip off. But anyway, hopefully the good news comes today.
patch96 said: without taking this off topic, what Gladwell was pointing out was, all other factors being equal, being born at the right time/place CAN BE an imperative. When you hear of so many internet billionaires/millionaires being under 45, it is not due to their work ethic, it is because this demographic (under 45) is more computer/code savvy, than similar hard working persons over 45.
I see this in the health care profession everyday. The exact same person with comparable skills, work ethic, pedigree would not be as in demand 20 years ago or possibly 20 years from now. But at the moment, the timing of your birth makes you indispensable in your chosen profession.
Agreed, but some of things Malcolm says in that book and particularly in the interview at the end of the audio book(maybe its in the hard copy as well) are way over the top in terms of how much he attributes everything to luck. Otherwise I still did enjoy the book.
EvilCapitalist said: gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.Why is your service not cost $0.01 for everything in any situations? Pot, meet kettle.
I also find it hilarious that he claims that 100% of credit unions are ripping off their customers(members) when the credit unions are owned by their members. I wonder if his $hitty credit insurance(which actually really is mostly a ripoff) is ran by its policyholders. I'm thinking no!
Well, I think at this point we can all agree that the attorneys and publicists working out JCarter's announcement achieved their cushy white collar careers purely through luck.
dshibb said: EvilCapitalist said: gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.Why is your service not cost $0.01 for everything in any situations? Pot, meet kettle.
I also find it hilarious that he claims that 100% of credit unions are ripping off their customers(members) when the credit unions are owned by their members. I wonder if his $hitty credit insurance(which actually really is mostly a ripoff) is ran by its policyholders. I'm thinking no!
Sorry to hijack the thread lets get this back on topic..just trying to fight the nonsense comments, and people whom know nothing of the financial industry.
First off the crap credit insurance is a written agreement at the bottom of nearly every security agreement for every credit union. You sign it, you are bound to pay it. Most people don't read or understand every aspect of contracts they sign like this. They are excited to get their new crown vic so they sign away.
Two they bet on the averages. If credit unions, finance companies, etc..Penfed advertises 1.99%. They arnt just 'nice' people... like "awe how nice of them to be half of normal rate" . NO ...its law of averages. If I sign up ton of people, half pay, the other half I hose on fees..im still coming out ahead. Redbox..Is a good example. Bet on the fees. Usually they are bigger hitters in long run.
gdrum said: dshibb said: EvilCapitalist said: gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.Why is your service not cost $0.01 for everything in any situations? Pot, meet kettle.
I also find it hilarious that he claims that 100% of credit unions are ripping off their customers(members) when the credit unions are owned by their members. I wonder if his $hitty credit insurance(which actually really is mostly a ripoff) is ran by its policyholders. I'm thinking no!
Sorry to hijack the thread lets get this back on topic..just trying to fight the nonsense comments, and people whom know nothing of the financial industry.
First off the crap credit insurance is a written agreement at the bottom of nearly every security agreement for every credit union. You sign it, you are bound to pay it. Most people don't read or understand every aspect of contracts they sign like this. They are excited to get their new crown vic so they sign away.
Two they bet on the averages. If credit unions, finance companies, etc..Penfed advertises 1.99%. They arnt just 'nice' people... like "awe how nice of them to be half of normal rate" . NO ...its law of averages. If I sign up ton of people, half pay, the other half I hose on fees..im still coming out ahead. Redbox..Is a good example. Bet on the fees. Usually they are bigger hitters in long run.
Be careful who you say that to buddy I too work in the industry and you clearly have an inflated sense of your knowledge of it.
