well poop, I wrote a whole response and it either got deleted or didnt post properly. I'm not going to bother w/ retyping the whole detailed response, whatshisname and the other dude makes some good points about the value of the experience for the bloggers, and my less than compelling post shouldve distinguished more clearly between the bloggers & the staff...the staff got fed a lot of ...let's say delusion...and as I understand got paid in a lot of "you're in on the ground floor of something big". I think we can agree that Rudius the company was not successful in meeting the...goals?....that its founder laid out, and that success was the bank Rudius staff was ? (promised is too strong a word, but it was definitely alluded to), and Rudius' failure doesn't get mentioned (or does it? didn't read in an detailed at all) in the article (to bring us back to the thread focus). Tucker's failed in a lot of endeavors, good for him for at least trying, but the Rudius company endeavor left some folks screwed. Same argument as the 20 something women that got "hurt" by Tucker the Player, when it's all consensual, who's at fault? It would be like Suapyg, and I'm mentioning him for lack of a better analogy and not to invoke his presence, when he ran a coop woodshop, if he said to the assistants and staff that he hired "this is going to be big. Bigger than big. All others in the woodworking industry are just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I can't pay you much now, but if we succeed, and I think we will, we will be bigger than anyone can imagine", rather than "we're going to have a great coop woodshop. I can pay you market rate. I think we can grow our customer base. We'll make great furniture". And the coop didn't revolutionize the industry, woudln't you, as Suapyg, in the first scenario, feel like a shit when you looked your staff in the eye. And wouldn't you feel a bit guilty when you proclaimed your successful retirement as a woodworker? I"m rambling; I'll stop.
I'm pretty sure Ryan Holiday just got a book deal with Portfolio. I guess he deserves it, he's a hardworking kid and really smart, even if he is a really smug douche a lot of the time.
Look up "pretentious" in the dictionary. I don't care how good of a writer he is. I don't like him, period. I'm not the only one. How old was he on the RMMB? Eleven? Bah. Old times. If any writer got upset for a small paycheque on RMMB, they should go have a large helping of Gofuckyourself. I would regard that site as a possible springboard for writers, that's all.
I think you guys are misunderstanding the accusation (for what it's worth, I have little to no opinion or insight as to its truth). It's not that they weren't paid much. The accusation is that Max & Co. misled, albeit perhaps not intentionally, a bunch of naive folk as to the likely profitability and visibility of the venture. I.e. he said things along the lines "If you provide the writing, the cash will follow! Think of all the links you'll get from my site alone! Sure, it might take a while, but with my star power and team of editors, good things are gonna follow!" People felt like he failed to actually provide the platform that he suggested. Sure, maybe he was just unfortunately wrong and it's their own fault for falling for his monomaniacal schtick (who didn't know that Max tended to exaggerate his own drawing power and likelihood of achieving rock star status, after all?), but it isn't unreasonable to suggest that he bear some culpability for his own words. The accusation may be wrong, but it isn't egregiously stupid. And technically, one of them (Ryan) did drop out of school and move to work for Tucker, but I think he did so fully aware of what he was getting into. And it's not like PhilaLawyer was some unknown he picked up off the street, either. He was already a damn fine writer and established enough that when he began posting on the RMMB, people knew him by name. I'm sure there was some serious polishing provided to him, but they certainly didn't make something out of scratch with him. I ultimately think this probably was as much or more the writers fault than Tuckers, but you guys are swinging at a straw man.
The bold part is key here to me though. I wasn't in the room for any of Tucker's pitch meetings, I don't know if he did anything more than spout a lot of Umair Haque and ramble about Black Swan events in the pitch meetings. However, beyond what any of us might think of his ethics, Tucker is a smart and well educated fucking dude so I think he had what he thought was a legit business model for Rudius and I'm sure his personality helped to sell a lot of people on that model. So anybody that joined up should have been capable themselves of weighing out what he was trying to do and whether they thought it would work. I think we do some of the folks a disservice by pretending they were not mature enough to know what they were signing up for (I am talking about the Rudis staff, not the writers here.)
