Don't Make It About The Money

May 22, 2015 5:50 AM

Management advice from former drug dealer Rick Ross
posted by Brandon Blatcher (35 comments total)

Good stuff.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:00 AM on May 22, 2015

Mod note: Couple of comments removed. It should be clear from the links which Rick Ross this is about. No big deal, and sorry if I seem humourless -- but it looks like even the best-intended "I'm confused about who this is" jokes tend to be sort of, well, confusing in their effect. Carry on!
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 6:30 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Hmm. Thanks for the link - I'm interested to listen to the podcast when it comes out. In terms of content I guess I feel like by framing this as a management seminar, it kind of sucks the meaning out of an already tenuously meaningful interview. Rick Ross clearly has enormous intelligence and drive. Because of racism and systemic class inequalities he directed those abilities into drug dealing instead of being a conventional CEO, but neither the CEO nor the drug kingpin have much to offer us in terms of meaning.

It does sound like age has redirected him into a more thoughtful life.
posted by latkes at 6:34 AM on May 22, 2015

It really is all great advice. I've seen a lot of that (especially the first point about making the people below you more successful than you) mirrored in some of the best managers I've had.
posted by Itaxpica at 6:38 AM on May 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Now that's a CEO I wouldn't mind running for higher office. Seems like he knew how to get shit done.
posted by Renoroc at 6:39 AM on May 22, 2015

Come on, this is ridiculous whitewashing self-promotion by a criminal. This is like those articles extolling the Yakuza or the Mafia as being so honorable and noble and really being about the community...based on the word of the criminals involved, who of course aren't in it for the money and never hurt anyone unless they need to and are all honest. I mean, stuff like this is ridiculous:

When there are lawyers, people lie and deceive and betray. When everything is based on your word and everyone is carrying guns, honesty is the rule.

Criminals don't lie and cheat each other, it's only when lawyers get involved that it all comes out?

Of course he's going to present himself as this great honest guy running a clean, minimally-violent organization instead of the violent drug dealer he was. It's sickening how slime like Ross or Jordan Belmont get caught, then spin their crimes into something to be idolized.
posted by Sangermaine at 6:59 AM on May 22, 2015 [10 favorites]

Come on, this is ridiculous whitewashing self-promotion by a criminal.

No, it's

1. An interview by a person who talked to a former criminal
2. Said former criminal is currently trying to do good, so maybe deal with that instead forever branding him as a criminal. It's fine to never forget what he was, it's narrow minded.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:15 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Come on, this is ridiculous whitewashing self-promotion by a criminal.

It's about his management advice and ability as a CEO.

Looking past the megachurch, Sun Tzu, executive MBA aspect of the message - to make money, don't make it about the money - throwing cash around in poor neighborhoods to obtain loyalty and protection is cheaper and involves far less risk than enforcing fear. It makes good business sense for a privately held, family-owned, retail business.

The problem is that this business model is not scalable, it costs a lot more to obtain this goodwill outiside of your own neighborhood and the returns where your cousins and friends don't live are rapidly diminishing.

The access to capital is limited. With SEC reporting requirements - making it hard hide all those cash transfers - it's not a business that can go IPO.

And if you can't raise capital from and extend your sales outside your neighborhood, you have limited potential for growth and become an attractive target for a hostile takeover. Or jail.

So not the CEO he seems to be, despite the gold star for criminal exploitation of the public.
posted by three blind mice at 7:15 AM on May 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

Regardless of what you think of his product or the peddling of his product, the purpose of this article is to point out that he ran a business, and a wildly successful one. And spare me the high-horse morality bullshit on this. Cigarette manufacturers peddle a deadly, highly addictive drug, and market it to children. If the American south grew poppies instead of tobacco, you could buy heroin and opium legally and over the counter at your local 7-11.

