Category: Books

The Frustrated CFO Suddenly Peeps Out: Did you miss me?


Well, would you look at that?!! It’s been more than 7 (SEVEN!!!) years since my last post… One president went away; the ambitious blonds didn’t manage to replace him: their archenemy won instead and then barely survived his term and its consequences; and then another president stumbled in… And even he is already three quarters of the way through his term… All sorts of fucked up cultural upheavals occurred… A pandemic happened with all of its socio-economic consequences… And all the while, the Frustrated CFO remained silent… What happened? – you may ask…

(And some of you are probably also wondering why the hell this strange person shelled out seven-years-worth of fees to keep this blog dormant, yet alive? And the truth of the matter is that I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish my posts out of the Internet existence even if only one of them had a potential of attracting a single reader… But also: I knew this day would come…)

What happened was that by venting in this blog’s posts my annoyance with political, social, and cultural issues – all that tangent, entertaining, but not crucially relevant shit (since 2010, no less!) – I was simply deflecting from the actual problems in my life, letting the real genuine desperation building, and building, and building… To the point when it eventually achieved a critical mass and I went kaboom! As postal as can be…

Maybe if I myself stuck to the truth I was originally propagating by starting this blog – that writing is therapy – and openly discussed my problems here, I could’ve prevented myself from psychological and moral deterioration… Maybe, maybe not… There were so many triggering factors in my life, which I never revealed to anybody – kept it all inside! And clearly, snapping from time to time under the “Bosses” category at the people who employed me didn’t alleviate the accumulating tension…

But no, when the time of passing into the dark came, I didn’t go at them with guns blazing and got it over with in one violent burst… I hate all sorts of outright violence… Wouldn’t touch anyone one with my pinky… The subversive criminal violating – that’s a different story… The stretched out, torturous  self-destruction of continuous embezzlement… Millions… And none the wiser – for months, more than two years – no one noticing, not having a clue, or inkling… In spite of my burning desire to be found out… So, why the fuck would I write about it here?

A few weeks after I wrote my two-blonds jokes, I finally got caught. It took mere 48 hours for me to return more than a third of the embezzled funds back and get pushed into the hands of Justice. I got arrested… and so on, and so forth.. A short stint at Rikers, sixteen months of legal proceedings, three solid years of imprisonment… The aftermath… Not exactly blogging-inducing circumstances… 

And when the time for the redemptive revelations has come, the scope of it seemed so much bigger than a series of blog posts… Hence, the memoir: I Built This Prison. By the time I started writing it, I was done hiding. This book is possibly the most honest I’ve ever been with myself… About the genesis and the perpetration of the crime. About the various punishments that I inflicted on myself and others as well as those exacted against me. Bringing it to completion took as long as the time I spent in the NYS correctional system. Go figure…

Dear God, forgive me my sins and send me readers! I will even settle for just one…

Hence, you can be sure I will continue talking about my memoir here. Ultimately, it ended up to be a therapeutical exercise – as only writing can be. And I want you to share the experience of it… 

  

   

  

 

  

I Built This Prison: A Memoir of Rage, Revenge, and Repentance


NOW AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

“What are you doing here?” was the question everyone asked me in prison – the guards, the inmates, the civilians. They didn’t think I belonged behind the barbwire and couldn’t imagine me doing anything criminal… I just seemed so fundamentally out of place there…

In a way they were right: under our contemporary standards of morality, for most of my life I was viewed by all as an upstanding citizen. Yet, my imprisonment was well deserved: After devoting 25 years of my immigrant life to staying afloat as career Controller and CFO in the unforgiving environment of private entrepreneurship; channeling my various frustrations through this blog for as long as four years; and writing a CFO guide for Springer – I began stealing from my employer, embezzled millions, and got caught… 

What happened? How could a fairly decent person with strong moral beliefs and exceptional work ethics get transformed into something that repeatedly committed one act of thievery after another? Disappointment and  resentment overwhelmed all coping mechanisms and deteriorated into cunning deception. The depletion of personal means coincided with the overflow of the corporate profits… The distorted mind found the way…

My story is very particular and acutely personal, but in many ways it’s also quite typical… Because this memoir was conceived out of my need to repent, I strived to be honest and as objectively revelatory as I could, unflinchingly analyzing the genesis of my moral degradation and its psychological underpinnings. The book also details the specifics of this white collar crime and reflects on the different stages of its aftermath, depicting my quest for some inner clarity under the most oppressive conditions, in the grittiest of places…  

The result is part chronicle, part cautionary tale, part heartfelt confession, part inquisitive commentary… And I sincerely hope that the readers will find my conversational style compelling enough to forgive the verbosity…

 

 

Price of a Digitally-Published Word


Some topics simply cannot let you be.  They are just way too potent.  For example, some time ago, in Part I of my Arts & Entertainment by the Numbers series, I already addressed the matter of earnings one can expect to generate if he or she decides to become a “writer.”  If you recall, it was established that, with a few exceptions primarily driven by seductive (literally) subjects, or notoriety (oh, I am sorry – fame) of the authors, or some magical (again, literally) mass appeal, there is not much money in writing. 

