When I was 16 I fell into the Amyway trap. What the author is documenting is accurate. It's a trap.
I never really regretted it because there were so many other bad things I could be getting into at 16. Especially where I lived. It also instilled some values that I still hold today.
Not to mention that at 16 I had access to wealthy people who taught me how to manage my money.
So yea, Amyway is a trap - but a lot of people are happy in that trap. I think the most disappointing thing for me was when I realized that the guys at the top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich from everyone buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences.
The same happened to me at 17 and keept it going till I was 19. I really didn't buy that many Amway products, but I did enjoy reading the monthly self help books they sent, many of those books were really helpful.
I was active for about 18 months, and probably would have stayed longer if I had a single sales bone in my body.
I mostly enjoyed listening to the stories of those above me (I never made more than $400-500/mo so that was most people who weren't losing money) but of course I paid for those CDs so in the end I made much less money than it looked like I did on paper.
I do like the concept of being positive, visualizing your future, making a plan to reach it, etc. It's a shame it's so closely ingrained with a company selling dish soap and disgusting energy drinks, though!
Seriously - as a teenager with way too many hormones doing all sorts of crazy shit to your brain, it was nice being around people that were so grounded. The books added to that. The perspective I had at 16 can only be attributed to "the system" they talk about in the article.
"I realized that the guys at the top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich from everyone buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences."
I always think it would be nice if people were able to be valued by the value they add, rather than what they can extract for themselves from the system. Not sure how that would work in practice, but it would basically fix capitalism if it was possible, since preying on suckers often seems the easier and faster route to wealth and power.
> the guys at the top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich from everyone buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences.
I've noticed the same about many of the super successful "entrepreneurs" who frequent places like /r/Entrepreneurship, various entrepreneurship blogs, and even sometimes here on HN. They get rich off of selling books, classes, access to "forums" [sic], and from referrals to their fellow "entrepreneurs", and not from any other entrepreneurial activity that they've done previously.
It's the same as the reason why people like Pat Flynn make 25x more from affiliate fees than from any of their actual businesses. There are a lot more people who want to "make money" than there are people who want to "start and grow a business."
PF makes money selling tools that help people make money online (doing anything - read some of his article on "article spinning" and how he defends it and it will make you want to vomit). Darren Rowse makes money selling tools that help people make money blogging. Even Nathan Barry (who I'm a big fan of) made a lot more money from Authority than he ever did from his design books. ConvertKit was just a shift from product to service.
Along the same vein, a lot of people in Amway want to "make money" and not very many want to "start and grow an MLM business." Selling $40 CDs and lecturing your down-line about buying non-Alticor products is just the best way to do it.
I see exactly this from sites like unicornfree.com. And I don't mean that as a slight against @amyhoy. Occasionally I get a similar vibe from @patio11, but I still respect his incredibly good insights. These are people who are very involved in the startup community and contribute a whole lot more value than most people. They just like to sell knowledge as well as give it away.
I get where this comes from with regards to Amway, but I'm really puzzled as to why geeks pattern match all teaching to scummy "make money online" infomarketing.
Nobody ever says "I kinda get the vibe that, in addition to your virtuous OSS contributions, you might be angling to sell software / programming time. Not that there is anything wrong with that." Well, yes. I was employed as an engineer; I then ran a succession of software businesses. Taking money for software is indeed what one does in these jobs / businesses. HN seems to be pretty well-acquainted with selling software for money.
I wish HN were similarly well acquainted with training, consulting, or infoproducts, to pick three examples of business models which "sell knowledge" if you squint a bit. They are no less real, value-producing businesses than software is. They happen to be easier to build and grow to mid six figures than SaaS businesses, in a way which is of material interest to the stated goals of many HNers, and I say that as someone whose financial situation is historically dominated by SaaS businesses.
I'm not sure why I pattern-match sites like unicornfree into the same bucket as scummy "make money online" infomarketing, but I do. I wish I could identify the cause, because it would probably help people running legitimate sites like Unicornfree to avoid the vibe.
Maybe it's related to a stigma against selling knowledge in general. Consider Aaron Swartz and the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. Many geeks tend to do a lot of learning via freely available content online, and may be even more inclined than the average person to want open access to knowledge. Just some thoughts.
Have you run into this reaction from geeks before?
There's an element of this in book writing "author services" too; enough people want the status of being a writer that they're prepared to pump money into promotion and editing while never receiving any discouraging criticism.
I was excommunicated from my family at 15 because I refused to join Amway. It's a family destroying dangerous cult. It's not like my family was super awesome before Amway but it did drive us from lower middle class to poor while promising them riches. It made me very wary of any get rich scheme - including tech start ups. Instead I'm getting rich slowly. Which is fine for me but really bad for dating. The whole living frugally and saving is a very hard sell, especially in SF.
