

Why Speakers Earn 30k An Hour - InfinityX0
http://oreilly.com/social-media/excerpts/9780596802004/why-speakers-earn-30k-an-hour.html

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_delirium
One thing sort of hinted at but not explicitly mentioned is that the field you
speak in makes a significant difference, especially at the lower end (really
famous people will make out well in any case). If you can get onto the
corporate speaking circuit, doing tutorials and lectures at corporate
retreats, for example, there is a _lot_ of that work, and it pays fairly well.
This usually requires a sort of "pop" or "business" angle on your speaking.
Even a very engaging lecture about advanced mathematics is not going to get
you invited to most corporate retreats, but a lightly mathematically tinged
anecdote, or a more business-focused lecture about using statistics to analyze
markets, might do so.

I've noticed in game-design, for example, that over the past 1-2 years by far
the best way to go if you want to make money speaking is to get into
"gamification", talking about how companies can use game mechanics and badges
for engagement and that kind of thing. Even if you're a better speaker when
talking about actual game-design, the markets are just very differently sized,
so it's more lucrative to give an "ok" talk about gamification (lots of
clients) than a great talk about game-design (many fewer clients, unless
you're Will Wright level).

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patio11
_This usually requires a sort of "pop" or "business" angle on your speaking._

An anecdote: I got an email after my Old Spice speech from somebody who
charges $30k a speech. He said "That was good, topical, and funny. If you want
to do more like that, get an agent. You will get gigs."

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JMStewy
Link for the curious:

<http://akshat.posterous.com/patio11-says-hello-ladies>

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bravura
What software is used to include the slides and the talk video in the same
frame?

~~~
patio11
A professional editor using the Adobe toolchain, as far as I know.

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joe42
>To put the numbers so far in this chapter in perspective, the average adult
on planet Earth earns $8,200 a year (U.S. dollars). The average American makes
about $45,000. Since you see your paycheck, you know exactly where you stand.

Bit of a tangential nitpick: I don't like that he used the _averages_ here--I
think he should have used the medians. Which, for Earth, is about $850 [0]
and, for U.S.A., is about $30k-50k [0,1]. Even so, a single number doesn't
give you a very good picture of the actual wealth distribution, but the median
is better than the _average_ (for chrissake!) in this case.

[0]: [http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-median-income-
worldwide....](http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-median-income-
worldwide.htm) (I tried for a couple minutes to find a better source--sorry.)

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income>

Edit: And, overall, I found the excerpt to be rather fluffy, feel-goody, and
sparse on content. Maybe I'm cheating here, but it seems like the kind of text
that would make a fine talk, but a vacuous essay.

~~~
djloche
For those wondering, here are the individual income medians from the 2010
census (all numbers are pre-tax gross income):

individual median income: $26,680/yr, single: $18,881/yr, married: $32,033/yr,
divorced: $28,668/yr, widowed: $18,485/yr,

This is a more accurate picture for which to start making comparisons
regarding your individual income status (in the united states).

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hardik988
The discussion on the last time this was submitted :
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=927757>

~~~
signalsignal
I wonder if there is any value in the comments from the second time around or
if rereading the first set of comments is sufficient? Maybe a double blind
study is neccessary.

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apedley
Well he also seems to forget the amount of effort but in by the speaker. Of
course a more famous one will be paid more, (s)he has spent thousands of hours
doing appearances, books, etc all to gain some notoriety, all without the
assurance it will pay off or come back to them some day. 30k an hour just
isn't accurate if you see all the effort over the years to pull it off and the
pre and post work needed to be done per speaking engagement.

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alain94040
Does anyone have an opinion on the ethics of paying for speakers, in the
context of a public conference?

I am fine with covering basic expenses, travel. What about significant speaker
fees?

~~~
dotBen
er, I don't see what is ethically wrong with it if the organizers are charging
people to attend - like Scott says, the organizers can make $250k from tickets
to see him speak.

What is ethically 'troublesome' is when conference organizers like O'Reilly
(but others do it, they just happen to be hosting the post) take pay-for-play
speakers at their conferences but don't disclose.

In other words, the speakers pay the conference organizers AND the attendees
are paying too. I have no problem with speakers being paid, in fact it
increases the chances of high-value speakers attending.

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ilaksh
This only adds up if you think it makes sense for some many individuals to be
allocated 10000x more resources for their leisure while the majority scrape to
get by.

Its a very primitive belief system that actually predates social Darwinism and
served as the inspiration for it.

In order to have an actual civilization, we will need to start to realize the
differences between humans and common animals.

~~~
signalsignal
What do we have now if not an actual civilization?

~~~
ilaksh
If you come up with a substantive response to any other part of my comment
then I will answer your question.