Of course, I didn’t talk about ALL “writing.”  That post was focused on books, both fictional and not – the self-contained multi-page opuses that come into public distribution through more or less conventional channels, which in our contemporary world include not only the old-fashioned publishing houses, but also self-publishing (including web-publishing) and on-demand-printing.  The latter have been pretty much commandeered by our ubiquitous mega-villains, Amazon and Google.  

Surprisingly, the vast majority of books are still printed and bound; and pretty much all of them are digitized as AZW, EPUB, IBA, PDF, etc. publications.  From my personal experience I can tell you that royalties on e-books, being profitability based, are actually much higher than on the printed copies.  As you can imagine, distribution of files costs a fraction of physical printing, shipping, etc.

Of course, books are not the only products of the “writing” professionals.  I fitted playwrights into Theater and screenwriters into Movies.  And I didn’t want to discuss the earnings of conventional journalists, not only because I am really appalled by the contemporary standards of that trade, but also because there is nothing particularly special about their compensation.  It’s basically a pay scale – no different than the one for any back-office workers.      

According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average reporter or a correspondent makes about $21 per hour, or $43,780 a year.  Of course, those working in publications with household names, especially in DC or NYC, or at cable and broadcasting venues, earn above average.  But even then we are talking $53K-$60K annual salaries.  Nothing glamorous.

If famous faces of Barbara Walters, or Katie Couric, or Matt Lauer pop into your head, stop it – those people might’ve started as journalists early in their career, but that’s not what they are now – through some peculiar twists in their fates they’ve become multimillion-dollar TV personalities with roomfuls of staff who do the actual work and get paid what I said above.  Moreover, as far as I am concerned, the professional comedians Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, and John Oliver turned out to be much better newsmen than all those other smiley faces.             

But forget all that!  The remarkable thing about our electronically permeated era (as far as the writing is concerned, of course), is that the majority of the “written” words nowadays floats in the realm of computer codes; resides on some servers in the unknown to the authors locations.  The vast majority of that majority is motivated into existence by a singular intangible incentive – the writer’s desire to verbally express his/her opinions and ideas; it’s produced for no material reward at all.

This includes over 10,000,000 (that’s 10 million!) individual and collective blogs, which produce over 4,000,000 (and that’s 4 million!)  posts every day (hence, my utter surprise that my own humble entries are consistently found and read by people from different countries); online fiction publications; fan-fiction entries into various pop-culture Wikias, unpaid entries (in hopes of exposure) into a multitude of e-zines, etc., etc.  It’s all created for no pay and mostly available for free (if you don’t count the unbearable assault of advertising on more popular sites as your cover charge – I do).   

And even those who appear to be writing not on spec but on assignment or write on spec but get syndicated, possibly generating fees and royalties for their digital words at such giant contentmongers as, for example, The Huffington Post – nobody seems to know for sure how much money they make.  Well, people close to the subject probably have some scattered bits and pieces of information, but it’s so sparse and inconsistent, it’s impossible to draw any solid conclusions.  In fact, the aforementioned Bureau of Labor Statistics simply gives up on the matter, basically admitting that the new media is so, ahem, new that there are no set rates and no correspondent statistics.    

But I am not an official government agency – I am just a curious person armed with my common sense and capable of making logical conclusions.  Moreover, I have the freedom to extrapolate, speculate, and infer.  And infer I shall.    

The first fundamental truth about online presence is that the majority of people religiously believe in its powers of publicity.  Hence, the said number of blogs, shameless exhibitionism of facebook pages and personal sites, endless YouTube videos, etc., etc. – general population thinks that if anybody can “be found” today, it will be online.  A few miraculous stories of the Internet exposure actually leading to “fame” only reinforces this belief.  (And the sea of content is growing exponentially, if you catch my drift – but that’s another topic).  In context of our subject this makes me think that those who get published in popular online outlets agree to do so for next to nothing, i.e. for much  less than even conventional writers get.

