
What is it like to be broke after being a billionaire? - shayannafisi
https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-broke-after-being-a-billionaire/answers/13466591?share=1
======
angersock
_Then, my wife divorced me. I lost a large portion of my net worth during that
process._

This is a very real issue that happens, and honestly something conveniently
overlooked in the "Fuck male privilege" of the current times.

~~~
dalke
"I had lost about half my fortune in my divorce."

How is a 50/50 split after a divorce anything to do with privilege?

The author, btw, attributes his going broke to:

"My team screwed up some basic arithmetic that led to my financial fall." ...
"You might be wondering what an idiot I am for hiring such bad personnel who
couldn't even add up some basic budgets and realize there was an issue." ...
"But as to the specific person (the manager) who actually was responsible for
managing and supervising budgets, I have absolutely no anger towards. He is my
son."

It sounds more like you can attribute it to nepotism. Though even there the
author says:

"It was definitely not his fault."

~~~
angersock
Elsewhere in the article he specifically talks about how he was having to
patch together project budgets using his own funds--and having _lost_ half of
those funds, it's not unreasonable to imagine that that is perhaps what pushed
him over the edge.

I'm willing to bet that that half of a fortune is not being put into as many
economically active projects as the part he'd kept is.

~~~
dalke
The last part is pure conjecture. You could also bet that he should have cut
his losses and started a new company with his funds, and done better. Or that
even with 2x money he wouldn't have made it. Or, of course, if he hadn't
engaged in nepotism and instead hired someone who could handle the job.

In any case, it's irrelevant to how "privilege" plays a role, which was your
point.

~~~
angersock
I was observing that, in the current times, it's very popular to point out how
easy men have it, observations typically lumped under the term "privilege".
This story illustrates one of the common cases that does seem to be rather
ignored in that accounting, hence why I brought it up.

~~~
dalke
And I ask, what does privilege have to do with this story?

How is a 50/50 split from a divorce some sign of "Fuck male privilege"? Based
on the information given, what should the split have been to be equitable?

We know nothing of the circumstances for any other ratio to make sense. Was
the seed money hers? Did they flip a coin to decide who was going to run the
company and who was going to raise the kids? Was there a prenuptial agreement
saying there would be a 50/50 split on a divorce?

Instead, you seem to be reading something in the story based not only on what
appears to be pure conjecture, but counter to how the author apportions blame.
You continue the conjecture by positing that had the author had more personal
money to dump on the problem, then it would have been better. But we don't
know that. Was he willing to fire his son? Was his business idea any good? Or
would it simply have been more money down the drain?

Nor do we know what his wife has done with the money.

~~~
angersock
The article is mostly separate of my point--this is quite alright. HN would be
boring if every comment was only to be directly related to whatever article
was being discussed.

It is strongly hinted (at least in my reading) that the money required to
cover the fuckups _could 've_ been at least partially covered by the author's
pre-divorce wealth; had they written something like "even without the divorce
I couldn't have fixed the troubles we were in" then it would've been much
clearer.

~~~
dalke
It's completely tangential. You're reading into it things that aren't there,
and seemingly using it as platform to express views similar to what I've seen
in anti-feminist writings.

Do you agree with me that everyone has the right to a no-fault divorce?

If so, then it doesn't really matter what _might_ have happened had there been
no divorce. They got a divorce, end of story. If not, then who has the
'privilege' of being able to divorce?

Do you agree that a 50-50 cash split is a reasonable split after a divorce, at
least when you know nothing about the details of the marriage and reason for
divorce?

If so, then there's no "privilege", or sign of "Fuck male privilege." If not,
then you haven't said what the non-privilege version should be.

Since people do get divorced, do you not also agree with me that it's a factor
to consider in business planning?

And what's not clear about the essay? The author said, 1) the team screwed up,
because 2) the owner's son didn't have enough experience, and 3) the owner
didn't provide enough oversight. As the company stated to flounder, he got bad
press, and lost investment interest. So he decided to risk his own money on
the chance of a big win.

And note, this is _after_ the divorce, so it's his own decision to invest his
own money. If he hadn't done so, he would be worth millions. We also don't
know if his wife would have agreed to the gamble if they had stayed married.
He then lost the gamble. So it's not like he went broke _because_ of the
divorce, or diminished funds - it's that he made a gamble and lost.

He already said it wasn't his son's fault, even though the son was the most
proximate cause to his problem. Why should he think that he needed to even add
the statement that you want, when it was clearly his decisions that lead going
broke, and where he places full responsibility on himself?

