
Why Do Famous People Get Paid $250k to Give a Speech? - kungfudoi
https://priceonomics.com/why-do-famous-people-get-paid-s250000-to-give-a/
======
tomohawk
While Hillary was Secretary of State, Bill's speaking fees from foreign
interests dramatically skyrocketed.

[http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bill-clinton-cashed-
hillary-s...](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bill-clinton-cashed-hillary-
secretary-state/story?id=30522705)

One example of these appears to be related to the uranium deal with Russia,
where he bagged $500K. Hillary changed direction and signed off on the deal.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-
clinton-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/us/cash-flowed-to-clinton-
foundation-as-russians-pressed-for-control-of-uranium-company.html)

This is not the only form of payola for corrupt elites. Hillary's new book,
for which she received a record $14M advance, sold less that 3000 copyies its
first week. We've seen this before.

~~~
parasubvert
Great to see partisan political commentary on HN.

There is no proof of quid pro quo in that Russia uranium deal:
[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/jun/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2016/jun/30/donald-trump/donald-trump-inaccurately-suggests-
clinton-got-pai/)

Also, Clinton sold a lot more than 3000 copies that first week; more like
85000 (still not as good as her prior best sellers):

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/18/what-do-
hil...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/18/what-do-hillary-s-so-
so-book-sales-portend-for-a-clinton-candidacy.html)

~~~
tomohawk
You're confused. It's less than 3000.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/us/politics/clinton-
book-s...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/us/politics/clinton-book-
stronger-together.html)

The larger number is for the disappointing sales of her previous book.

Nothing partisan about my comments. I'm not promoting any party. Just pointing
out the sleaze.

~~~
parasubvert
Yes, I completely admit I had no idea she had a new book out this week. I'm
assuming I'm not alone ><

~~~
tomohawk
No problem. There's more important stuff to keep up with.

------
netcan
" _that’s like asking why anyone would pay Beyoncé or the Beatles a million
dollars just to play a few songs_ "

This almost feels like playing dumb. The fact that a legitimate public
speaking economy exists and has a dynamic which is not based on payola does
not mean that a dirtier side does not. Like other pieces of the money-in-
politics puzzle there are legitimate, non-corrupt reasons to hand powerful
people 6 figure checks for dropping by. The problem is that it also gives
cover to the non-legitimate reasons.

~~~
mrdrozdov
> The rewards to attracting the right people in the corporate world can more
> than justify a six-figure speech. Hedge funds often invite potential clients
> to events featuring prominent speakers. As one hedge fund manager has
> explained, if just one client “decides to invest $10 million… the firm will
> snag a 2 percent management fee—which works out to $200,000” per year.

This on the other hand seems like a very legitimate explanation and parallels
the logic behind paying speakers to attend large tech events (like one
Salesforce might have, which is mentioned elsewhere in the article).

~~~
netcan
I guess I think that my point still stands. The existence of legitimate
reasons does not rule out or make less likely illegitimate ones.

The main way I think this topic goes wrong is becoming a trial. In a trial you
are looking for definite proof of unacceptable (and ideally illegal)
misconduct. This is not a trial question, IMO. If you find out the girls have
been in the boys room while at band camp, you can probably guess the reasons
or at least the outcomes in a large enough portion of cases.

The system needs to be preventative. Elected officials in particular need to
have no legal way of accepting this kind of money.

~~~
mrdrozdov
Occam's razor implies that the simplest explanation is usually the correct
one.

------
robbiemitchell
As someone who worked at a company that hired HRC to speak, I can speak from
experience. We were not buying influence. She was there to impress attendees
(e.g., prospective and existing clients) with a speech and photo opps
afterward -- same as the other speakers we brought in previously and after.

It's easy to see conspiracies from afar, but the reality -- at least our
reality -- was mundane.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Unless you were the guy writing the check or were present for every phone call
and closed door meeting, I'm not sure how you can claim this.

~~~
robbiemitchell
I can claim it because that's what my first-hand experience told me -- which
is more experience than most. Even if I were in all meetings, you could say I
wasn't inside the CEO's head.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Hiring a speaker for prestige and for influence are not mutually exclusive.