You are doing it right. Any potential life partner that does not have the "patience" and good judgement to see the wisdom of your choices is not worth spending time with anyway.
Thanks. A problem occurs when the market gets too thin. I've had all my long term gfs leave me for much older richer men. As a guy I'm confident that I will both get older and richer so I'll be fine. My greater concern is for the opposite effect on women and the gender dynamics in general.
In SF I see a lot of 20-something women with 40-50 year old (rich) men. This was a bit surprising when I first came here. In no other cities I have seen this happening at such a large extent.
That's part of why I'm not sure I want to move to SF. I'm from somewhere that is barely considered the suburbs of Chicago and my girlfriend is from a small farm in Iowa and I'm worried we wouldn't fit in. People spending lots of money kinda makes me uncomfortable.
I'm sure it'll be a different culture but that's part of the fun. My only advice would be to take promises of future buckets of money with a grain of salt.
Yeah - 'young girls with older dudes' is not really so much a thing in SF, though it exists.
There are 20 other reasons to be 'weary' of living in SF that are just easier to grasp, like 'rent'. Also - maybe I'm wrong but when I lived there it felt like 3 guys to every girl. At least the way social networks work because they are so tech-focused.
But materialism is what it is ... so yes, you'll get some negative aspects from having clusters of money.
Yup, it was an average of 20 years older to wealthy VCs who look like my dad. I don't get the appeal, feels like jumping right to the end of life. They did get good jobs out of it so there is that.
The Battery, MaiTai, and other private clubs facilitate such encounters.
Having been to cougar nights at The Rosewood I have a bit of an idea on how it ends and it's not pretty :(
There are "get rich quick schemes" and then there are rational ways of getting richer. It seems you are practicing risk aversion for just the sake of it and worse at cost of enjoying life. Extreme belief in either direction is bad. Also its dishonest to compare tech startup with "get rich quick schemes" like Amway. If you really believe this you ought to reexamine your own prejudices that you seem to have ingrained from you past experiences.
Given your response, I put it to you that perhaps you are assuming too much about me and the tech industry. FYI I understand risk and culture to an obsessive degree.
Edit: I used to build risk analysis products for finance
Sorry to hear that story. When you meet a partner who's down with it, though, you're golden. It means the two of you share some values are critical to building a solid life together. I did that couple of decades ago and now I'm rich. Keep at it, my friend you are on the right track.
excellent read. found it after a neighbor had started floating the idea of me joining his 'business'. had been hit by amway folks before, but I dug in a bit more and found MoD. This all happened in PA, and I'd read it while I was living in PA, so it seemed to feel a bit more 'real' (no idea why though).
Trump is appointing the daughter-in-law of Amway's founder to run the Department of Education. No surprise, she sees it as a money-making (charter school) opportunity for corporations.
I am the grandson of a bootlegger and the son of alcoholics. Doesn't make a me a bootlegger or an alcoholic. The fathers of both President Clinton and President Obama were despicable men; this does not make those Presidents despicable men.
I grew up in Grand Rapids, two miles from Amway HQ. Working at the Amway factory (yes, there is [or was] a factory) was my first job after (dropping out of) college. A friend was the HQ tour guide for all the Silvers on their way to becoming Diamonds. He was hilarious.
It is an interesting cult. Never quite figured out the attraction; you're either the kind of person who likes / falls for MLM schemes or you aren't I think.
I am continually stunned at the amount of people, even some whom I'd consider rational enough to see through this pyramid scheme nonsense, approach me with it. Amway, Quixtar, Karatbars, Herbalife...the Ponzi scheme with a Thousand Faces.
Quixtar is just the US/Canada distributor of Amway. They're literally the same company.
Also Amway isn't a pyramid scheme. It's stupid and an incredibly risky way to try to make money, but it simply doesn't fit the legal definition of a pyramid scheme. It's pretty easy to dismiss Amway for a whole host of reasons, no reason to do it based on one of the few claims that isn't legitimate.
I believe a narrow definition of pyramid scheme is if the payment is made solely for signing someone up under you. If the payment is made through commissions of sales rather than the merely based on new participants sigining up, ai don't think it's legally a pyramid scheme, more of an multi-level marketing scheme, though personally a practice I wouldn't sign up regardless...
Except the products are 100% overpriced knockoff junk. They're only there, as GP said, to make it just barely not a pyramid scheme in the eyes of the law.
Nobody joins Amway because they believe in the products, they join because they believe in the pyramid concept.