The second fundamental characteristic of the Internet itself as a business is that the majority of revenues generated by non-eCommerce websites, if any, come from online advertising, at least for now (I think this situation is going to change, but that’s, again, another topic).  Advertisers, just like the general public, have their own system of the Internet faith – the click-per-view conversion.  In the web environment, the old admen rule of placement for the maximum consumer impact gets a statistical dress-up: a certain number of views results in a click on the ad’s link; a certain number of clicks, in its turn, converts into a consumer acquisition, i.e. a sale.  Everyone is invested into the same idea: the more views, the more clicks, the more sales; hence, the popular pay-per-click pricing formula.  As a result, the online content is monetarily valued on its potential viewership. 

This made me think that the most logical way for an owner of a content-driven website to compensate a contributing writer would be based on some rate-per-view (just like YouTube with its videos).  The question is how much?  What’s the digitally published word worth?  Apparently, even Labor Statistics officials don’t know – most likely because reporting those earnings is still a gray area.    

Ah, but that’s what the Internet is actually for – the information superhighway.  If something piques your interest and you know how to formulate your search, you will find what you need:  like the large UK blogging hub on everything pop WhatCulture.com (they are absolutely right – they have nothing to do with Culture, concentrating primarily on blockbusters and gossip in film, big hits and gossip in TV, mega stars and gossip in music, plus gaming, sports, WWE). 

The site’s content model is based on accepting (not guaranteed) and publishing other people’s submissions.  On their Write For Us and Get Paid page they openly solicit material from the potential contributors (Lists! Lists! Lists! That’s their preferred format – “9 Reasons to Be Excited About Arrested Development Season 5” or “10 Actors Who Really Don’t Belong in the Upcoming Movies” and shit like that).  Therefore, the “get-paid” rate is openly disclosed right there: £0.40 ($0.62) per 1,000 views. 

Aha!  With that in hand, let us entertain ourselves with some arithmetical exercising:  Yesterday, the most-read entry in the film section of WhatCulture.com was “10 Things You Need to Know About Captain America: Civil War” – it had 1.3 million views, thus generating its author $806.  Not bad, assuming he put it together pretty quickly.  Theoretically speaking, if you can pop one of this every day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, you can actually earn $210K annual wage! 

But the probability of it, of course, is quite slim – not only because no one on their own can research and write 260 entries a year, but mainly because it’s hard to achieve such viewership: for example, the most read TV article had only 223 thousand views ($138.26) and the top one in a deeply hidden Art division (the only one in the whole site I personally found interesting – 10 Up and Coming Portrait Photographers) attracted exactly 2000 readers ($1.32 worth).  The audience’s interest is fickle. 

This site is big and popular – the effort of a full-scope statistical analysis goes beyond my level of interest (I am sure the management has all the numbers readily available to them), but my quick-glance conclusion is that the average views per post is about 50,000 or $31 value.  So, ladies and gentlemen, even if you can do three of those a week, the more realistic earnings would be a modest amount of $4,836 per year.  

I say, don’t quit your day job for this just yet – that is, of course, if you have one.

P.S. to Unpunishable Plagiarism


A few readers expressed strong disapproval of my recent post Warning: Unpunishable Plagiarism.  Not of the subject matter per se – they agree that gorging on other people’s creativity—whether in business, science, or arts—is despicable and the law that doesn’t protect it is fucked up. But they were upset with the examples I’ve chosen to illustrate the idea-snatching in pop-culture. 

Instead of picking on absorption of mythology, folklore, and literary inheritance in the beloved Harry Potter—they say—or making vague allegations about the possible origins of Hannah Horvath, why didn’t you talk about the simultaneous releases of Pixar‘s A Bug’s Life and DreamWorks‘ Antz (both in 1998), or of a superior Chris Nolan’s The Prestige and subpar Neil Burger’s The Illusionist (both 2006)?

The answer is simple: as peculiar and suspicious concurrent developments of very similar ideas by different production companies are, it is practically impossible to uncover the back stories behind these incidents, or make even vague attempts to point a finger at the alleged perpetrators.  So, I wrote about the instances that seemed somewhat obvious and transparent to me.  Otherwise, the post would consist of nothing more than just one anecdote from my own professional life and a non-descriptive list of dubious cultural references.  Maybe it would be more sanitary, but also boring.

Let’s take, for example, The Prestige/The Illusionist case.  What can we dig up?  Well, both screenplays were based on legitimate and independent literary sources.  