So how about you stop thread crapping on this thread and if you want to discuss this further create your own thread.
dshibb said: gdrum said: dshibb said: EvilCapitalist said: gdrum said: dshibb said: motuwallet said: interesting thread. a few thoughts:
- i was watching ocean's thirteen last night - terrible movie but it had a scene where clooney was "stealing" the whales of some casino. to investment banks you're now a whale - keep that in mind any time you talk to a banker or they offer you a product/fund. - 999 out of 1000 businesses in finance are built on ripping off their customers. you won't even know it. - get advice from others in SV who were in your position before and who did well/were savvy on how to deal with HNW advisors. and not just since 2009. - and that's all for free
- lastly someone mentioned kaggle - i will lolcry if that's it since their incentive model is so bad
You don't know what you're talking about. Lets see: Commercial banking is one area where 99.99% of them *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of custodians *don't* 'rip off' their customers. 99.9999% of trust companies *don't* 'rip off' their customers. The list goes on and on. Now I would probably would agree that around 50% of financial advisors and insurance agents don't provide more value to their clients than what they charge, but that is a far cry from 'ripping them off'.
He does know what he's talking about. I provide creditor insurance for over 2000+ different credit unions and financial institutions across the country. I would say 100% of them, their business model is ripping people off. Fees, crap rates, "we will allow you to have 1 missed holiday payment a year ". The stories I could tell. It's a goldmine.Why is your service not cost $0.01 for everything in any situations? Pot, meet kettle.
I also find it hilarious that he claims that 100% of credit unions are ripping off their customers(members) when the credit unions are owned by their members. I wonder if his $hitty credit insurance(which actually really is mostly a ripoff) is ran by its policyholders. I'm thinking no!
Sorry to hijack the thread lets get this back on topic..just trying to fight the nonsense comments, and people whom know nothing of the financial industry.
First off the crap credit insurance is a written agreement at the bottom of nearly every security agreement for every credit union. You sign it, you are bound to pay it. Most people don't read or understand every aspect of contracts they sign like this. They are excited to get their new crown vic so they sign away.
Two they bet on the averages. If credit unions, finance companies, etc..Penfed advertises 1.99%. They arnt just 'nice' people... like "awe how nice of them to be half of normal rate" . NO ...its law of averages. If I sign up ton of people, half pay, the other half I hose on fees..im still coming out ahead. Redbox..Is a good example. Bet on the fees. Usually they are bigger hitters in long run.
Be careful who you say that to buddy I too work in the industry and you clearly have an inflated sense of your knowledge of it.
So how about you stop thread crapping on this thread and if you want to discuss this further create your own thread.He reminds me of Holiday Inn Express commercials. But he works in credit insurance! He knows everything and we're all suckers getting fleeced.
Not wanting to derail but I'll elaborate a bit on my controversial statement. It is ok to get ripped off by a bit - its part of the game. What you want to avoid is getting ripped off a lot through hidden pitfalls or costs that you're not aware of. It takes an extreme degree of sophistication to avoid all of what I would consider rip offs (let's just define this as charging way above market). At $225 million net worth your willingness to dedicate time to monitoring and learning about such may vary highly. For someone with that much it's probably OK to get ripped on commissions, for instance. But thinking you're getting a hot hedge fund when it's really 3rd rate but friendly/in-house with your broker, or a hot new product your guy is hooking you up with while the bank is calling you a muppet, or paying excessive FoF fees are probably bad.
motuwallet said: Not wanting to derail but I'll elaborate a bit on my controversial statement. It is ok to get ripped off by a bit - its part of the game. What you want to avoid is getting ripped off a lot through hidden pitfalls or costs that you're not aware of. It takes an extreme degree of sophistication to avoid all of what I would consider rip offs (let's just define this as charging way above market). At $225 million net worth your willingness to dedicate time to monitoring and learning about such may vary highly. For someone with that much it's probably OK to get ripped on commissions, for instance. But thinking you're getting a hot hedge fund when it's really 3rd rate but friendly/in-house with your broker, or a hot new product your guy is hooking you up with while the bank is calling you a muppet, or paying excessive FoF fees are probably bad.I know it's trendy right now to use "muppets" in reference to what a Goldman derivatives trader called his hedge fund clients who took the opposite side of his zero sum trades, but it's getting old.
