https://img.thedailybeast.com/image/upload/v1/articles/2016/...
On the other hand some of those are silly. "Emoticon Autocorrect"
Well, not every crazy billionaire can be as good as Musk.
Sounds like something Adam Neumann would say.
Neumann was more of a conman that was only good at turning billions of dollars into...billions of dollars of debt. And don't forget his weird cultish entourage.
Edit: never mind, looks like he's selling sneakers.
It sounds like that preliminary analysis will be revised... downward.
He just doesn't care and panders to everyone at the same time because nobody bothers to keep this kind of cynical celebrity culture in check.
The modern model is to share the music freely as it serves primarily as a sales pitch for the artists brand. Young people want something of "value" for their money and they don't see a recording itself as having even $0.99 of value (even though they've mostly forgotten how to actually pirate media), like shitty overpriced merch and miserable "live music experiences" and "meet and greets".
Really what they're selling is hype. Which explains why an extreme manic depressive like Kanye has been so successful in this context. It's a system that directly rewards con men and effectively punishes any kind of caution or prudence. It also rewards drug addiction as many of these con men rely on drugs to maintain the illusions of their existence.
It's particularly sad because this system exploits the earnest passions of both the artists and the fans to manipulate them into participating.
Think of Dr. Dre's Beats, Jay-Z's Tidal and investments in Uber. Now Kanye's Yeezy brand too.
Don't think of the time Soulja Boy tried selling bootleg game emulators[0], though.
[0]https://www.geek.com/games/finally-soulja-boy-is-selling-boo...
For big artists it’s mainly going on tour. Doing a tour tends to generate more money for an artist than the album itself and it’s been this way for years now.
Ed Sheeran’s tour grossed almost a billion dollars ($776.200.000) .. that’s 1 tour. He did 2 before that.
West has billions, is a recognized musical genius, is now setting fashion trends and will go to bed tonight with Kim K.
I'd say he's doing pretty well, compared to most.
Sure, the crazy people who made a bunch of money (or the terrorists) are the ones you've heard of. The majority of "unhinged" people are probably not better off for it.
Steve Jobs is kind of a great example. On HN people fawn over him, but he was "unhinged:" he was a giant asshole to everyone, by all accounts, and he opted for snake oil over medicine during the earliest part of his cancer treatment.
Plenty of people get lucky and strike it rich or contribute meaningfully to society without being unhinged. There is no meaningful correlation here.