------
aleem
Networking is one of the likliest reasons. A Clinton dinner at 10k per head
will attract a certain kind of audience. The speech itself may not carry as
much importance as the presence of other dignitaries, industrialists,
upcomers, lobbyists and so forth.

~~~
jomamaxx
\+ People get to say: 'I saw so and so' \+ It establishes the cred of the
audience, i.e. all the bankers can talk to clients about how they say/met so
and so. \+ It's an indirect way to contribute to campaigns without it
technically being a campaign donation \+ It's a form of buying favour \+ And
yes - it attracts other people whom you might be interested in meeting with
etc..

------
camillomiller
Has anybody here ever had her/his mind changed by a great overpaid speaker?
I've seen a lot of speeches in my professional life, and the ones that stuck
the most were usually from non-famous low-paid speakers. The more famous and
accomplished (and American, actually) the speaker is, the more the speech
would steer toward a self-eulogy of the person's work achievements. And it's
boring.

It's a bit sad that most of the time this kind of talks are nothing more than
marketing stunts for both the speakers and the conference organizers.

~~~
tikhonj
I don't know about changing my mind _per se_ , but I definitely got a new
perspective on financial regulation after attending a talk by Barney Frank
(famous for the Dodd-Frank bill). I don't remember the exact details now, but
hearing about how he designed the regulations was very interesting, even if it
was a pretty high-level description. It colored my understanding of the
regulation in a way that just reading a description on Wikipedia didn't.

~~~
RobertoG
Who paid the bill for that talk?

I bet it wasn't Goldman & Sachs.

~~~
tootie
Look at their list of speakers. Russel Simmons, Deepak Chopra, Shaq. They
invite all kinds of people. These are usually in the big offices in NY or
London so most of the attendees are likely to be liberals.

~~~
RobertoG
What are you talking about? I'm asking specifically about Barney Frank to the
author of the comment above.

~~~
tootie
I took your comment to mean that could not imagine GS paying for a liberal who
championed financial regulation to come speak. I'm countering that they invite
a wide array of speakers on a a variety of topcis, many of whom are liberal.
I'm not sure if they have ever invites Frank, but it seems like something they
definitely would do.

------
lx0741
It's a legal way to baksheesh them! Nicolas Sarkozy then a random french
president got payed over 200000 euros to give a 15mn speech at a Qatar based
event. Qatar did really well in Business with the french since then. That's
how it works!

~~~
thomasahle
Well this is exactly what fta is about. People also give this kind of money to
famous non politicians.

~~~
coldtea
> _Well this is exactly what fta is about_

No, tfa explicitly downplays this.

> _People also give this kind of money to famous non politicians._

Only famous non-politicians have interesting and specific things to say (e.g.
someone like Malcom Gladwell, etc). Few care what a politician has to say,
after all they hear what they have to say all the time, in interviews, public
statements, campaign speeches, etc.

~~~
crdoconnor
>Only famous non-politicians have interesting and specific things to say (e.g.
someone like Malcom Gladwell, etc)

Malcolm Gladwell is paid to be a presentable face for the tobacco, banking and
pharma industries:

[http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-
gladwell-2/](http://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/)

~~~
coldtea
AND also sells millions of books to people who just want to read what he says.

------
ramblenode
> In the case of politicians like Hillary Clinton, many observers see a more
> sinister explanation for how a speech can be worth $225,000: the speech is
> buying political influence.

> It’s impossible to say exactly how much the desire to influence politicians
> inflates their speaking fees.

Goldman is, as with all their investments, expecting a positive return. I'm
not sure why this is presented as some kind of alternative theory.

~~~
mdemare
They already received their positive return. By paying Hillary for her
speeches, they blocked her from credibly moving to the left on financial
reform to fend off Sanders.

~~~
puppetmaster3
Do we know who canceled Glass–Steagall?

And after it was removed, how much tax payers paid to GS and such in '08, what
was the rough figure?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 repealed Glass-Steagall [1], in part to
make a merger between Citicorp (a bank) and Travelers Group (an insurance
company) legal.

Goldman Sachs did not win from it. They were on the "protected" side of Glass-
Steagall's wall. Fees went down after JPMorgan and friends were allowed to
throw their balance sheet around.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm–Leach–Bliley_Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm–Leach–Bliley_Act)

~~~
puppetmaster3
The point is Clinton canceled it. (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legisla...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass%E2%80%93Steagall_Legislation#Decline_and_repeal)
)

And the answer is: over $7 trillion.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilizati...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Economic_Stabilization_Act_of_2008)

So yeah, $200k.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _And the answer is: over $7 trillion._

Only if you include monetary policy, directed by a Federal Reserve chairman
appointed by George W. Bush, the same man who signed into law the bailout
programme.

Goldman Sachs was far from the chief recipient of those funds and had to pay
back the bail-out funds (at a profit to the U.S. government).