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/24-year-old-marketing-director-lands-major-book-deal_b42516" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/24 ... eal_b42516</a> Played mutha fucker.
Ironic word choice. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.observer.com/2011/11/the-tell-all-of-dov-charney-and-tucker-max-all-part-of-ryan-holidays-media-strategy/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.observer.com/2011/11/the-tel ... -strategy/</a>
Am I the only one that gets the impression that marketing isn't hard, it's just below the dignity of most human beings?
I believe he was making a joke, Franklin. Maybe you were too-who knows-crazy times. Anyway, Tucker was full of shit. I don't think for a second that it was intentional-I have no doubt that he believed in his own words, and all power to him for trying to make them a reality, but the truth is that he was a nasty little bully, who in the tradition of all bully's, garnered power by using fear. In his case, it was mainly through his message board, and his culture of 'Do as I say, or be smited'. We can all harp on about how great the moderation was on the old board, but now we've all moved over to here, we can see how much better things are-it's been stated by people time and again. The guy is a dick head. I wish him well, but I really don't buy his therapy shtick. He may be committed to it, I just can't help but feel that if his popularity starts to rise again, that the old Tucker will come roaring back out again.
Are you this guy? Marketing ranges from insanely difficult to working a promotional booth. Marketing doesn't provide any direct value to firms, kind of like unemployed people, so setting a correct budget is never easy to gauge. Miller lost 3% in sales revenue just by putting out an offensive super bowl ad, which is huge. Some of marketing is actually fun, like the shopology side of it. Studies have shown that you can get customers to stay in a store twice as long just by changing the scent. Now, the personal sales and customer service side is among the worst professions out there. Professional message board mod without a job is a lower depth, but you're right in the sense that's it's not that far off. Am I getting off topic? Oh right, Tucker. Honestly, I don't even like the guy very much, but the RM criticism is really weak. With so many reasons to hate the guy I don't get why people go after these vague accusations when they have no idea what Tucker promised those writers. There's far worse business scams out there, and he did give them opportunities that several of them cashed in on. I really don't see what the problem is with how he operated RM.
I don't know why I'm defending the guy, but trust me, making empty promises to writers is absolutely not something unique to Tucker Max. I don't know any details about what you're all referring to, but if you take a glance at ads for writing jobs it's rare that they'll actually offer to pay you, and then actually offer to pay you anything respectable at that. The standard is "I can't pay you now, but great things will happen in the future I swear!" "Use this as an opportunity to build your portfolio and get your name and words out there!" I just think of all the things you could shit on Tucker for, that shouldn't be one of them.
I'm willing to bet that neither do any of the people commenting on this here, other than Scootah. Look, I'm not going to get involved in this conversation because you're talking about people who are a) friends of mine, and/or b) not here to defend themselves, but I do want to point out that everything I'm reading looks like conjecture on both sides of the conversation without actually knowing any of the details, or even the broad strokes. I realize that's largely what this place is about, it's what we do here with so many other things, whether it's conjecture about what Tom Coughlin has done to get his team ready today or why "Marketing" is the study of how to make people buy something while avoiding the pesky difficulty of making it a better value because that might be risky (couldn't resist). Anyway, it feels weird to read all this totally uninformed conjecture about people I know and like (and, to be fair, people I strongly dislike, as well) who are more likely to actually read this than Tom Coughlin is. Since Nicole pulled my name into this,* I just wanted to let each of you engaging in wild conjecture know that the other person you're debating with is also guessing what actually took place. Obviously there are things that are close, but they seem more like luck of the guess than informed criticism. *even as a peripheral example, I know you weren't trying to involve me.
Tucker Max Retirement a Fraud? As somebody who works in, and likes to have fun in marketing, I would like you to explain how you figured out our great marketing secrets, and whether you could possibly be bought off with valuable adwords coupons. Tags: marketing, humor, engineers, tucker max, gawker.com