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What Would You Do With $1.5 Billion?
I posted this in the Show Ideas thread, but I'd like to hear what kinds of things everybody comes up with.
As we all know, the lottery is stupid. You don't have a chance at winning; you just won't. Imagine 4 rows of baseballs that stretch from New York to Los Angeles. Winning the lottery is less likely then finding one single baseball signed by Babe Ruth among all of those.
But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to speculate.
If you suddenly and legally came into $1.5 billion dollars (or replace with your currency of choice), how would you spend your money and live your life?
I imagine that a lot of the same answers will come up, like charity or beach houses, but I'm interested in the more personalized aspects. If you say charity, which ones? If you say beach house, where? And what would your house/property contain?
Let's fantasize about lives we'll never get to lead.
As we all know, the lottery is stupid. You don't have a chance at winning; you just won't. Imagine 4 rows of baseballs that stretch from New York to Los Angeles. Winning the lottery is less likely then finding one single baseball signed by Babe Ruth among all of those.
But that doesn't mean it isn't fun to speculate.
If you suddenly and legally came into $1.5 billion dollars (or replace with your currency of choice), how would you spend your money and live your life?
I imagine that a lot of the same answers will come up, like charity or beach houses, but I'm interested in the more personalized aspects. If you say charity, which ones? If you say beach house, where? And what would your house/property contain?
Let's fantasize about lives we'll never get to lead.
Comments
Pay off my credit cards, student loans, and set an account aside to finish my education.
Set up an account to live off the interest
Funnel whatever was left into my business venture ideas
I'd build a cool house from shipping containers/hangers/old industrial space, I'd have a bitchin' personal workshop/laboratory, and I'd invest in making part of that a business that allows me to make whatever I want and profit from it by selling those things to other crazy people who like that stuff. So for now it means little single-seat airplanes using DIY CNC equipment and if I had 1.5 Billion dollars it'd be more like little jets and CNC equipment that can make parts for the space shuttle, and building Tiger tanks and maybe fund a video game dev project. I would probably also hire someone to manage properties and do some real-estate moves and call on friends of mine to design/build cool-ass houses and then sell/rent them out.
I think all of those are do-able without a massive win lottery ticket, but instead of being things I would undertake tomorrow they would be things I undertake in the next 10-20-50 years.
Oh, and I'd hire a full-time health team to keep me in top form because fuck dying.
If I were to donate any considerable money it would be to art/design schools and/or scholarships for such. I would not give a red cent to any political machines, I wouldn't donate to any charities unless it was a cause I was personally involved in and had a good sense that the people are spending the funds responsibly.
That and the only truly successful arcade/video game/comic book store/playing area built in some abandoned K-mart :-p
Rym: "I got to see this crazy awesome camel race and spent a bunch of time exploring this city, it was great"
Scott: "Oh my god that was so dumb who even cares about camels"
You could follow it up by sending them to the Henley-on-Todd Regatta.
Mess with domestic and international politics, make the fastest possible Internet access a public service.
e.g.
Require computer science as a core subject from primary to tertiary education.
Work out a way to fuck over managers of health professionals and require licensing plus review yearly.
Way higher requirements to become a politician or police officer with annual review, particularly maths and science.
But, idea - Buy a well appointed House or apartment in every single PAX city. Take care of accommodation for yourself and a few friends every PAX.
1) Hire a lawyer.
2) Figure out what percentage I will give to friends and family. Do not deviate from this number. Tell my lawyer.
3) Change my number and my address. Give out the new information only to those who absolutely need to know.
4) Quit my job.
5) Claim my winnings - anonymously if that's an option.
6) Set up trust funds for friends and family up to said percentage (let's say 20% of the winnings). So $150 million to friends and family, in trust funds.
7) Put about half ($300 million) of the remaining winnings into stable long-term diversified funds to beat inflation and profit gradually. Preservation is more important than earning at that level of money. Live off of the interest alone.
8) Possibly hire a fund manager for all of those, but maybe not if they're sufficiently common, stable, low-risk investments.
9) Blow the other half on candy and bubblegum and a fucking castle on an island and whatever other toys I want. Pay off debts, of course, but that will barely cost anything. Maybe donate to a charity or set up a scholarship fund or buy a senator or 6.
EDIT:
Step 0) Tell the wife. Have a crazy-ass celebration. Go over the plan with her.
I wouldn't bother with the address changing or hiding myself. I don't have relatives or acquaintances who are shitty enough to come out of the woodwork and present a problem, and the rest I'd help out reasonably.
But more to the point, I live in New York. If you have money and live in New York, the wall you can put up between rando plebs and your personal life is significant. I'd just move into one of those luxury towers, and the doormen and security staff would keep the rabble from bothering me. I wouldn't change much else about my day-to-day living arrangements. I wouldn't even change my phone number.
As for the Peoria press, I'd milk it to grow my personal fame. Most people who step into money like that fail and lose it all, but I have the experience and capabilities to hone it into a media machine. I also have an existing brand, so I'm not just "that shithead who won the powerball": I'm "that shithead podcaster guy who won the powerball. " GeekNights Lounge at PAX. Makeup/Camera teams for panels. Just fund a good gaming con and hire smart people to run it. Fucking buy my way back into NYCC.
I won $2 by not playing.