
Going Diamond: on Amway - samclemens
https://granta.com/going-diamond/
======
richardlblair
When I was 16 I fell into the Amyway trap. What the author is documenting is
accurate. It's a trap.

I never really regretted it because there were so many other bad things I
could be getting into at 16. Especially where I lived. It also instilled some
values that I still hold today.

Not to mention that at 16 I had access to wealthy people who taught me how to
manage my money.

So yea, Amyway is a trap - but a lot of people are happy in that trap. I think
the most disappointing thing for me was when I realized that the guys at the
top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich from everyone
buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences.

Edit: Typing is hard

~~~
jnbiche
> the guys at the top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich
> from everyone buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences.

I've noticed the same about many of the super successful "entrepreneurs" who
frequent places like /r/Entrepreneurship, various entrepreneurship blogs, and
even sometimes here on HN. They get rich off of selling books, classes, access
to "forums" [sic], and from referrals to their fellow "entrepreneurs", and
_not_ from any other entrepreneurial activity that they've done previously.

~~~
pc86
It's the same as the reason why people like Pat Flynn make 25x more from
affiliate fees than from any of their actual businesses. There are a _lot_
more people who want to "make money" than there are people who want to "start
and grow a business."

PF makes money selling tools that help people make money online (doing
anything - read some of his article on "article spinning" and how he defends
it and it will make you want to vomit). Darren Rowse makes money selling tools
that help people make money blogging. Even Nathan Barry (who I'm a big fan of)
made a lot more money from Authority than he ever did from his design books.
ConvertKit was just a shift from product to service.

Along the same vein, a lot of people in Amway want to "make money" and not
very many want to "start and grow an MLM business." Selling $40 CDs and
lecturing your down-line about buying non-Alticor products is just the best
way to do it.

~~~
jaredhansen
>There are a lot more people who want to "make money" than there are people
who want to "start and grow a business."

Exactly right. Cf "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but don't nobody wanna
lift no heavy-ass weights."

------
mrbill
I did a lot of computer consulting/fix-it work in high school (late 80s/early
90s), and one of my biggest clients was a guy who was the region's "Diamond" /
biggest Amway distributor.

The first time I showed up at his house, I was surprised to see that he had a
two-car garage converted into a pretty nice home office / mini-warehouse.
Couple of desks with their computers and printers set up, lots of shelves to
store tapes, videos, soap, and other products to be sold.. with a double glass
door leading to his indoor pool.

We had an agreement: he wouldn't try to sell me or my family anything, and I
would fix his computers as needed for money. It worked out well.

A few months after I'd started fixing things for him, I got suckered into
going to a presentation by a friend (classmate). I'm sitting there on the
front row, and the promised Big Important Speaker walks up.. and it's my
client. He sees me in the front row. "Bill ,what are you doing here!?" "Hey
Robert. A friend asked me to come.."

It was rather funny seeing all the people oooh and ahhh over THE AMWAY DIAMOND
SELLER and I was just, "Hey, while I'm here.. need anything fixed next week?"

------
NelsonMinar
Betsy DeVos, the incoming Education Secretary for the US, is the daughter-in-
law of one of the Amway founders.
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2016/11/23/trump-
pi...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2016/11/23/trump-picks-betsy-
devos-daughter-in-law-of-billionaire-amway-cofounder-for-education-
secretary/#57495cff5313)

~~~
tomcam
And what is the value of this information?

~~~
gech
Because it should be evident that there's no way in hell we should be putting
someone like her with a background like that into office.

------
aswanson
I am continually stunned at the amount of people, even some whom I'd consider
rational enough to see through this pyramid scheme nonsense, approach me with
it. Amway, Quixtar, Karatbars, Herbalife...the Ponzi scheme with a Thousand
Faces.

~~~
pc86
Quixtar is just the US/Canada distributor of Amway. They're literally the same
company.

Also Amway isn't a pyramid scheme. It's stupid and an incredibly risky way to
try to make money, but it simply doesn't fit the legal definition of a pyramid
scheme. It's pretty easy to dismiss Amway for a whole host of reasons, no
reason to do it based on one of the few claims that isn't legitimate.

~~~
XorNot
No it's definitely a pyramid scheme, just carefully structured to avoid that
legal definition for pretty obvious reasons.

~~~
unsignedint
I believe a narrow definition of pyramid scheme is if the payment is made
solely for signing someone up under you. If the payment is made through
commissions of sales rather than the merely based on new participants sigining
up, ai don't think it's legally a pyramid scheme, more of an multi-level
marketing scheme, though personally a practice I wouldn't sign up
regardless...

~~~
jbooth
Except the products are 100% overpriced knockoff junk. They're only there, as
GP said, to make it just barely not a pyramid scheme in the eyes of the law.

Nobody joins Amway because they believe in the products, they join because
they believe in the pyramid concept.

