Advoneco

Every fortune has a PR story, and a reality buried in the footnotes. I pull the receipts on how billions are made, kept, and quietly lost.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@0xxRowan True, but getting rewarded that heavily after completely blowing the job is still ridiculous.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Disney paid Michael Ovitz $140 million to walk away after just 14 months on the job.

That works out to about $10 million for every month he showed up. It wasn't a reward for doing great work. It came down to a single clause in his contract.

Back in 1995, Disney CEO Michael Eisner convinced Ovitz, who was running CAA at the time, to come in as Disney's president. Ovitz didn't really want to leave his agency, so he asked for a safety net called a Non-Fault Termination clause.

The rule was simple: unless Ovitz committed an actual crime or gross negligence, Disney had to pay out his entire five-year deal if they let him go.

The relationship went sour almost immediately. Eisner wanted him out, but Ovitz hadn't broken any rules. Firing him without cause triggered the clause on the spot. Disney had to hand him $38 million in cash plus 3 million stock options, pushing the total payout to around $140 million.

Shareholders were furious. They sued the Disney board in Delaware for corporate waste, kicking off a 10-year legal fight. The judge eventually ruled that while the board was sloppy and handled the contract poorly, the business judgment rule protected them from personal liability.

In this clip, Ovitz looks back on what happened. He calls taking the Disney job the biggest mistake of his life, and mentions the setup was doomed before day one—when Disney's CFO and chief counsel sat in Eisner's living room and told Ovitz straight to his face they would never report to him.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@versivald Paying unproven hype over the guy who built your franchise, that's just insane business.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

In 2005, Facebook was a scrappy startup operating out of a rented Palo Alto house. Sean Parker, the company's founding president, approached Los Angeles graffiti artist David Choe to paint murals across their office walls.

When the work was finished, Parker offered Choe a straightforward choice for his payment: roughly $60,000 in immediate cash, or company stock options.

At the time, Choe was an art school dropout with a criminal record who had served time in prison for theft and assault. He was broke and needed money, yet he viewed the concept of a social network as completely pointless. But Choe was an admitted gambler, and instead of taking the safe five-figure check, he elected to take the equity.

Seven years later, on May 18, 2012, Facebook debuted on NASDAQ at a $104 billion valuation.

Choe’s estimated 0.1% to 0.25% equity stake was suddenly worth over $200 million.

In this extended Nightline broadcast, Barbara Walters sits down with Choe to examine the aftermath of the windfall. While most people assume sudden wealth solves every problem, Choe explains the reality of nine-figure liquidity: every media outlet in the world began hounding him, old acquaintances resurfaced, and he quickly realized that while money can buy almost anything, you cannot buy your privacy back.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@Tolot0caw What actually happened in that room to trigger a lawsuit of that size?

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@versivald Good for him, because signing away a decade with no safety net is insane.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@xbtnoah the fear of draining your family financially often breaks people more than physical paid does

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@VORLEN_X taxes in US is just a joke, work all your life and give more than a half of your pay to a government

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Kevin Costner's estranged wife asked a California court for $248,000 a month in child support, arguing that private aviation and beachfront living were in their children's DNA.

A judge cut her request to $63,209 and ordered her to vacate his home.

Costner had learned this lesson the hard way. In 1994, he paid his first wife an estimated $80 million in one of Hollywood's costliest divorces. When he married Christine Baumgartner in 2004, he insisted on an ironclad prenuptial agreement.

The contract gave her 30 days to leave his $145 million Santa Barbara compound if they split, backed by a $1.4 million flat payout.

When she filed for divorce in 2023, she refused to move out and demanded nearly $3 million annually for their three teenagers. Her accountants argued Costner earned over $1.5 million a month from Yellowstone.

Costner countered that the quarter-million-dollar monthly demand was disguised spousal support designed to fund personal luxury expenses rather than childcare.

Judge Thomas Anderle agreed, slashing the support order by 75% to $63,209. Facing a fee-shifting clause in the prenup that risked millions in legal bills, Baumgartner settled.

In the clip below from CBS Mornings, Costner explains the crushing toll of the public split and why he refused to wilt while his children watched.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Riley Reid was paid a record $12,000 for a grueling, all-day multi-performer marathon that left her physically battered on set.

Standard scenes paid around $1,500. To command twelve grand, directors pushed her through hours of non-stop extreme filming that pushed her body to total exhaustion.

The studio retained worldwide digital rights, sold subscription licenses, and banked 90% of the gross profit. When direct creator platforms launched, she walked away from commercial sets permanently.

In the clip below, she breaks down the financial difference between grueling studio marathons and working independently.

She now earns an estimated $500,000 a month posting on her own terms, making more in six months than her entire ten-year studio career combined.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Savana Bond spent three months unable to chew solid food after repetitive deep-throat shoots permanently displaced her jaw.

She was working four days a week performing extreme scenes for flat $1,500 day checks. When chronic TMJ spasms, migraines, and vertigo forced an emergency medical shutdown, doctors ordered an immediate 90-day freeze on all work.

Because adult studios classify talent as 1099 independent contractors, she received zero worker compensation, zero disability pay, and paid every specialist bill out of pocket.

In the clip below, Bond breaks down how the shoots destroyed her jaw and reveals the financial reality of unpaid downtime.

She sacrificed three months of income to avoid permanent jaw paralysis, while the studio kept collecting 100% of the stream royalties.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

A commercial studio generated an estimated $200,000+ licensing an extreme adult shoot worldwide.

