The Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors at $1 a Share

I suspect I'll get downvoted for this, but for some reason, I find this quote chilling, “Children are a financial drain,” Merrill wrote. “The time investment of raising a child is immense. The responsibility is epic. The impact on future projects would be drastic. In light of these factors, it makes sense to reduce the chances to nearly zero and have a vasectomy performed.”<p>It seems to completely remove the joy and satisfaction that comes from raising children. Only a few things should be viewed from a financial lens. Wealth is not money, wealth is discretionary time.

The idea of selling equity in oneself is the topic of a great book (written in 2000) called "Future Wealth" by Chris Meyer and Stan Davis:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Future-Wealth-Stan-Davis/dp/1565113942" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Future-Wealth-Stan-Davis/dp/1565113942</a><p>David Bowie sold bonds backed by his IP in 1997:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_bond" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_bond</a><p>The book talks about equity being a logical next step and about the value of being able to diversify and distribute risk. I think there is definitely one possible future where this is very common. It probably starts with athletes and celebrities - as you can see, this guy has gotten a terrible valuation (for several reasons).<p>For years, I have been talking myself out of starting a company that serves as an exchange for people selling equity in themselves. It is inevitable that someone tries this because the crowd-funding industry is so sexy. It will be an interesting experiment, but I'm not sure the effects on society will be net desirable. At its best, it would give people the ability to sell a fraction of themselves for some up-front cash and give them the ability to take bigger risks in the projects they do. Anyway, if you want to talk more about this, hit me up.

I think the amount of money involved is shockingly small.<p>To get some idea of what the present-time value of a person's work is, if you make $50,000 a year and work for 20 years, you make $1M in that period of time. He could make the $100,000 by working another 4 hours a week over the next 20 years and not need the $1K.<p>I mean, my wife and I regularly make small business investments in our activities of up to $500 without ever asking each other. We'd usually ask each other if it's more than that.<p>This guy is having to talk to a committee just to make a $90 investment that's just nuts. But I guess it's just a matter of time before cargo cult investing gets celebrated in Tired magazine.

I don't think this is about money at all. More likely than not it's some kind of sexual fantasy or something similar. No sane person would sell themselves for a couple thousand bucks like this just for the possibility of turning profit in the future.

I haven't had my tea yet this morning, so I'm a little slow.. This isn't real, right? There's no way this is real.. Right?

this is insane - the investors' plans are very unlikely to align with his personal wants and needs (unlike a business where the goal of making money is shared between the business and its shareholders).<p>some of the examples in the article make this abundantly clear:<p>* the sleep experiment, where he was obviously suffering by the end<p>* the gay relationship which, while the article doesn't mention whether Merrill is bisexual, certainly seems to imply that he isn't and went through with the relationship to appease his shareholders

As a single page <a href="http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/ipo-man/all/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/business/2013/03/ipo-man/all/</a>

This is essentially the plot of <i>The Unincorporated Man</i>. Only with micro-managing.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unincorporated_Man</a>

The previous HN discussion mentioned in the article is here:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=723408" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=723408</a>

What's to stop a rich asshole buying up a massive majority and then just making him do fucked up stuff?

It's quite funny, and a consequent move in a robotic system. We can all live like robots if we want, he is taking it seriously.<p>At least on average, the more robotic you live your life, the more money you get. 9 to 7 instead of 9 to 5? Working on weekends? He is taking it to the extreme, he will be working 24/7. He is selling responsibility for his life for anyone giving enough money.

There are a number of relationship types in human interactions: family/communality, reciprocity, and dominance.<p>At a minimum, any attempt to expand one relationship type (in this case, reciprocity) to encompass an entire life can be expected to entail high levels of <i>awkwardness</i> - the feeling a person gets when they realize their understanding of a relationship type with someone else is different from that other person's understanding.<p>The evidence also indicates that when the norms of reciprocity are imposed on erstwhile communal relations, the reciprocity paradigm consumes the communality paradigm and the relationship changes from communal to reciprocal. In effect, turning your entire life into a market transaction makes communal/familial relations impossible.<p>For most people, I can't imagine this would be conducive to good mental and emotional health. (Presumably, psychopaths won't have a problem with it.)

I can't help but feel that if this was financially legally binding - for him to have to pay these dividends - it would be a great way to fund your way through college, E.G: I'm too poor to afford college, if you fund me the $40,000, you can have 10% of my life income.<p>It makes sense, assuming you pick your candidates wisely and aren't scammed (and that's a big if!):<p>$40,000 down-payment for 10%<p>10% per year for $3,500 per year [1] over a career of around 30 years:<p>30 * 3,500 = $105,000<p>Average profit: $65,000<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States#By_educational_attainment" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...</a>

Obviously this is a joke. Look at his sleeping excursion, it didn't work so he stopped. It's a fun cute thing to do but little beyond that. Does he have the same legal protections and obligations as a company? No. Would any of this hold up in a court of law?. No. Congratulations to the hacker news reader who got a comment in the paper. I also don't know what to make of the sentence about "fooling around" with that guy. Can some explain what I just read there?

How much for a kidney?

Wouldn't this be illegal under the 13th Amendment? Isn't it equivalent to partial slavery?

I think it's a great idea. I feel like I commonly give advice to people, but not knowing what else is going on in the person's life. Also, the outcome of my advice usually doesn't have a direct effect on me. At least a bad decision (or multiple bad decisions) have a financial impact on the stock performance and/or the willingness of the company to continue to participate.

Brilliant ending. Would love to see a follow up. What happens when he wants out? Does he ave to buy everyone out? File for ch 11?

At the frontiers of slavery. This guy is getting too much attention, he better have a great lawyer, troubles ahead.

I think someone took <i>The Unincorporated Man</i> a little too seriously.<p>The reason that we don't allow people to sell shares in themselves is because it will inevitably result in indentured servitude, or even de facto slavery.

That is _so_ Portland.