This should be one to watch.

DocMcCoy

Duff McKagan's economics column for Playboy.

Jonny_Paycheck

SO ILL

CousinLarry

Can someone post the text to the thread for us working fools?

Unknown

I recall hearing somewhere that he made a ton of money as an early investor in Starbucks. Any truth to that?

discos_alma

Can someone post the text to the thread for us working fools?

My name is Duff McKagan. By way of introduction, I play rock & roll music as a profession and have been fortunate enough to have been a founding member of both Guns N??? Roses and Velvet Revolver. I???m not tooting my own horn here, just letting you people know who I am. The beer on The Simpsons was named after me and not the opposite. You see, I was also known to be a big drinker.

Playboy has asked me to pen a weekly column on finance. This first piece will serve as sort of ???mission statement??? to inform you of what to expect from now until they fire me. You may be asking yourself at this point, ???What the hell does this dude know about money???? Well, here is a quick version of my story:

I got sober in 1994. I suddenly found that I had a ton of time on my hands???bars and drug runs are very time-consuming passions. I found a file cabinet in my basement that held all of my GN???R financial statements from the previous six years. I began to try to make sense of these. The problem was, they weren???t written for the common person to read, and perhaps they were even meant to mislead a typical over-busy rock guy. I was 30 years old and didn???t know what any of the technical terms meant. I didn???t know what a financial ???vehicle??? or a ???bond??? (tax-free or otherwise) was, never mind the inverse relationship of supply and demand! I enrolled in a class at Santa Monica College the very next week, and it was there that I found my calling and???don???t laugh???my love of academia.

As an aside: From my experience, once you are pegged as a ???rock guy,??? people just assume that you are either brain-dead or off high-flying on a private jet with hookers and cocaine. While I have definitely been guilty of both of the aforementioned clich??s, my life these days is just kind of simple and book-filled. Yes, I still tour and make records, but I am much more informed and therefore involved in the everyday commerce that is the music business. My business.

From my short stint at SMCC, I moved back home to Seattle and got myself into the Albers School of Business at Seattle University. Suddenly, the world of finance became a living and fascinating thing for me. I found that I could apply lessons from class immediately to my work in the music business. The more word got around that I was serious about getting my degree in finance, the more serious I was taken in business meetings. I do think that there was, in a sense, fear that one of the ???rock guys??? was going to knock down the house of cards that is the record business. Cool shit.

As soon as Velvet Revolver started in 2004, all kinds of financial media wanted to talk money with me. From the Wall Street Journal to Neil Cavuto, PBS???s Frontline to Greta Von Susteren, everyone seemed to come to me as the voice of business from within the music industry. Pretty surreal.

Now, on to my mission statement. Initially, I think that this column should serve two purposes:

1) To educate
2) To bring down The Man

As for the first point, when I stated before that I found myself at 30 not really knowing which way was up as far as financial terminology and complexities went, I also found that I was not alone. I know that I was too embarrassed to actually cop to the fact that I was in the dark when it came to finance. I think this rings true for most of us. Unless you are a CPA, lawyer, or stockbroker, why would you know much about what they are talking about on the financial news? Those boneheads on TV just want to make themselves come off as smart anyway???hoping to maybe score some pussy that they didn???t get in their youth! I hope to shed some no-nonsense light on day-to-day money issues. In these days of financial woe, we can all use a little help.

And as for the second one, I am sick and tired of hearing of these Wall Street assholes getting huge bonus packages from our bailout tax dollars. What a lot of these people did to all of us in the first place is just plain criminal. I have never been keen on executives getting golden parachutes; I???m more apt to give them a golden shower. I will do my best to expose frauds and criminals, one at a time. Care to join?

I also look forward to comments from readers to let me know how I am doing and whether there are directions you would like me to take. Until next week.

DocMcCoy

I recall hearing somewhere that he made a ton of money as an early investor in Starbucks. Any truth to that?

Apparently so. He's from Seattle, and got in early when a friend asked if he'd be interested in investing in a couple of local start-ups, the other being Microsoft. For an initial investment of $50,000, he ended up trousering $15m when he cashed out.

I just finished Stephen Davis' GnR biog "Watch You Bleed", and that was one of the two most interesting anecdotes in the book. The other one was the frankly startling revelation that neither Joe Perry nor Brad Whitford played on the second Aerosmith album. The label thought their playing was a little too grimy, so Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, two session players who were in Lou Reed's band at the time, were drafted in to overdub their parts.

Hotsauce84

I admit I don't know who this dude is (I was never really into Guns 'N Roses), but I'm feeling that mission statement big-time.

theory9

I recall hearing somewhere that he made a ton of money as an early investor in Starbucks. Any truth to that?

Apparently so. He's from Seattle, and got in early when a friend asked if he'd be interested in investing in a couple of local start-ups, the other being Microsoft. For an initial investment of $50,000, he ended up trousering $15m when he cashed out.

I just finished Stephen Davis' GnR biog "Watch You Bleed", and that was one of the two most interesting anecdotes in the book. The other one was the frankly startling revelation that neither Joe Perry nor Brad Whitford played on the second Aerosmith album. The label thought their playing was a little too grimy, so Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, two session players who were in Lou Reed's band at the time, were drafted in to overdub their parts.

I'm pretty sure Duff didn't invest in Microsoft--they were doing pretty well in the early to mid-80's.

nzshadow

F*ck YES IM DOWN.

hogginthefogg

From his Wiki (not that it necessarily means it's true):

"McKagan had turned his royalties from Guns n' Roses into a small fortune after he invested his money into Microsoft and Starbucks, a move which paid huge dividends. Growing more interested in finance, he earned his GED, then enrolled in community college, eventually graduating from Seattle University with a degree in finance."