This article is about the fact that Ross had to deal with all the stuff that a "legit," and I use that word loosely, CEO has to deal with plus the pressure of having everything fall apart if law enforcement got involved. He had labor relations, payroll, logistics, production, subcontractors, scalability, etc. and has a unique perspective to give on how he dealt with that. He ran a billion-dollar plus business with no board of directors or executive committee to go to for help. That's damn impressive.
posted by prepmonkey at 7:42 AM on May 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

And, much like in the Silk Road article from the other day, the drug dealer is referred to by first name (eg. "Rick was fooled by the CIA into providing drug profits to the Contras"). Usually, publications refer to people by their last name. Is there some exception for drug dealers?
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 7:42 AM on May 22, 2015

I appreciate the fact that he seems to have turned himself around, but he is being held up for his actions before he turned his life around. The human carnage of the crack epidemic is extraordinary. It is shocking that anyone would give him a shred of credibility for his contributions to it. Shameful.
posted by vorpal bunny at 8:14 AM on May 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

I wouldn't presume to take away Ross' agency by suggesting that he's a victim of circumstance (although it seems a part of him feels that way, judging from the last line ), and it's admirable that he's worked to turn his life around, but if the CIA-Contra claim is true, then Ross has been an instrument/victim of state power and late capitalism three times: as a deep-state-sanctioned kingpin unwittingly serving a private foreign policy; as a felon in a historically unprecedented wave of incarceration; and now, Altucher casts him in the role of born-again evangelist for the cult of the CEO, at a time when actual corporate criminal misbehavior goes largely unpunished.

Ross is responsible for his own decisions, good and bad, but if Freeway Rick Ross didn't exist, we would've had to invent him.
posted by reclusive_thousandaire at 8:18 AM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Now the Lemond Bishop character from The Good Wife makes perfect sense.
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:35 AM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

It's sickening how slime like Ross or Jordan Belmont get caught, then spin their crimes into something to be idolized.

Um:


He had spent, in various periods, close to 20 years in jail. Now his main goal was to lecture kids in jail and school how to avoid the situation he was in.
...
When I was young I asked the most successful person I knew how I could make some money, he said. He looked down for a few seconds. Looked back up at the audience. Paused. "I asked the wrong person."

I'm not sure he's he's spinning his crimes into something to be idolized. Pretty sure he's doing the opposite.
posted by entropone at 8:42 AM on May 22, 2015 [6 favorites]

I'm not sure he's he's spinning his crimes into something to be idolized. Pretty sure he's doing the opposite.

Yeah, that's why he's giving talks at fancy conferences about what he learned from running his criminal empire, which he describes in glowing terms as a business where honesty reigns and he kept totally clean, where attendees (and apparently people who read articles about him) can fawn over him.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:55 AM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Yeah, that's why he's giving talks at fancy conferences about what he learned from running his criminal empire, which he describes in glowing terms as a business where honesty reigns and he kept totally clean, where attendees (and apparently people who read articles about him) can fawn over him.


Seems like you're projecting a lot of things onto this article in order to hate it more.
posted by craven_morhead at 9:05 AM on May 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Seems to me that some of this moral outrage and animosity directed at Ross is rooted in envy.
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 9:15 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

When there are lawyers, people lie and deceive and betray. When everything is based on your word and everyone is carrying guns, honesty is the rule.

I don't know if this is 100 percent true, but I have certainly found a lot of accuracy in the old saying 'you can do business with a thief, but not a liar.'
posted by colie at 9:22 AM on May 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm imagining the Kingpin from Daredevil as a motivational speaker.

Ross was less like a CEO and more like a warlord running a state-within-a-state, right? Fortifying your residence, being prepared to use violence against rivals or to enforce agreements, taking precautions against assassination or arrest--not really the same situation as your typical CEO, where you're managing people and money, but you don't have to worry that one of your subordinates will try to kill you and seize your position. Machiavelli seems like a better guide here than Napoleon Hill.
posted by russilwvong at 9:35 AM on May 22, 2015

You want ridiculouswhitewashing of criminals read the Wall Street Journal.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:06 AM on May 22, 2015 [7 favorites]

When there are lawyers, people lie and deceive and betray. When everything is based on your word and everyone is carrying guns, honesty is the rule.

This is actually borne out (sans the guns part) by Graeber in Debt when he talks about the medieval Islamic free market mentality, where the state was kept out of private merchant dealings. Sounded pretty great to me, actually.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 10:13 AM on May 22, 2015

Needless to say it sounded nothing whatsoever like the hell that modern libertarians want us all to inhabit, either.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 10:14 AM on May 22, 2015

I am pretty sure Ross served his time and paid his debt to society and is now living as a felon/ex-con trying to make a living. If someone or some group is willing to pay him money, big or small, to hear his story and listen to his lessons and advice, great.

