Imagine you are a bank or investment firm or hedge fund or VC. You want to do business with person A, I shall call them “Alice.”
Alice says to you, right up front, “I need to make one billion dollars, or I look for a different partner.”
Are you going to accuse Alice of being greedy, when your entire business consists of making money? You don’t cure the sick, or bring the Internet to rural communities, or manufacture safe transportation, or serve healthy food. You just make money.
So you say, “Fine, Alice, but a billion dollars is a lot of money.” Alice says, “How much do you need to make, such that my dream can come true?”
So you work out how you can make ten billion, while Alice makes one billion.
Now the conversation becomes, “How does Alice take her one billion out of the business, tweaking the knobs for risk, tax advantage, estate planning, and so forth?”
You bought into Alice making a billion dollars, so everything else is just details about when she gets the various bits of her billion.
Alice says to you, right up front, “I need to make one billion dollars, or I look for a different partner.”
Are you going to accuse Alice of being greedy, when your entire business consists of making money? You don’t cure the sick, or bring the Internet to rural communities, or manufacture safe transportation, or serve healthy food. You just make money.
So you say, “Fine, Alice, but a billion dollars is a lot of money.” Alice says, “How much do you need to make, such that my dream can come true?”
So you work out how you can make ten billion, while Alice makes one billion.
Now the conversation becomes, “How does Alice take her one billion out of the business, tweaking the knobs for risk, tax advantage, estate planning, and so forth?”
You bought into Alice making a billion dollars, so everything else is just details about when she gets the various bits of her billion.