Frank

interested in money, markets and human nature.

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@Llinkoy she failed the LSAT twice and ended up owning more than most of the lawyers she was supposed to become

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@xwhynoted explanation, not excuse. it explains where it came from, it doesn’t undo what it did to his mother. both things can be true and he seems to be the one person who gets that

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@millo_onchain free dinners for losers, $100 limits for winners.

the house always wins because it picks who’s allowed to play

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Mike Tyson earned more than $300 million with his fists. By 2003 he owed $23 million, and the man who ran his money for years was the one he ended up suing.

He became the youngest heavyweight champion in history at 20. At his peak, a single fight could pay him $30 million.

In 1995 he walked out of prison after three years and went straight back to boxing, and the money came back faster than ever. Then it started leaving even faster.

A court-approved accountant later went through just three of those years. He counted about $35 million spent. That included $410,000 on one birthday party, $230,000 on pagers and cell phones, $9 million in legal fees, and the upkeep of his pet tigers.

That is roughly $32,000 a day, every day, for three years.

In August 2003 he filed for bankruptcy. He owed about $17 million in taxes to the US and UK governments, money to seven law firms, and $300,000 for limousines. That same year his divorce settlement gave his ex-wife $6.5 million from his future earnings and the Connecticut mansion.

His big hope was a $100 million lawsuit against his old promoter, Don King. Tyson's lawyers wrote that King knew he could not really read or understand the contracts he was signing. King denied cheating him. In 2004 they settled, and King paid $14 million.

Tyson fought his way back with movies, a one-man show and podcasts. In 2024, at 58, he reportedly made about $20 million for one night against Jake Paul.

In the video below, the interviewer reads him the list of what he spent, and Tyson admits he truly believed the money would never run out.

Whose fault is it when a 20-year-old gets $300 million and nobody teaches him to count it?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Kim Kardashian is worth $1.8 billion, and Kanye West still pays her $200,000 a month. He agreed to it five weeks after Adidas dropped him and Forbes cut his fortune from $2 billion to $400 million.

They married in Italy in 2014 and had four children. Kim filed for divorce in February 2021, and it took almost two years to finish.

The fight was never really about her money. They had a prenup, so each of them kept what they had built. The hard part was the kids.

Kanye spent much of 2022 attacking Kim online. He said she was keeping him away from the children and their birthday parties. He even asked the court for the right to question any future husband of hers under oath, and the judge said no.

Then in October he made antisemitic comments, and his business partners started walking away one by one. On October 25 Adidas ended the Yeezy deal. Forbes said that deal alone was worth $1.5 billion and took him off its billionaires list the same day.

A trial was set for December 14, but on November 29 he signed a settlement instead.

Under the deal he pays $200,000 a month in child support, they share custody, and they split private school, college and the kids' security 50/50. Neither of them pays spousal support.

That is $2.4 million a year, about $6,575 a day. And according to Forbes, part of the $400 million he had left was a 5% stake in Skims, the shapewear company Kim built. So part of what still kept him rich was a piece of her business.

Kim stayed quiet until the papers were signed. In the video below she breaks down in tears talking about what raising the kids with him is really like. In the same interview she said that one day her children will thank her for not trashing their dad.

What do four kids actually need $200,000 a month for?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@xlarckk she had the full $7M for 13 months before the lawsuit and the ACLU got 37% of its half.
what happened to the other 12 months?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Kim Kardashian is worth $1.8 billion, and Kanye West still pays her $200,000 a month. He agreed to it five weeks after Adidas dropped him and Forbes cut his fortune from $2 billion to $400 million.

They married in Italy in 2014 and had four children. Kim filed for divorce in February 2021, and it took almost two years to finish.

The fight was never really about her money. They had a prenup, so each of them kept what they had built. The hard part was the kids.

Kanye spent much of 2022 attacking Kim online. He said she was keeping him away from the children and their birthday parties. He even asked the court for the right to question any future husband of hers under oath, and the judge said no.

Then in October he made antisemitic comments, and his business partners started walking away one by one. On October 25 Adidas ended the Yeezy deal. Forbes said that deal alone was worth $1.5 billion and took him off its billionaires list the same day.

A trial was set for December 14, but on November 29 he signed a settlement instead.