~~~
pc86
I don't know if it's still the case, but when I was involved for ~18 months
ca. 2007/8, the cleaning products were actually very very good. I heard from
others (not affiliated with Amway) that back closer to the start of the
company they were some of the best non-commercial cleaning products you could
get.

But I agree with you that nearly everything else was garbage. Some of the food
was good but I was not concerned with health in 2007/8 so it may be garbage
from a health/nutrition standpoint.

------
figjamjam
I was excommunicated from my family at 15 because I refused to join Amway.
It's a family destroying dangerous cult. It's not like my family was super
awesome before Amway but it did drive us from lower middle class to poor while
promising them riches. It made me very wary of any get rich scheme - including
tech start ups. Instead I'm getting rich slowly. Which is fine for me but
really bad for dating. The whole living frugally and saving is a very hard
sell, especially in SF.

~~~
bsenftner
You are doing it right. Any potential life partner that does not have the
"patience" and good judgement to see the wisdom of your choices is not worth
spending time with anyway.

~~~
figjamjam
Thanks. A problem occurs when the market gets too thin. I've had all my long
term gfs leave me for much older richer men. As a guy I'm confident that I
will both get older and richer so I'll be fine. My greater concern is for the
opposite effect on women and the gender dynamics in general.

~~~
maverick_iceman
In SF I see a lot of 20-something women with 40-50 year old (rich) men. This
was a bit surprising when I first came here. In no other cities I have seen
this happening at such a large extent.

~~~
tdb7893
That's part of why I'm not sure I want to move to SF. I'm from somewhere that
is barely considered the suburbs of Chicago and my girlfriend is from a small
farm in Iowa and I'm worried we wouldn't fit in. People spending lots of money
kinda makes me uncomfortable.

~~~
edblarney
Yeah - 'young girls with older dudes' is not really so much a thing in SF,
though it exists.

There are 20 other reasons to be 'weary' of living in SF that are just easier
to grasp, like 'rent'. Also - maybe I'm wrong but when I lived there it felt
like 3 guys to every girl. At least the way social networks work because they
are so tech-focused.

But materialism is what it is ... so yes, you'll get some negative aspects
from having clusters of money.

------
creeble
I grew up in Grand Rapids, two miles from Amway HQ. Working at the Amway
factory (yes, there is [or was] a factory) was my first job after (dropping
out of) college. A friend was the HQ tour guide for all the Silvers on their
way to becoming Diamonds. He was hilarious.

It is an interesting cult. Never quite figured out the attraction; you're
either the kind of person who likes / falls for MLM schemes or you aren't I
think.

~~~
micah_chatt
No way! I grew up literally across the river and could see Amway from my
bedroom window.

------
dceddia
I didn't get the popup (probably because of uBlock)...

But this quote stuck out:

 _Nothing was wrong with our life before Amway – we didn’t join it to fill a
void. We were happy, until we were told we could be happier._

------
stillmbarrassed
Amway ruined my childhood. My parents became involved with “the business” in
the late ’70s or early ’80s. One of my first memories is of a first grade
classmate sharing the news that his parents had “gone direct”. Even at that
young age I was aware that this was something my parents had wanted to achieve
for a long time, and I wondered why they couldn't - what was wrong with them?

Throughout elementary school I came to understand that Amway was for losers.
It was not uncommon at that time for Amway to be the punchline or subject of
other mockery. So by the time I reached adolescence I had a full-fledged
paranoia that friends or classmates would find out. At sleepovers and camping
trips I'd have to hide my Glister toothpaste. When friends visited I'd be
afraid they'd spot our L.O.C. dish soap.

But the worst was when my parents decided to “draw circles” for my friends’
parents. I think this only happened a couple of times - I'm pretty sure I even
asked my parents not to do it.

My parents are good people, perhaps very naive. I think they are still
involved with Amway to this day. I’m sure they never made any money from it,
and I shudder to think how much it has cost them. Since I left home for
college I don't think we've ever discussed it. I doubt they know how much I
resented it.

------
girishso
Reminds me of the book: Merchants of Deception

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439247153/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439247153/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480609001&sr=1-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=Eric+Scheibeler&dpPl=1&dpID=51WGe7jbJ2L&ref=plSrch)

~~~
mgkimsal
excellent read. found it after a neighbor had started floating the idea of me
joining his 'business'. had been hit by amway folks before, but I dug in a bit
more and found MoD. This all happened in PA, and I'd read it while I was
living in PA, so it seemed to feel a bit more 'real' (no idea why though).

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losteverything
Decades ago my can't-say-no-mother had this Amway guy at the house. He sold us
matches that could strike even under water.

It was very valuable to know about Amway at such an early age.

Years later the salesman was out of Amway. He apologized to our family. He
said he would have sold Amway to president Nixon.

------
ohyoutravel
This is a pretty interesting long form article. Reminds me of a Franzen book
or something along those lines, maybe an episode of This American Life.

No popup for me by the way. uBlock Origin might be behind that.

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SteveWatson
Huge pop-up after reading for three seconds!

