Last night’s finale of the reality show “The Benefactor” was a dud.
Too bad, because host Mark Cuban is a high-energy, funny, interesting guy with some worthwhile opinions about what makes a business person successful.
I must admit that I fell off the bandwagon a couple of weeks ago, when Spencer the software engineer didn’t make the final cut.
Spencer wanted to use the million to develop air traffic control software, a worthy intellectual and socially useful goal.
This compared to the two finalists, a conventionally nice-guy “rock star” wannabe and a conventionally pretty girl from a comfortably well-off family who spouted a lot of platitudes about how the experience contributed to her personal growth.
The last of Cuban’s “tests” was a one-minute pitch by the contestants in which they tried to persuade him why he/she should get the million. The pitches had nothing to do with what they’d do with the money; rather, why they were worthy as people.
It almost seemed that Mark Cuban, self-made billionaire, used this as a way to find new friends rather than cultivate new business partners or (more to the point) spawn an ongoing reality series. In that respect, the last show was tattered and pathetic, particularly compared to the high-testosterone “boardroom” episodes on “The Apprentice”.
It did make me wonder, though, how any of us would explain why we should get a gift of a million (taxable) dollars.
Would we talk about our potential or our accomplishments, our personalities or our values? Would we explain how we’d use the money to help our nearest and dearest, or admit that we’d keep it for ourselves?
Figuring the million would morf into about $600,000 after taxes, I’d put half of it into a retirement fund and half into a trust for my grandkids’ education.
According to my trusty AppleWorks spreadsheet, at 5% per, that would be just about enough to send the 3 to a good private school from grades 7 through 12. Then their parents would take care of their college expenses, which they are planning to do anyway.
As for being a better or more worthy human being than anyone else, I’m empty on that one: no special talents, no basement bio lab that promises a cure for AIDS or cancer, no transformative invention or major social justice initiative that begs for sponsorship.
Anyway, you can’t be a world-beater with only a million dollars. Look at this year’s spending on the Presidential election, for instance – seems even $300 million isn’t enough to persuade a majority of the voters to do the “right”, non-self-destructive thing.