Under the deal he pays $200,000 a month in child support, they share custody, and they split private school, college and the kids' security 50/50. Neither of them pays spousal support.

That is $2.4 million a year, about $6,575 a day. And according to Forbes, part of the $400 million he had left was a 5% stake in Skims, the shapewear company Kim built. So part of what still kept him rich was a piece of her business.

Kim stayed quiet until the papers were signed. In the video below she breaks down in tears talking about what raising the kids with him is really like. In the same interview she said that one day her children will thank her for not trashing their dad.

What do four kids actually need $200,000 a month for?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@focuzzz_01 $450K a month allowance from the bank and he still called it a depression. relatable and not relatable at the same time

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@lorneseth “off the books” was the most honest thing she said in the wholee interview

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@Veltrixmoon one trophy bought him two more windows, and one 7-0 didn’t take them back

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Kim Kardashian is worth $1.8 billion, and Kanye West still pays her $200,000 a month. He agreed to it five weeks after Adidas dropped him and Forbes cut his fortune from $2 billion to $400 million.

They married in Italy in 2014 and had four children. Kim filed for divorce in February 2021, and it took almost two years to finish.

The fight was never really about her money. They had a prenup, so each of them kept what they had built. The hard part was the kids.

Kanye spent much of 2022 attacking Kim online. He said she was keeping him away from the children and their birthday parties. He even asked the court for the right to question any future husband of hers under oath, and the judge said no.

Then in October he made antisemitic comments, and his business partners started walking away one by one. On October 25 Adidas ended the Yeezy deal. Forbes said that deal alone was worth $1.5 billion and took him off its billionaires list the same day.

A trial was set for December 14, but on November 29 he signed a settlement instead.

Under the deal he pays $200,000 a month in child support, they share custody, and they split private school, college and the kids' security 50/50. Neither of them pays spousal support.

That is $2.4 million a year, about $6,575 a day. And according to Forbes, part of the $400 million he had left was a 5% stake in Skims, the shapewear company Kim built. So part of what still kept him rich was a piece of her business.

Kim stayed quiet until the papers were signed. In the video below she breaks down in tears talking about what raising the kids with him is really like. In the same interview she said that one day her children will thank her for not trashing their dad.

What do four kids actually need $200,000 a month for?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

A CBS producer tried to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million over his affairs with his own staff. Letterman handed him the $2 million, then went on his show the next night and told everyone himself.

It started on September 9, 2009. A man left a sealed envelope with Letterman’s driver outside his home in Manhattan. Inside was a document called “Treatment for a Screenplay.”

It was not really a screenplay. It was a threat. Pay up, or the world finds out you slept with women who work for you.

The man behind it was Joe Halderman, a producer on the CBS true-crime show 48 Hours. He had been at the network for 27 years. He wanted $2 million to stay quiet.

Letterman did not pay and hide. He went to the Manhattan district attorney. His lawyer met Halderman, agreed to the deal, and on October 1 handed over a check for $2 million. Halderman deposited it, and the next day he was arrested.

That same week Letterman sat down at his own desk, in front of the cameras, and told the entire story. Then he admitted it was true. He had slept with women on his staff.

There was one more twist. One of those women was his assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, and she had been living with Halderman. The blackmailer was exposing the affair of his own girlfriend’s boss.

In the end the $2 million check was never really his to keep. Halderman pleaded guilty, and got 6 months in jail, 5 years probation and 1,000 hours of community service.

In the video below Letterman tells the whole thing to his own audience, live, before anyone else could.

Smartest way out of a blackmail, or a confession he had no choice but to make?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@xlarckk $133 electricity bill to $1M. best ROI of the 90s and Grant paid for the whole thing!

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@slarmxl the one program that would solve every open problem is the one program that can’t exist. peak math trolling

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@0xBenjamine so retail is basically the noise term in someone else’s equation. cool, love that for us

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@justlunacy yes. half the movie works because of him, and the studio knew it when they lowballed him on purpose

[Frank @frankonomicss]

A CBS producer tried to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million over his affairs with his own staff. Letterman handed him the $2 million, then went on his show the next night and told everyone himself.