motuwallet said: Not wanting to derail but I'll elaborate a bit on my controversial statement. It is ok to get ripped off by a bit - its part of the game. What you want to avoid is getting ripped off a lot through hidden pitfalls or costs that you're not aware of. It takes an extreme degree of sophistication to avoid all of what I would consider rip offs (let's just define this as charging way above market). At $225 million net worth your willingness to dedicate time to monitoring and learning about such may vary highly. For someone with that much it's probably OK to get ripped on commissions, for instance. But thinking you're getting a hot hedge fund when it's really 3rd rate but friendly/in-house with your broker, or a hot new product your guy is hooking you up with while the bank is calling you a muppet, or paying excessive FoF fees are probably bad.
Most of these things are broker to broker not company to company. A wealth management team at a major captive or a private banking division doesn't have uniform approaches to dealing with clients. They are forced by the nature of the business to grant a decent amount of autonomy to their private bankers, wealth managers, etc. That said there are still unique 'cultures' at each institution and each institution does attempt to incentivize certain things at certain times.
You also want to be careful to not equate sell side I-Bankers with buy side wealth management. Sell side market makers are like bookies. Their job is to make money off a customer who can't put together a particular position that the bank can and they do this while trying to bring in the most profit to the bank. People who work with sell side market makers understand this and these people ***are not average people***(nor even average wealthy people) they are other institutions like hedge funds, asset managers, other banks, and individual investors that have gotten special authorization that isn't granted unless a person really knows what they are doing. The buy side doesn't trade against customers so this is a non issue.
Also when your working with a private banker or wealth management team and you ask them to detail all the ways they get compensated off of you they can't lie to you. Now maybe some unscrupulous broker will, but the vast majority aren't willing to have regulatory action taken against them on something like this if they get caught. Now if an institution asks a sell sider how they get compensated on a deal that sell sider can just tell them to go hell because he's not saying anything.
Basically if you keep a watchful eye over what your wealth managers/private bankers/financial advisors are doing/recommending/etc. and have a basic understanding of the ways they are compensated you don't have to be too worried about them 'ripping you off'(as you put it), and instead you should be spending more of your time asking yourself if these guys are even worth a damn in comparison to others. In most cases a '3rd rate hedge fund' gets recommended because the wealth manager isn't that smart not because he has sinister motives.
Disclaimer: By providing links to other sites, FatWallet.com does not guarantee, approve or endorse the information or products available at these sites, nor does a link indicate any association with or endorsement by the linked site to FatWallet.com.
Members of our community may attach files to a post in accordance with the User Agreement. FatWallet is not responsible for the content, accuracy, completeness or validity of any information contained in any attached file. Files have *not* been scanned for viruses. Be especially wary of Excel files which may contain malicious content.
One-time set up
Avoid the hassle of entering your information every time you buy.
•
Instant Cash Back tracking
Since we complete the purchase, we can credit your Cash Back immediately.
•
Buy with just two clicks
One click begins checkout and another confirms your purchase.
Once set up, making a purchase with FW checkout is a breeze. FatWallet Checkout confirms the after-tax
price plus shipping and, after you confirm, completes your purchase for you.
Shopping
Earn Cash Back while you shop - just 3 simple steps.
1. Sign Up so we know who to pay! (It's FREE.)
2. Shop through FatWallet for deals from your favorite stores. Your online purchases earn Cash Back that builds in your FatWallet account.
3. Get Paid by requesting a payment via check or PayPal.
FatWallet coupons help you save more when shopping online. Use our Coupons Search to browse coupons and offers from thousands of stores, gathered into one convenient location.
Forums
As part of our FatWallet Community, you can share deals with almost a million shoppers in our forums. Forum content is generated by consumers for consumers. Share deals, money-saving tips, and more. It's FREE, fun, and addicting.
Support
Our customer experience team is here around the clock - real people ready to assist.