~~~
puppetmaster3
I gave a link with data that adds it up and how they added it up. You just
gave your opinion.

------
chvid
This article is really about excusing Hillary Clinton isn't it?

By making absurd comparisons to pop-stars who can fill stadiums of paying
concert goers.

America really needs to reign in its political class because it risks
degenerating into a third-world country where corruption takes a big toll on
the wealth of the whole society.

Selling off ambassador's posts for large sum political donations seems to be
very well-documented. As is pay-to-play. And yet it seems like American media
and populace are just accepting and/or ignoring this.

~~~
icantdrive55
Do I think she bends the rules to make money/protect her ass? Yes.

Do I think she bends the rules less than the other guy? I don't know. Probally
not?

On a side note, I will probally vote her. Why? Because I don't think Trump
will raise tariffs, or can raise tariffs enough to "Make American great
again."

That said, I remember, in the 90's, Hillary made close to $100,000 on a under
$1000 futures contract. It was supposedly under the "guidance" of the head
attorney for Tyson foods. I was in college at the fine, but remember being
floored when I heard how much she made in one year. They were middle class
Americans when she made that huge amount of money. It must have been a world
record at the time?

We talked about it in class, and the instructor said, "I don't think I've ever
met a successful investor that didn't get insider information. He said the
wealthy/politicians are given preferential treatment. I remember he said
Hillary should have been required to have an account of at least $12,000 in
order to even play the future's contract she won on.

Anyways, I don't know a wealthy person who didn't cheat in their lives. The
ones who claim it was luck/just hard work are in denial.

(I'm personally sick of wealthy people cheating the system. I can honestly
state I have never met one that was completely honest. And then again, I most
likely will vote for her. I don't want to go back to no insurance, and a bunch
of conservative judges. Oh, yea, I remember reading a multiple studies where
Supreme Court judges cannot be expected to vote line they did in the past once
on that bench. Meaning--conservative judges sometimes ve one liberal ones. So,
that isn't high on my radar.)

~~~
jklinger410
>Do I think she bends the rules less than the other guy? I don't know.
Probally not?

Fool me once...

------
feklar
This is how RMS has made a living for 2 decades. One advantage to attending
these is being able to briefly talk to the speaker afterwards if they stick
around, like asking RMS about his papers in the 1970s about propagation,
dependencies and backtracking for building large-scale symbolic systems.

~~~
dorfsmay
Unless it has changed recently, RMS asks for all his fees to be paid, and does
not ask for a fee but makes it clear that one is appreciated and that if no
speaking fee is paid, he's essentially given the speech for free. My
experience is that organisations and people inviting him to speak do pay him,
but in the thousands of dollars, similarly to what you'd pay a high end
consultant to spend a day or two to travel and work ; not high tens of
thousand and certainly not hundreds of thousands dollars!

~~~
dorfsmay
I meant "asks for all his expenses to be paid", not fees.

------
SagelyGuru
In the case of top politicians, it does look very much like a convenient legal
way to pay them bribes and/or rewards for "good work".

