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The realities of being a pop star

itscharlibb.substack.com

211–220 of 249 posts

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's still the most successful businessman in history, by far. Pretty good for a loser.

He’s a hype man. Tesla is a meme stock and always has been. There is no objective valuation that Tesla should be valued as highly as it is. The future projected revenue and definitely not the current revenue support it. Sales popped right before the EV credit is going away. But at most that is probably a dead cat bounce.

He essentially invented the electric car industry. E cars before then were impractical and failures.

> There is no objective valuation

Value investing is Warren Buffett's style, which is generally a backwards looking approach. It's not good at predicting transformative technologies. Such was no good at predicting the success of, say, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always feel like this is elitist (oh, look at your silly little problem, I risked death, and you are complaining about rent. And I always respond with, yes, not everyone risked death, and they do have a right to complain about rent. You did it because of your own free choice. Another aspect of this silly stance is that if we always compare with death, nothing ever gets done. It is perfectly reasonable to have every…

Well yea sure. But also look at death though. What does any uncomfortable thing mean in the face of death? Not much. And this is coming from someone who hasn’t voluntarily faced death or consciously experienced the threat of it. I respect both views. I guess it takes some Janusian thinking skills [1], for me at least, but both perspectives are worth it. [1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-exploration…

Anytime you wake up in the morning and are able to get out of bed and stand up is a beautiful day.

I've never wanted to transfer my brain into a machine. Isn't it wonderful to feel the floor under your feet? To smell the air? To taste a steak? To hear the bees? To see the leaves? To hold your partner?

Every day is an opportunity to enjoy your life.

I don't really know what kind of a man I am, because I have never volunteered to face death.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s a hype man. Tesla is a meme stock and always has been. There is no objective valuation that Tesla should be valued as highly as it is. The future projected revenue and definitely not the current revenue support it. Sales popped right before the EV credit is going away. But at most that is probably a dead cat bounce.

He essentially invented the electric car industry. E cars before then were impractical and failures. > There is no objective valuation Value investing is Warren Buffett's style, which is generally a backwards looking approach. It's not good at predicting transformative technologies. Such was no good at predicting the success of, say, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, etc.

Okay. He invented it. So what? Other companies are selling more and the first mover advantage is moot.

And the other examples you ara giving…

Apple’s valuation went up as it was clear that Apple had a sustainable advantage and was going to see increasing revenues and profits going forward. Where are the companies that invented the modern smart phone?

Microsoft has a sustainable advantage that hasn’t been challenged in over four decades with operating systems, office apps and later cloud services. But their stock was in the doldrums in the 2000s when investors didn’t see a sustainable advantage with increasing revenues

Meta has also been volatile when investors didn’t see a sustainable advantage.

Amazon also has a moat

What does Tesla have?

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wondered about that as well. I would do whatever I can to avoid my sons going to war because these wars are fought for interests that are completely remote. I can imagine resistance when you are invaded (and still, you need to weigh your real chances). Sending someone to Africa from France to protect some interests there, well not that much.

Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on the US, Hitler was allied with Japan, and Hitler was sinking American shipping.

Yes, in the case of WW2 this is a "defense" war. But the next ones were not.

My comment was general - I am French and we send our army mostly to Africa to secure our sources of various minerals. Or to Asia in the 70s. We did not go to Iraq but that would have been another fight for oil (this time).

Western countries have not been attacked since WW2, but it also have been busy (same as the US)

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#215
Very weak writing.

There’s nothing in there that I couldn’t capture with a very basic imagination.

While I appreciate how women face misogyny, we have made great progress where women are showing better progression than men in income and career achievement. I am a father to a young woman and feel our social group is full of very successful and inspiring women that we all appreciate to be around.

The author does women a disservice, instead of being inspiring with her climb to success, she’s venting that the world is just not good enough.

To become a pop star comes from pure luck and what is marketable in the moment. For this case, the observations are more of a cliche than anything interesting.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#216
post #18

Courtney Love wrote a fabulous article explaining the realities of a million-dollar album (2000 - https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/ ) and it explains so much of whats actually going on that the public doesn't fully comprehend. Its a great read if you've never read it. The realities are similar to what we are reading in this article. Most of what gets talked about is gross numbers not net. Most of the benefits…

> Your average NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL athletes are broke 5 years after they are out of the league. Fame, is mostly a curse. I'm not familiar with the financials of music / media production (I didn't read the linked article yet, sorry). But I feel this over-pitying attitude towards professional sports players is misplaced. They do often go broke after their career. That is sad. It is also completely avoidable with _very_…

> Spend (a lot) less than you make. At 500k/year anywhere in the US, you should easily be saving 200k / year.

$500k/year sounds like a lot, but that's enough that taxes are going to take a large bite. Only the biggest stars can get their income deferred beyond their career. Because of the nature of the job, you're going to have larger housing costs: when you get traded, you need to find somewhere to live quickly and you might be on the hook for the old lease for some time; depending on the league, off-season training may happen in a different part of the country than the regular season, so you might need housing there too... Moving costs probably add up, because trades are immediate.

If you're only in the league for 5 years, chances are you're spending some time in the minors and you're typically not earning at your headling contract rate then... Also, a lot of the headline rates include bonuses for winning the championship which statistically few teams and players do.

There's also the problem that yes, these people need financial advice because they don't always have financial skills, but they also have trouble picking financial advisers because they don't always have financial skills.

Also, young people of all income levels get themselves into trouble with finance; higher income probably makes it easier.

I certainly agree that $500k/year for 5 years should leave you well off after, but it's not that surprising that it often doesn't.

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#217

Very weak writing. There’s nothing in there that I couldn’t capture with a very basic imagination. While I appreciate how women face misogyny, we have made great progress where women are showing better progression than men in income and career achievement. I am a father to a young woman and feel our social group is full of very successful and inspiring women that we all appreciate to be around. The author does women…

I thought her writing was 10x better than your comment, which was completely unoriginal, retreads old cultural tropes, and added nothing of value.

Of course you father of daughters doesn't think she's a good feminist role model for your girls. Thank you, good sir, for being an actual feminist. How brave.

Tell me more about what you think would be a service to women? Do you have a Substack where I can read your manly wisdom?

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama was neither

He might have started out as neither but to get a run at the party nomination required that he developed some good connections first.

yea for sure POTUS (or even just party candidate) will eventually be both you you don’t need to be either to begin with (though it obviously helps, more and more countries are choosing billionaires to run them :) )

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#219
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what qualification does one need to be US President (besides being born in the US and of certain age)? celebrities certainly won’t be doing any open heart surgeries anytime soon :) so there are things you absolutely do not need any qualitications for (Actor/Actress, US President) and there those you do (Surgeon, Attorney…)

The idea that you shouldn't need qualifications - which, might I add, is not the same as certification - to be the President of The United States is a wild one.

I am not sure if there is a single country now (or there was one ever) where there were any requirements/qualifications needed to be the President

Re: The realities of being a pop star

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The politicians aren't announcing they use cocaine in public, are they? Even if some of them do sniff a lot on camera.

They’ve literally found cocaine at the White House and refused to persecute anyone for it. Rules for thee but not for me.

That's not enough evidence to tie it to a person. I remember that one and it seemed like it was dropped by someone on a tour.
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