Absolute Value

Note: When I refer to $5 foot longs in this post, I am referring to the delicious sandwich. I value dicks at at least $6.

This morning I went to an event called LA Demo Day. It was basically a giant orgasm party for people that are in to the whole entrepreneurship thing, which I suppose I am a part of. The set up of the show was similar to the TV show Shark Tank, a bunch of nerds pitched their IT/mobile start up and asked some richer nerds for money. These motherfuckers were smart. Some guy has taken LSAT prep classes and put them on the iPad more or less cutting off Kaplan's big swinging dick, another dude invented a $1000 a month all you can fly airline, and another dude is licensing original photography off of instagram and selling it off as art, which he then prints on canvas, laptop covers, iphone cases etc.

Needless to say, I was out of my league. I could picture myself going up there and being like "well my app is a social media, geolocation game that incentivizes users to share with their friends and collect tangible rewards." That actually sounds pretty smart, I'm impressed with the sentence I just wrote. However, these rich nerd judge/panelists whatever the fuck they were got to ask questions and they shredded some of the shittier start-ups to bits. They always asked something like, "there are a thousand other people doing this, what makes you better?" Lots of people bullshitted around this question because they didn't know their own competitive advantage. I think I would have said something like "um, because we're marketing to frat guys...and frat guys are the coolest kids on the planet." In a room full of nerds I wonder how that would have played, they probably would have all had unpleasant flashback memories and reached for their inhalers. But among lots of words like valuation, and blue ocean and exit strategy, I picked up on one other fascinating question, "What would you do if I gave your company 2 million dollars?"

Now that's interesting, would you spend it on advertising, r&d, onboarding more employees? I would probably piss it all away on personal travel expenses and write it off as research, at the end of the day my company would go under and no investor would ever give me another penny, but I would travel the world on 2 million dollars of someone else's money and have those memories. I'm not trying to flip a billion dollar company, I'm just trying to fuck around all over the planet, preferably with someone else's coin. You may call it unambitious, I call it realistic.

But it's fascinating when you start thinking of money in terms of items and not necessarily dollars and cents. For example, I look at 5 dollars at a foot long meatball marinara from Subway on garlic herbs and cheese bread. Often times I will be at a bar and be contemplating one more beer, but then I will weigh whether or not I really think that the additional ten minutes I will buy myself at the bar will be as satisfying as the chipotle southwest sauce dripping off my cheek the following afternoon. That is because I think in terms of a broke bro. But there are absolutely millions of these scenarios. Any monetary number you throw out there to a group of people will instantly metabolize a different vision in each individual's mind. Let's take 10 subgroups of types of people we probably know and logically estimate what they would do with $50.

A responsible adult - Tank of gas
A thirty year old city dweller - Trader Joe's
A college student - a BIG night out
A chick - the sales tax on her Tory Birch order
A hipster - Thrift store skinny jeans
A music buff - one concert ticket
A bro - a bottle of goose for the pregame
A stoner - a bag
A rager - a bag
A raver - 1/4 a bag

The above chart doesn't indicate what that person always spends $50 on, but if you handed them a crisp bill and said go spend this now, that's what I'm guessing each sub-category is likely to purchase. For example, even though I have nothing in my refrigerator I would either go buy some booze with it or perhaps 10 foot longs (surprisingly they keep. When I do on the rare occasion spend $50 at Trader Joe's I wonder if I would have been better served buying 10 foot longs and putting 9...maybe 8.5 in the refrigerator.)

And the whole concept scales way up too. Think of tax refunds for example. I usually get about $1000 or so back. The responsible thing to do would be to pay off some credit card, pay a parking ticket, maybe make an investment, or put it towards a home improvement or auto project. Fuck that nonsense, I usually book a flight to see some ex girlfriend I've been wanting to fuck or go on some bro vacation and go absolutely insane, because that's what you do when you are in your 20's and are given a lump sum.

That is just how we are programmed to think. I'm sure someone else might think "shopping spree at nordys!" But if you're that person don't for one second think you're fucking better than me, your $400 jeans are no better an investment that the table I chipped in for in Vegas. Yes your jeans will keep better, but my memory of Vegas will be intact even after I gain 10 pounds. Boom!

But as we grow older those ideas will change. We'll no longer see dollar amounts in terms of bar tabs and festival tickets will give way to health insurance premiums and diapers. I'll stop complaining about the fact that a gallon of milk costs 4 bucks even though a 1 oz shot of liquor at a bar costs 9. It's a maturing outlook in regards to one's own personal finances. I suppose we all hope to get to a point fiscally when we no longer look at price tags. The whole thing is fucked, we need more money when we're younger and we want to...we NEED to party hard. I need to get it out of my system now so I don't subconsciously hate my wife when I grow older for tying me down too soon. When I'm 40 I won't want shit, I'll be one of those curmudgeons who just wants to come home, drink a beer and watch SportsCenter...and a boat, I'll need a boat too but that's it.

But whatever, until I get rich or tragically die poor before my true fame and value add to society is realized, I'll be operating under my Subway currency and evaluating every decision I make based solely on this flawed system...running out of gas with $300 worth of alcohol in the trunk.