It started on September 9, 2009. A man left a sealed envelope with Letterman’s driver outside his home in Manhattan. Inside was a document called “Treatment for a Screenplay.”

It was not really a screenplay. It was a threat. Pay up, or the world finds out you slept with women who work for you.

The man behind it was Joe Halderman, a producer on the CBS true-crime show 48 Hours. He had been at the network for 27 years. He wanted $2 million to stay quiet.

Letterman did not pay and hide. He went to the Manhattan district attorney. His lawyer met Halderman, agreed to the deal, and on October 1 handed over a check for $2 million. Halderman deposited it, and the next day he was arrested.

That same week Letterman sat down at his own desk, in front of the cameras, and told the entire story. Then he admitted it was true. He had slept with women on his staff.

There was one more twist. One of those women was his assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, and she had been living with Halderman. The blackmailer was exposing the affair of his own girlfriend’s boss.

In the end the $2 million check was never really his to keep. Halderman pleaded guilty, and got 6 months in jail, 5 years probation and 1,000 hours of community service.

In the video below Letterman tells the whole thing to his own audience, live, before anyone else could.

Smartest way out of a blackmail, or a confession he had no choice but to make?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Microsoft’s own board investigated Bill Gates over an affair with an employee. A year later his wife of 27 years filed for divorce, and the deal later gave her $12.5 billion to spend on her own.

In the second half of 2019 Microsoft quietly hired an outside law firm. An employee had written to the company saying she had a romantic relationship with Bill Gates, the man who founded it.

The affair was almost 20 years old. Gates’s spokesperson confirmed it happened and said it “ended amicably”.

But according to the Wall Street Journal, the board decided it was no longer right for him to stay. In March 2020 Gates left Microsoft’s board. His side said it had nothing to do with the affair, and that he simply wanted more time for charity.

At home there was a second problem. In 2019 news came out about his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, and that same year Melinda started talking to divorce lawyers, the Journal reported.

In May 2021 they announced the divorce. He was worth about $130.5 billion at the time, the 4th richest man in the world.

For 3 more years they kept running their foundation together. Then in May 2024 she left it, and wrote that under her agreement with Bill she would now have “an additional $12.5 billion” for her own work.

Bill later said that meeting Epstein “was a mistake that I regret deeply.”

Then in January 2026 the US Justice Department released about 3 million pages of Epstein’s private messages, and Bill Gates’s name is in them. His spokesperson called the claims about him “absolutely absurd and completely false.”

In the video below Melinda reacts for the first time. She says the files bring back “very, very painful times in my marriage”, and that the questions are for her ex-husband now: “They need to answer to those things, not me.”

Was it the affair or the Epstein meetings that really ended it?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@xlarckk turned the worst year of their marriage into the best tour of their career. wild

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Microsoft’s own board investigated Bill Gates over an affair with an employee. A year later his wife of 27 years filed for divorce, and the deal later gave her $12.5 billion to spend on her own.

In the second half of 2019 Microsoft quietly hired an outside law firm. An employee had written to the company saying she had a romantic relationship with Bill Gates, the man who founded it.

The affair was almost 20 years old. Gates’s spokesperson confirmed it happened and said it “ended amicably”.

But according to the Wall Street Journal, the board decided it was no longer right for him to stay. In March 2020 Gates left Microsoft’s board. His side said it had nothing to do with the affair, and that he simply wanted more time for charity.

At home there was a second problem. In 2019 news came out about his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, and that same year Melinda started talking to divorce lawyers, the Journal reported.

In May 2021 they announced the divorce. He was worth about $130.5 billion at the time, the 4th richest man in the world.

For 3 more years they kept running their foundation together. Then in May 2024 she left it, and wrote that under her agreement with Bill she would now have “an additional $12.5 billion” for her own work.

Bill later said that meeting Epstein “was a mistake that I regret deeply.”

Then in January 2026 the US Justice Department released about 3 million pages of Epstein’s private messages, and Bill Gates’s name is in them. His spokesperson called the claims about him “absolutely absurd and completely false.”

In the video below Melinda reacts for the first time. She says the files bring back “very, very painful times in my marriage”, and that the questions are for her ex-husband now: “They need to answer to those things, not me.”