RAJ

I have never been keen on executives getting golden parachutes; I???m more apt to give them a golden shower. I will do my best to expose frauds and criminals, one at a time.

Garcia_Vega

The beer on The Simpsons was named after me and not the opposite.

Enlightening!

I'm kind of feeling the idea of getting financial advice from Duff.

mylatency

SO ILL

agreed

Birdman9

From his Wiki (not that it necessarily means it's true):

"McKagan had turned his royalties from Guns n' Roses into a small fortune after he invested his money into Microsoft and Starbucks, a move which paid huge dividends. Growing more interested in finance, he earned his GED, then enrolled in community college[/b], eventually graduating from Seattle University with a degree in finance."

Stringer Bell moves

verb606

I'm pretty sure Duff didn't invest in Microsoft--they were doing pretty well in the early to mid-80's.

He certainly didn't catch them during their startup status. He might have gotten in and made some loot later.


His wikipedia page is an interesting read. It appears that today is his birthday, in fact.

Happy birthday, Duff! Ooh Yeah!

Unherd

Now, on to my mission statement. Initially, I think that this column should serve two purposes:

1) To educate
2) To bring down The Man

thrusting in the direction of the problem

DJ_Enki

Now, on to my mission statement. Initially, I think that this column should serve two purposes:

1) To educate
2) To bring down The Man

thrusting in the direction of the problem

Well done, good sir!

Young_Phonics

Can someone post the text to the thread for us working fools?

My name is Duff McKagan. By way of introduction, I play rock & roll music as a profession and have been fortunate enough to have been a founding member of both Guns N??? Roses and Velvet Revolver. I???m not tooting my own horn here, just letting you people know who I am. The beer on The Simpsons was named after me and not the opposite. You see, I was also known to be a big drinker.

Playboy has asked me to pen a weekly column on finance. This first piece will serve as sort of ???mission statement??? to inform you of what to expect from now until they fire me. You may be asking yourself at this point, ???What the hell does this dude know about money???? Well, here is a quick version of my story:

I got sober in 1994. I suddenly found that I had a ton of time on my hands???bars and drug runs are very time-consuming passions. I found a file cabinet in my basement that held all of my GN???R financial statements from the previous six years. I began to try to make sense of these. The problem was, they weren???t written for the common person to read, and perhaps they were even meant to mislead a typical over-busy rock guy. I was 30 years old and didn???t know what any of the technical terms meant. I didn???t know what a financial ???vehicle??? or a ???bond??? (tax-free or otherwise) was, never mind the inverse relationship of supply and demand! I enrolled in a class at Santa Monica College the very next week, and it was there that I found my calling and???don???t laugh???my love of academia.

As an aside: From my experience, once you are pegged as a ???rock guy,??? people just assume that you are either brain-dead or off high-flying on a private jet with hookers and cocaine. While I have definitely been guilty of both of the aforementioned clich??s, my life these days is just kind of simple and book-filled. Yes, I still tour and make records, but I am much more informed and therefore involved in the everyday commerce that is the music business. My business.

From my short stint at SMCC, I moved back home to Seattle and got myself into the Albers School of Business at Seattle University. Suddenly, the world of finance became a living and fascinating thing for me. I found that I could apply lessons from class immediately to my work in the music business. The more word got around that I was serious about getting my degree in finance, the more serious I was taken in business meetings. I do think that there was, in a sense, fear that one of the ???rock guys??? was going to knock down the house of cards that is the record business. Cool shit.

As soon as Velvet Revolver started in 2004, all kinds of financial media wanted to talk money with me. From the Wall Street Journal to Neil Cavuto, PBS???s Frontline to Greta Von Susteren, everyone seemed to come to me as the voice of business from within the music industry. Pretty surreal.

Now, on to my mission statement. Initially, I think that this column should serve two purposes:

1) To educate
2) To bring down The Man

As for the first point, when I stated before that I found myself at 30 not really knowing which way was up as far as financial terminology and complexities went, I also found that I was not alone. I know that I was too embarrassed to actually cop to the fact that I was in the dark when it came to finance. I think this rings true for most of us. Unless you are a CPA, lawyer, or stockbroker, why would you know much about what they are talking about on the financial news? Those boneheads on TV just want to make themselves come off as smart anyway???hoping to maybe score some pussy that they didn???t get in their youth! I hope to shed some no-nonsense light on day-to-day money issues. In these days of financial woe, we can all use a little help.

And as for the second one, I am sick and tired of hearing of these Wall Street assholes getting huge bonus packages from our bailout tax dollars. What a lot of these people did to all of us in the first place is just plain criminal. I have never been keen on executives getting golden parachutes; I???m more apt to give them a golden shower. I will do my best to expose frauds and criminals, one at a time. Care to join?

I also look forward to comments from readers to let me know how I am doing and whether there are directions you would like me to take. Until next week.

Maybe this type of ideology with become a little bit more prevalent with things being so bad and having a president that can be HONEST and admit shit like making a mistake.

or not

who knows.

verb606

Good news is, we can all truthfully say we read Playboy for the articles!

Tonearm_Robbery

HAHA.

Duff McKagen?

Junior College?

PLAYBOY?

HAHA.

luck

I remember when Playboy would have real economists within their pages.





































And Gore Vidal.