This article does not really dispel that impression but rather strengthens it.
It protests too much. Besides, there is a big difference between $225K for
them and the $50K for the merely famous. Whereas $50K might well be the market
rate for really inspirational and famous speakers, the additional $175K is for
what exactly?

~~~
enraged_camel
>>In the case of top politicians, it does look very much like a convenient
legal way to pay them bribes and/or rewards for "good work".

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned it's the equivalent of paying someone $200,000
for a bag of rocks. Sure, it's a legal transaction, but everyone knows the
real purpose behind it: as a way to trade favors.

------
dmode
Barney Frank was on Bill Maher show the other day and he said he gets money
from Wall Street on speaking engagements. And he is literally the author of
Dodd Frank. The reason he gets invited because he knows more about the context
of the regulation that anyone else and can answer complex question. A rather
mundane reason. But if you omit that part, you can easily construct a more
nefarious narrative on how a Senator is invited by Wall Street to influence
regulations. Most times life is mundane and conspiracy theories are just that

------
Spooky23
It attracts people to your event.

If you're paying $1,000/plate for some fundraiser, there's an expectation for
something more than rubber chicken and a photo with representative so and so.

------
DanielBMarkham
I am neither a liberal nor a conservative. I'm a libertarian, so I really
don't want any of the major U.S. presidential candidates to win.

But some of my political friends in both the right and left have a phrase I
was reminded of while reading this article. It's "Vox-splaining"

The idea is that certain news outlets or articles exist based on the premise
that those dumb voters! What they really just need is a patient voice to
educate them on things. Then they would have correct political opinions. This
can lead to really bad journalism where the author spends a lot of time trying
to explain something that really doesn't need explaining -- all in an effort
to correct misconceptions that nobody really ever had in the first place.

Why do famous people get paid a bazillion bucks to speak? Why, because they're
famous, of course! I just plowed through 2,000 words that basically says this
in various ways.

Yes, people pay lots of money to be near famous folks. They also pay money for
access to famous folks. They pay money to influence famous folks to do things
they want. There is no forced choice between these three options, and all can
(and probably do) co-exist at the same time in many famous-person speaking
engagements.

Every person in a 1,000 person audience probably has a different reason why an
expensive speaker is worth it (or not).

My point has nothing directly to do with the Clinton campaign. I'm saying that
_you can 't explain away an appearance of impropriety_. We don't need extra
education to figure out that sometimes folks pay an Apollo 13 astronaut a lot
of money to have him come hang out at their annual civic club meeting. And
that education doesn't paint away the glaringly obvious conclusion that when
the astronaut shows up, there are all sorts of things that happen with
increased access. Even if nothing unethical or illegal happens, in some
situations that access doesn't look so good.

So when Bernie asked why anybody would pay that much for a speaker, he was
inviting people to come up with various reasons why they would pay that much.
This is only logical because after all, the folks buying the speeches and
listening to them are doing the same thing. They are asking themselves: how
can I make my increased access to this famous person worth it to me? And they
all have different answers.

The first rule of ethics is that if it looks bad, it is bad. The reason is
because it opens up discussion to people speculating like this -- and this
speculation harms the institutions that the famous people represent. I believe
the principle is that you are supposed to put the institution you represent
above your own desires.

~~~
gtirloni
Brazilian politicians have recently "discovered" the "benefits" of paid
speeches too. A famous ex-president used to charge north of $200k USD saying
that's what international speakers like Clinton charge, so he ought to be
allowed to do the same. Evidence is mounting this was a venue for converting
bribes into legal money, or to buy influence from the Brazilian state machine.

Funny anecdote: he was once paid such amount to speak to a audience of workers
from a beer factory. After arriving, he basically drank a pint of beer in
front of everyone, said some funny jokes and disappeared into the offices to
discuss "business". That was a speech and he damn well charges what he wants
for that, that was the explanation.

It amazes me that these people, having reached their peak in social influence
and often in their bank accounts, can pretend to justify speeches as a revenue
source. If they are so concerned with making the world a better place, they
could charge just their expenses and maybe a modest fee to pay their bills.
Hell, I'm sure most famous decent people would do it for free if it's really a
good cause.

Completely agree, it feels bad, it smells bad... If you have any ethics, you
know it's bad and you don't engage in such shenanigans.

------
mangeletti
I watched a documentary called Clinton Cash[1] that provided some correlations
to explore, pertaining the Clintons' speaking fees.