As I see it, you can be a criminal and still have important lessons on how to run a large organization. Yeah, his motives for helping his neighbors probably sucks, but he helped his neighbors. If I questioned the motives behind everyone with whom I deal before I dealt with them, I imagine that not much would get done.

As for the lawyer part, in my 30 year career, I never had a problem with a handshake deal. I only had issues when my partners and I had to refer to some language in a document. I get what he is saying.
posted by AugustWest at 10:58 AM on May 22, 2015

I often feel that most of the 1980's can be explained by Iran-Contra in all its facets and complications. I'm just glad Ross has survived long enough to give us his perspective on his little corner of the decade's biggest crime. We'll never get an honest accounting of other portions of the mess.
posted by EinAtlanta at 11:00 AM on May 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Sounded pretty great to me, actually.

It always does, until you get screwed.
posted by NoxAeternum at 11:11 AM on May 22, 2015

You want ridiculouswhitewashing of criminals read the Wall Street Journal.

The article is written by a hedge fund manager, so that might be the real reason it's seeing things from that point of view.
posted by ambrosen at 12:36 PM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Ahh!! Now I get it. Douchebag squared.
posted by latkes at 12:39 PM on May 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Section G), in which Rick Ross gives out free crack cocaine to get people hooked, is titled "Freemium". That's fantastic.
posted by vogon_poet at 1:01 PM on May 22, 2015

"Of course he's going to present himself as this great honest guy running a clean, minimally-violent organization instead of the violent drug dealer he was. It's sickening how slime like Ross or Jordan Belmont get caught, then spin their crimes into something to be idolized."

… except that Freeway Rick Ross was known for being extraordinarily non-violent, and that was one of the ways that he made it big. He dealt to violent people, but part of his model was that he was able to sell to both Crips and Bloods, and part of what made that work was not getting involved in retaliatory beefs. If you fucked up or stole, you got fired not killed, at least by him.

I mean, yeah yeah, sanctimony makes us all feel great, but the idea that money trumps violence has been a fundamental principle of organized crime since forever — it's why shit like The Combine started, to cut down on violence that ended up costing money. And Ross was extra-ordinarily non-violent for his profession, which was part of why he was also extra-ordinarily successful.

A lot of this stuff has been documented before, especially by Webb writing about the crack-Contra connection, and supported by third-party sources.

Or hell, look at folks like the Chambers Brothers in Detroit, who New Jack City was based on. They followed many of the same principles and were only brought down by getting flashy and violent. Someone upthread mentioned Silk Road — instead of paying off disgruntled employees and changing op-sec, DPR got caught when he tried to hire a hitman.

I'm not gonna say that being the country's main coke source or teaching underlings to cook crack was a positive influence on America, but it's not the abominable beast mode you're making it out to be. Dude moved weight, did it well, got busted and now he's doing speaking gigs and hustling t-shirts. What's with you needing to call him slime rather than recognizing him for who he is?
posted by klangklangston at 2:05 PM on May 22, 2015 [4 favorites]

Sounded pretty great to me, actually.

It always does, until you get screwed.

That's a pretty good flippant comeback, but the point was that it was based on reputation, and it worked, and "screwing" somebody meant screwing your own rep and ability to do business.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 2:35 PM on May 22, 2015

I don't think it's incredibly scalable, but I also don't think everything needs to be scaled, either.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 2:35 PM on May 22, 2015

@Steely-eyed Missile Man: it scaled to the whole USA ...
posted by MacD at 7:32 PM on May 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

That's a pretty good flippant comeback, but the point was that it was based on reputation, and it worked, and "screwing" somebody meant screwing your own rep and ability to do business.

That's the theory, yes. The reality is that in many reputation based systems, those with greater social standing can regularly screw over those with lower social standing with relative impunity. So yeah, these systems always sound great as long as you're on the top of the heap. If you're not, well...they don't work nearly as effectively.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:00 PM on May 26, 2015

I would be (completely sincerely) interested in any literature you know of where such dynamics are examined with respect to the medieval Islamic merchant community.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:14 PM on May 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would also point out that in our supposedly rule-of-law-based system, those with greater social standing can regularly screw over those with lower social standing with relative impunity, too, so that's not exactly an argument for or against the status quo in a vacuum.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 12:15 PM on May 26, 2015