The first one is an adaptation of a novel with the same title written by an English novelist and science fiction writer Christopher Priest and published by Gollancz in 1995.  Priest is a well-known  and highly respected writer: the themes of his A Dream of Wessex, for example, were used as a framework for David Cronenberg’s fantastic eXistenZ.  The year The Prestige hit the book stores, it was nominated for four sci-fi and fantasy awards and won two of them.  While the movie differs from the book (the latter being darker and more complex) all the main ingredients and the plot turns were taken from the novel: the characters’ names and descriptions, Priest’s fictional practice of stage illusions (the setup, the performance, and the prestige), the nature of the competing teleportation uber-acts, and even the guest appearance of Nicola Tesla.

Various sources indicate that several Hollywood producers had approached Priest for an adaptation of the novel and it was Valerie Dean of Newmarket Films (they also produced Memento), who told Chris Nolan about the novel in 2000.  After he read it, Newmarket Films purchased the option.  I can see how adapting a novel constructed as shifts between entries of two diaries could be very difficult, especially considering that the work on Insomnia had already began.  Yet, the Nolan brothers had it finished in 2003 and were ready to start filming, but it wasn’t meant to be: Batman Begins production got escalated and The Prestige was postponed.  The pre-production didn’t start until October 2005 and the film was released by Touchstone exactly one year later.

The Illusionist is based on an even earlier short story by Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Millhauser Eisenheim the Illusionist – it was a part of his 1990 collection The Barnum Museum.  The Hollywood mythology has it that, even though Neil Burger’s debut Interview with the Assassin was a terrible flop, its producers desperately wanted to work with the said writer/director again.  In 2002 they asked Neil what would he like to do next and he said, “There is this short story I always wanted to adapt…”  I’m guessing it took a couple of years before the idea could be sold and budgeted (unlike Chris Nolan, Neil Burger had no other projects on his hands), and the movie didn’t go into production until early 2005.  It was released 10 months ahead of The Prestige.     

Thus, on the surface all facts point to the accidental concurrency of these two movies.  However, who the fuck knows how the little impulses that churn the Hollywood machine work?  You see, as soon as any creative property is optioned, the fact becomes a matter of public knowledge.  Ok, let me amend that: I don’t really think that the “general public” is following that kind of information.  But if you are in the trade or have some sort of a vested interest in filmmaking, you can and must know all tinseltown’s moves.                        

I mean, Variety, the oldest American entertainment-trade magazine, had been founded in 1905 (!).  Since then, its been reporting on every single production and celebrity move imaginable.  The Hollywood Reporter joined the action in 1930.  Nowadays, you can have paid subscriptions to both publications online.  However, the Internet access to filmmaking trade news is dominated by DoneDeal Pro ($24 a year), which delivers basically a live feed of every option, screenplay purchase, new project announcement, talent attachment, etc.;  and IMdB Pro ($125 a year) with its remarkable search capabilities allowing you to see what every producer has “in-production” and “in-development.”  And I know for a fact that all production companies and studios have staffers and interns, whose job is to deliver the digests of all these daily news to their bosses.   

So, it is easy to imagine that the knowledge of The Prestige waiting its turn since 2000 could’ve been a pressure point in The Illusionist pitch: “Look, we can beat their timing with our own movie about a magician…”  Is this a qualified example of the unpunishable plagiarism?  I really don’t know.  You decide for yourself.

Some readers also said that my post, by making a case that “everyone steals,” might give unsavory elements a carte blanche for encroaching on others’ creativity.  Well, first of all, I hope I was explicit enough in stating my position on the issue.  Secondly, I honestly don’t think that my two cents have the power to change the situation in either direction.  And finally, I am not Huffington fucking Post – I don’t have that kind of exposure!

Of course, I cannot just end this post without letting the movie critic in me to use this opportunity to make the following comment.  If somebody referred Christopher Nolan to Eisenheim the Illusionist, he wouldn’t care for it.  It’s a story of the “and I will do anything for love” kind, and this writer/director is not interested in that.  Think about his movies (including Man of Steel, which he only co-produced) – they are all about a Man and His Mission, a Hero and His Obsession.  Love, even if it’s present, is just a plot point; it is seated in the last row of the Nolan bus.            

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Warning: Unpunishable Plagiarism

The Late Robb Stark, CEO of House Stark


Robb-Stark Let me say first that I mourn the death of Robb and Catelyn Stark just like the rest of the Game of Thrones fandom.  Yet, the sadness doesn't cloud my judgement; it doesn't prevent me from fully grasping the ironclad logic of good storytelling.  I am fully aware that the tragic events of the Red Wedding were not written for the sake of shock and gore.  They were consequences of the characters' actions and motivations, consistent with the specific circumstances and forces at play.  They had a lot to do with matters of executive responsibility, obligations of power,  burdens of leadership, i.e. with the "weight of the crown."  As the Bard said, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." (Henry IV, Part 2, Act 3, scene 1, 31).       

