I've read that Trump's fortune, before he became a TV celebrity with The Apprentice, was actually less than he would have had if he had simply taken all of the money he inherited and put it in a savings account at a bank. Essentially he wasn't a very good investor.
He wasn't a TV celebrity though. He was more tabloid fodder.
And no, he didn't make it from the show directly, but the show made his brand name a lot more valuable, and made it a lot easier for him to make money from his businesses. And his true worth is probably far less than that. A lot of people claim in the $150m-$250m range. It's hard to estimate a guy whose worth is primarily not in equities.
It has been a running joke in Forbes -- since the 80's -- that he thinks they've underestimated his net worth. I think the issue is not that he doesn't own equities -- they estimate the fortunes of Bloomberg, the Koches, the [Fidelity] Johnsons, etc. just fine. The problem is that he's so leveraged: being off by 10% on his assets might mean being off by 50% on his equity.
Gary has always been a little over the top for me, but it works for him and comes off naturally. He deserves all of the fame he gets because he works his ass off. He claims to answer every e-mail. Based on how quickly he's built a following I wouldn't doubt it.
Why do people do interviews where they come off like this? This must be the image he's trying to project. How could being quoted as saying "I absolutely believe I am going to own the Jets" EVER help anybody?
Well, he's a personal branding guru, and "Gary Vaynerchuk is ambitious" is practically a summary of HIS personal brand, so at least in this case it helps him.
that article makes Gary sound like a kid...if someone read it w/o that first bit where it says he is 32, they would have thought the article was about a 16 year old
I've met Gary and seen him speak live over a webcast and he is just a big kid. That's not to say he isn't very smart. We were with a couple of the Youtube folks and we spent lunch discussing monitization of that platform. Gary had some great ideas and insight and I wouldn't be surprised if they talk to him again about it.
Gary's father: "There are much bigger things to come…I think he has a very good chance to replace Oprah."
Don't you just love this?