The lead performer, Adriana Chechik, was paid a flat check of roughly $1,200. She received zero residual royalties, zero injury insurance, and zero healthcare coverage.

Standard studio agreements classify performers as 1099 independent contractors rather than statutory employees.

This shifts 100% of physical and medical liability onto the talent while the production company secures perpetual, worldwide ownership over the master recording.

Agencies construct an escalating hazard ladder: standard scenes pay a flat ~$1,000 day rate, while high-risk multi-performer shoots offer marginal $200 bumps. Performers take on acute physical peril for one-time cash, while studios monetize the digital catalog forever.

In the clip below, Chechik breaks down how the 42-minute shoot left her in acute oxygen deprivation, and why the buyout model pushes performers into life-threatening risks for a single check.

Hollywood stunt performers receive SAG union minimums, mandatory safety oversight, and perpetual residuals.

Should adult performers have union-backed residual rights on catalog sales, or will the 1099 buyout model persist as long as digital platforms control distribution?

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Adult studios paid Lisa Ann an $800 day check for a sex scene, photoshopped the color of her lingerie on the DVD box cover, and sold the same tape for twenty years without paying her another dollar.

Under standard talent agreements, performers signed complete likeness releases. Studios pocketed millions packaging old footage into compilation discs while talent received zero backend residuals. When she confronted a producer at an industry expo, he laughed and said, “We’re allowed to do that.”

Lisa Ann stopped licensing her body to outside companies. A full four-scene movie cost between $25,000 and $30,000 to produce. Instead of working for day rates, she funded the productions out of her own pocket, hired the talent, and retained 100% of the distribution rights.

As free tube sites disrupted the industry and DVD distributors went bankrupt, she bought back her master rights and contracts from liquidating producers at fire-sale discounts—eventually securing ownership of 80% of her entire catalog.

In the clip below from The Joe Vulpis Podcast, she breaks down the lingerie box-cover scam and explains why owning the master files gave her equity while other performers left with nothing.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Lana Rhoades was coerced into anal, double penetration, and extreme group shoots while dissociating on camera all for a flat check of $1,200.

At the exact same time, girls on Instagram were getting paid $15,000 to post a single photo holding a bottle of water.

When she landed in Los Angeles at 19, she drew a strict line on her agency intake form: female-only scenes. No male performers. No anal. No group sex.

Directors and agents wore her down within weeks. The industry demanded hardcore content, and the money only flowed if she surrendered her physical boundaries.

She was enduring extreme physical degradation and trauma for pennies while the studio kept lifetime ownership of every tape.

She walked away from the studio system, kept her digital following, and built her own direct-to-consumer brand. In 2022, an independent NFT launch netted her $1.5 million in under an hour.

In the clip below, she explains the dark reality of what sets demanded and how she realized the entire industry was built on underpaying women to destroy their bodies.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Mia Khalifa wore an Islamic hijab in an adult film, received decapitation threats from ISIS, and was paid less than $1,000 for the scene.

The studio made millions off the viral outrage. She earned a total of $12,000 for her entire three-month career.

When producers pitched the hijab scene, she warned them it would put a target on her back. They laughed, turned the cameras on, and directed the shoot anyway. Days later, photoshopped images of her severed head flooded the internet.

Under standard industry agreements, performers sign complete liability and likeness releases. The studio retained all intellectual property and distribution rights, while she received 0% in backend royalties.

She walked away immediately, but her contract gave her zero legal control over the footage. Over the next decade, platforms generated tens of millions in ad revenue off her catalog while she was left with $12,000 and a permanent digital footprint.

In the clip below from her BBC HARDtalk interview, she explains the contract reality and why leaving the industry still left her likeness permanently monetized by others.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

Warren Buffett bought Dexter Shoe for $433 million in Berkshire stock. Years later, he said the shares he'd handed over were worth about $5.7 billion.

Both figures appear in Berkshire's 2014 annual report. The larger number describes what the shares Berkshire gave up had become worth by the time of that report.

Buffett wrote that he had misjudged Dexter's competitive strengths and the investment's value had gone to zero.

In this earlier annual-meeting clip, he explains how production moved overseas and acknowledges being wrong about both the price and the decision to pay in stock.

Using Berkshire shares meant giving the sellers a continuing interest in Berkshire. His later calculation shows how much that interest had grown after the acquisition went wrong.

[Kupres Tilzer @KupresTilz16899]

https://t.co/2x2wvcMAjc

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@0xInspecto turning 150 into seven grand is wild but copy trading just makes you exit liquidity for the whale

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@SamgreyAi tbh 17k was basically free labor when you realize he produced, acted, and scored it

[Advoneco @advoneco]

50 Cent says his early Power pay was $17,000 per episode while he was doing several jobs for the show.

In his GQ interview, he lists the work: executive producing, handling music, doing the theme song, promotion and publicity, alongside his role as Kanan.

He describes being on the series as taking a pay cut.

That also shaped how he thought about his character. In the same exchange, he recalls offering to have Kanan killed off when the story needed a major event, leaving him free to return to his other work.

The clip explains his view of the early trade-off: he was supplying his time, music and public profile to help establish Power and introduce its cast to the audience.

[Advoneco @advoneco]

@PsychoMechanics your body taps out on drugs, but casinos let tilted degens torch 3 million on markers overnight.