1\. [https://youtu.be/7LYRUOd_QoM](https://youtu.be/7LYRUOd_QoM)

~~~
hackinthebochs
Oh boy correlations, the lifeblood of the conspiracy theoriest

------
ausjke
it's not what she/he speaks, it's that they become the honeypot for the event,
so the event can get larger attention/influence(fame, money, publicity,etc).

------
droopyEyelids
My first thought was that someone didn't tell Priceonomics about how
attempting to be a policitical influencer runs counter to the goal of being
seen as an intelligent source of independent thought... I had thought that was
their brand. They really come off as dumb and naive here.

But then I thought, maybe they're interested in getting into the Think Tank
game. This might be a sort of tryout.

------
ufmace
I like to look at these things from the other side. Say you're a high-level
politician and/or civil servant and want to find a way for somebody to pay you
off for granting them political favors. What would you do? Paid speeches sound
great. Hire a speechwriter for a few thousand bucks, then you just go and give
it to them and collect your fee. That fee can be whatever you want, because
who can say what a speech is really worth? Beats the pants off of running a
charity for your benefactors to donate to, where it has to at least look like
a decent amount of the money is going to some worthy cause. You can do
whatever you feel like with your speaking fees. Your benefactors don't get to
write off their payoffs as charitable donations, but that's hardly your
problem.

I can't prove that that's how it happened, of course. But isn't that part of
the appeal of the scheme? Who could ever prove that it was or wasn't a payoff
in disguise?

It's like the conflict of interest thing. It's best to just not do it, as
least while you're active in government and have the ability to subtly grant
favors. Even if it's completely fair, standard, and on the level, it still
looks dirty, you can never satisfactorily prove that it isn't dirty, and you
waste a ton of time arguing about it, which just serves to cement in peoples'
minds the notion that you are dirty.

~~~
AJ007
Some people go to great lengths to try to avoid something that would even
appear to be a conflict of interest. Others couldn't even be bothered to cross
the street if it inconvenienced them.

Here are some things that could be investigated, probably the same way one
would use data science for fraud detection:

\- Compile a broad database of speakers, fees they received, when it happened

\- Find a way to rate speakers based on their public visibility. In other
words, who attracts an audience more than someone else. Conceivably, the value
of a "Speaker" is to get people to show up to your event and pay to be there.

\- Create a network database of relationships of speakers and family members.

\- Start looking for anomalies related to outsized speaking fees and changes
when a family member is or is not holding a public office.

\- From that, investigators would need to start looking in to the details of
who may have done what for who

Despite what is read in the press, Western countries are moving hard against
public corruption and perceived corruption and have since the post-9/11 anti-
money laundering changes.

------
throwaway287391
Do they give a discount for speaking gigs in/around their hometown? It seems
like 90+% of the "work" (and certainly the time) involved in most of the out-
of-town speaking gigs would be traveling to and from them, rather than the
actual speaking.

~~~
saurik
I give a lot of talks, and coming up with engaging content and organizing it,
often with visual aids (though I realize many of these extremely highly paid
people don't use those; but I will say that having engaging material without
visuals is even harder....), is enormously time consuming. The time I spend
traveling is meanwhile relatively meaningless. To compare: thing of a stand up
comedian, and ask yourself if 90% of their "work" is driving to the venue.

~~~
perlgeek
The real question is how often you can give the same talk (possibly with
slight variations) in different locations, because each performance of the
same speech amortizes the time cost to prepare it initially.

------
joelhooks
It's kind of a shame that this article devolves into political discussion, as
that is the least interesting aspect of the thing.

Public speaking is hard af, and being even _decent_ at it pays dividends.

------
Hermel
When the same person who gets 250'000 for a single gig regularly performs for
free for other audiences, something is fishy.

------
brownhats
We are bound to our own ignorance and gullibility when we accept bribery as a
cost that all free people can bear.

------
gjolund
They don't. They get paid to push a policy, the speech is just a legal way to
compensate them.

------
james1071
Because Americans worship celebrities and bribe their politicians.

------
known
When a common man does it, it's called bribery. When a lobbyist does it, it's
a great law.

~~~
chrisseaton
Most of the people listed in this article aren't politicians, and so can't
enact any laws. And even when they are politicians, it looks like they are
almost always retired politicians, who can't enact any laws.

Some of them are even counter-establishment figures like satirists and even
hackers (in the security sense).

Hillary Clinton is a prominent example, but the article's explanation is that
she is invited as a retired secretary of state, as other retired secretaries
of state have been, rather than as a current presidential candidate, which
seems reasonable.

'it's a great law' doesn't even make sense in your sentence. What's a great
law? Bribing people? Bribing people isn't lawful.

~~~
allendoerfer
Only amateurs bribe any more. Professionals negatively bribe: They sponsor the
whole show and just stop giving you money once you oppose.

~~~
coldtea
You'd be surprised.

The distinction you make exists, but it's not about amateurs vs professionals,
but obviously about those that can afford it (to "sponsor the whole show") and
those who don't.

Smaller businesses and interest groups pay their way into laws the traditional
bride way all the time.

------
cowardlydragon
It's called a bribe, folks.