To those who read CFO Techniques I would like to offer my apologies for using the analogy from The King's Speech here again.  It's just that the Brits, who's been living under monarchy for over 1500 years, understand this royal-duty business better than anybody.  (Also, they seem to speak the same language as the Seven Kingdoms' folks.)  So, in the movie, Prince Albert (Colin Firth) tells King George V (Michael Gambon), "Father, we are not a family, we are a firm." And the king replies, "We are the oldest, most successful corporation in the world and sitting on thrones is our business."

Yes, ruling a nation is a family business, and that makes a king the Chief Executive Officer of his land and his people.  And in this position, just as it is in any company, he is responsible for

  • strategic development – expansion, contraction, restructuring, hostile takeovers,
  • foreign policies  – establishing or severing connections with external parties, forming partnerships and alliances,
  • tactical decisions – laws, decrees, rules, governing appointments, organizational infrastructure,
  • fiscal adequacy – financing day-to-day operations and all those strategic moves,
  • economic balance – most important for prevention of revolts, backstabbing moves of dissatisfied courtiers, and the fleeting of labor,
  • human relations – the adoration and support of one's subjects doesn't hurt.    

In fact, in George R. R. Martin's world, a king's enterprising is very entrepreneurial, very hands-on.  Nothing like the make-believe leadership we see in the dangerously large governing bodies of contemporary conglomerates/countries.  In the Seven Kingdoms, a true leader cannot be a mere token sitting on a throne (in King's Landing they have Joffrey for that, while Tywin rules).  A ruler's job requires a lot of personal involvement and micromanagement: from weaving intricate intrigues to beheading those you condemned; from charging in front of your troops to skinning a damn large deer – the one with the executive power cannot avoid rolling up the sleeves and getting his/her hands dirty.  

Most importantly, the king must take personal responsibility for doing the right thing by his nation.  He'd better have his priorities straight: the crown is so heavy because the burden of authority calls for selflessness and sacrifices.  Those few business owners that earned my personal respect over the years concentrated all their efforts on the prosperity and success of their companies.  They were acutely aware that business is nothing if not a continuous struggle for survival. 

So, what about Robb Stark?  How did he do as a CEO?  Not very well, I'm afraid.  He was like one of those young rich boys, who inherited his father's business too early due to an untimely death – full of great potential, brilliant ideas, and… illusions.  The childish sense of invincibility has not yet evaporated from his body.  He thought he could break and rebuild the word any way he wanted.  And so, he went and violated the millenia-old custom of building political alliances through marriages: he broke off his engagement with Lord Walder Frey's daughter.  His Love was above any rules.  How beautiful! 

How cheeky and irresponsible!  It was an unforgivable insult to House Frey.  It was disrespectful to the memory of his father who made an arrangement and himself inherited Catelyn as a bride after his older brother's death.  And, as far as the well-being of his land, his subjects, and his mission are concerned, it was plain reckless.  In the business environment, this would be the equivalent of breaking contractual obligations with your commercial partners or violating the terms of your financing agreements.  Actions of this kind result in companies loosing their reputation, market share, procurement resources, creditability, funding, and eventually going bankrupt, i.e. die.

As many young entrepreneurs, Robb Stark was a person of extremes: he was quick to break rules practically written in stone, yet many of his actions were marred by poor, hesitant decision-making.   Whether due to inexperience or a lack of talent for long-term strategic thinking (his military campaign proved him to be a good tactician), he was never quite sure what was the right thing to do.  It's bizarre, really: sometimes he neither followed the solid logic presented to him by his advisers, nor did he go with his own gut.  The foolish execution of Lord Rickard Karstark, which resulted in a loss of a huge chunk of allied troops is an obvious example.

I've been forever writing and talking about psycho-profiling as a key management skill.  One simply cannot succeed without it.  Robb's inability to read people and their motivations might be the main reason for his downfall.  What made him think that old Lord Frey will forgive the insult and tolerate Robb's wife being shoved into his face in his own home?  How could he forget that you cannot trust anybody and must always be on alert for betrayal?  If we think rationally about it, the probability of retaliation was very high.

In contrast, there is a reason why a few smart people reluctantly realize that Tyrion Lannister is King's Landing's only hope.  Not only that he is sharp, brave, incisive, and fair, but he also understands that if one wants that family business of ruling kingdoms to be successful, he must be ready to forsake a thing or two, including personal happiness.

It's great to find out that I'm not the only one who saw the parallels between the demise of Robb Stark and the small-business leadership.  The article below was prompted by TypePad as a related post.

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