Was it the affair or the Epstein meetings that really ended it?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Tiger Woods was earning $100 million a year from sponsors when his affairs came out. Within 3 weeks, the companies that paid him had lost up to $12 billion in stock value.

It started with a strange, minor car crash outside his own home in Florida on November 27, 2009.

Within days the story behind it came out. More than a dozen women said they had had affairs with him. He was married with 2 kids, and his whole image was built on being the clean family man.

On December 11 he admitted “infidelity” and said he was stepping away from golf indefinitely.

That is when the money started moving. Tiger was the first billionaire athlete in history, and about $100 million a year of his income came from endorsements, more than any other athlete alive.

Two economists at UC Davis tracked the stock prices of 8 of his sponsors over the 13 trading days after the crash. Their conclusion: shareholders lost somewhere between $5 billion and $12 billion.

The sports brands took the biggest hit. Nike, Gatorade and the company behind his video game lost about $6 billion between them.

And here is the strange part. Accenture, the consulting firm, lost nothing, according to the study. It dropped him anyway. Nike lost the most and stayed with him.

On December 31 AT&T walked away too, with one cold line: “We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future.”

One of the economists summed it up: the losses may have been bigger than several decades of Tiger’s own endorsement money.

In the video below Tiger stands in front of the cameras in February 2010 and says he is “deeply sorry” for his “irresponsible and selfish behavior”.

Nike lost the most and kept him anyway. Smart or stupid?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@xlarckk the pain is clear in his eyes

[Frank @frankonomicss]

@angel404l 31 percent is crazy

[Frank @frankonomicss]

Tiger Woods was earning $100 million a year from sponsors when his affairs came out. Within 3 weeks, the companies that paid him had lost up to $12 billion in stock value.

It started with a strange, minor car crash outside his own home in Florida on November 27, 2009.

Within days the story behind it came out. More than a dozen women said they had had affairs with him. He was married with 2 kids, and his whole image was built on being the clean family man.

On December 11 he admitted “infidelity” and said he was stepping away from golf indefinitely.

That is when the money started moving. Tiger was the first billionaire athlete in history, and about $100 million a year of his income came from endorsements, more than any other athlete alive.

Two economists at UC Davis tracked the stock prices of 8 of his sponsors over the 13 trading days after the crash. Their conclusion: shareholders lost somewhere between $5 billion and $12 billion.

The sports brands took the biggest hit. Nike, Gatorade and the company behind his video game lost about $6 billion between them.

And here is the strange part. Accenture, the consulting firm, lost nothing, according to the study. It dropped him anyway. Nike lost the most and stayed with him.

On December 31 AT&T walked away too, with one cold line: “We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future.”

One of the economists summed it up: the losses may have been bigger than several decades of Tiger’s own endorsement money.

In the video below Tiger stands in front of the cameras in February 2010 and says he is “deeply sorry” for his “irresponsible and selfish behavior”.

Nike lost the most and kept him anyway. Smart or stupid?

[Frank @frankonomicss]

50 Cent told a court he owed $36 million, then posted stacks of cash spelling out the word BROKE. The judge made him explain, and he said the money was fake.

It started with a lawsuit. A woman named Lastonia Leviston sued him after he posted an intimate video of her online with his own mocking commentary, without asking her. In July 2015 a jury ordered him to pay her $7 million.

Days after that verdict, 50 Cent filed for bankruptcy. On paper he owed $36 million and had less than $20 million to his name.

The problem was his Instagram. While he was telling the court he could not pay, he kept posting cash. Buckets full of it. A fridge packed with it. And one photo of bills laid out on the floor to spell BROKE.

That was enough for the judge. Ann Nevins said she was worried he was hiding money and ordered him to explain those photos.

His answer was that the cash was “prop money”, fake bills for show. Being photographed next to something, he wrote, does not mean you own it.

In the end the judge let him pay his way out. He put down $7.4 million up front, and Leviston agreed to take $6 million instead of the full $7 million.

Then the judge asked if he understood he would still owe her even if he went bankrupt again. “That’s not gonna happen,” he said.

And all of this came from a man who got rich when Vitamin Water was sold to Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion.

In the clip below Conan asks him straight to his face why he poses with cash if he is broke.

Do you believe the money was fake?