[painter]

I love financial stories, this one is a disaster:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-30...g-art.html

Halsey Minor, founder of CNET Systems is down to his last $50 million and is filing Chapter 7 Bankruptcy on debts of $100 million. Blew it all on mansions, horse farms, art and many bad investments that had nothing to do with his expertise in software.

That is an awful lot of money to just piss away. I could fill the rest of my days with adventure, champagne, and ladies and still have like $1.7 billion to pass along... maybe a little less if you get lots and lots of cars and a sports team or two...

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I am just speculating here but, I guess that these people soon grow bored with megayachts, mansions, adventures, champagne and sex parties, and soon the only thing left that gives them pleasure is influencing others. They invest enormous sums into unworkable businesses like horse farms and whatever, thinking that they are going to be not just rich, but also influential. This causes their doom, as their ego's need to be influential outweighs the reason needed to actually build influence, and they collapse. One famous case that illustrates this well (don't know if it's fictional or not) has been covered early in Mad Men in the form of Horace Cook, the billionaire hair who threw away a fortune on promoting the obscure sport of Jai Alai, for which he was convinced that it would become a world sensation and the most popular sport in the country.

Hey, at least the trickle-down principle worked for once

[samsamsam]

I think deeper in the article it says he only netted 200M.

Minor netted $200 million from his sale of CNET, according to CNN Money.

That is easy to blow if you are dropping a few million here and there on homes and shit. Plus, I don't know if the netting included taxes. Don't get me wrong I am shocked but not shocked that 200M could be pissed away. But that is easier to believe than 1.8B.

And I bet he spent a lot to impress others.

[Teutatis]

Impressive. I can't help thinking, I'd be happy with 0.1% of his former fortune, and this guy just goes and throws it away like that.

Well, it's a good example on what not to do, for when I have my billions.

[little wing]

Damn, with a few sound investments I think I could live my entire life with 3 million

[vinman]

He's down to 50 million? How can he possibly survive on that pittance? I think that Handsome Creepy Eel might be on to something.

[Sebastian]

his brain didn't go bankrupt. I am sure he can easily find the investor for his next project.

[WestIndianArchie]

(06-01-2013 05:05 PM)painter Wrote:  

That is an awful lot of money to just piss away. I could fill the rest of my days with adventure, champagne, and ladies and still have like $1.7 billion to pass along... maybe a little less if you get lots and lots of cars and a sports team or two...

He didn't really piss it away, he put the bulk of it in a hi tech incubator that failed. He basically tried to leverage his tech/start up knowledge and create more internet companies. It's pretty much what all those Silicon Valley guys do when they cash out. They try to make more cash because most of them don't get the lion's share of the money for the thing that they create. Slave wants to become a master.

WIA