I don't know if it's still the case, but when I was involved for ~18 months ca. 2007/8, the cleaning products were actually very very good. I heard from others (not affiliated with Amway) that back closer to the start of the company they were some of the best non-commercial cleaning products you could get.
But I agree with you that nearly everything else was garbage. Some of the food was good but I was not concerned with health in 2007/8 so it may be garbage from a health/nutrition standpoint.
You can have any opinion you want if your response to challenging thought is to just say "well I don't care what the facts are, damn it"
Edit: I have neither the skills nor desire to be successful in MLM, but to imply that all MLM is a pyramid scheme is idiotic. I don't see nearly the vitriol for Pampered Chef that I do for Amway, maybe because Pampered Chef isn't a $9.5 billion global enterprise? Because the majority of people have either done Amway, know someone who used to, or have been asked to, and they resent hearing about it over and over? I talked to probably ~300 people in the short time I was involved in it and I only remember 2 who had never heard of Amway before.
This isn't a court of law, you can drop the song and dance. MLM logic breaks down at a first glance. You can't sign up 7 people who sign up 7 people very long before you've signed the entirety of mankind, living and dead.
If you've bought into MLM, as I suspect you might have, get out now. That money might as well have been set aflame.
Skills to be successful at MLM? What skills are those? Sociopathy?
I know, I got invited to a Quixtar "opportunity" meeting back when they launched that scam. You can go legalese all you want with the definition of a pyramid scheme, but my brain convieniently hashes all those and their like to the "bullshit" bucket. No further processing required.
I did a lot of computer consulting/fix-it work in high school (late 80s/early 90s), and one of my biggest clients was a guy who was the region's "Diamond" / biggest Amway distributor.
The first time I showed up at his house, I was surprised to see that he had a two-car garage converted into a pretty nice home office / mini-warehouse. Couple of desks with their computers and printers set up, lots of shelves to store tapes, videos, soap, and other products to be sold.. with a double glass door leading to his indoor pool.
We had an agreement: he wouldn't try to sell me or my family anything, and I would fix his computers as needed for money. It worked out well.
A few months after I'd started fixing things for him, I got suckered into going to a presentation by a friend (classmate). I'm sitting there on the front row, and the promised Big Important Speaker walks up.. and it's my client. He sees me in the front row. "Bill ,what are you doing here!?" "Hey Robert. A friend asked me to come.."
It was rather funny seeing all the people oooh and ahhh over THE AMWAY DIAMOND SELLER and I was just, "Hey, while I'm here.. need anything fixed next week?"
Amway ruined my childhood. My parents became involved with “the business” in the late ’70s or early ’80s. One of my first memories is of a first grade classmate sharing the news that his parents had “gone direct”. Even at that young age I was aware that this was something my parents had wanted to achieve for a long time, and I wondered why they couldn't - what was wrong with them?
Throughout elementary school I came to understand that Amway was for losers. It was not uncommon at that time for Amway to be the punchline or subject of other mockery. So by the time I reached adolescence I had a full-fledged paranoia that friends or classmates would find out. At sleepovers and camping trips I'd have to hide my Glister toothpaste. When friends visited I'd be afraid they'd spot our L.O.C. dish soap.
But the worst was when my parents decided to “draw circles” for my friends’ parents. I think this only happened a couple of times - I'm pretty sure I even asked my parents not to do it.
My parents are good people, perhaps very naive. I think they are still involved with Amway to this day. I’m sure they never made any money from it, and I shudder to think how much it has cost them. Since I left home for college I don't think we've ever discussed it. I doubt they know how much I resented it.
64 comments
[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 128 ms ] threadBut this quote stuck out:
Nothing was wrong with our life before Amway – we didn’t join it to fill a void. We were happy, until we were told we could be happier.
No popup for me by the way. uBlock Origin might be behind that.
I never really regretted it because there were so many other bad things I could be getting into at 16. Especially where I lived. It also instilled some values that I still hold today.
Not to mention that at 16 I had access to wealthy people who taught me how to manage my money.
So yea, Amyway is a trap - but a lot of people are happy in that trap. I think the most disappointing thing for me was when I realized that the guys at the top aren't getting rich from Amyway, they were getting rich from everyone buying tapes, books, and going to these conferences.
Edit: Typing is hard
I mostly enjoyed listening to the stories of those above me (I never made more than $400-500/mo so that was most people who weren't losing money) but of course I paid for those CDs so in the end I made much less money than it looked like I did on paper.
I do like the concept of being positive, visualizing your future, making a plan to reach it, etc. It's a shame it's so closely ingrained with a company selling dish soap and disgusting energy drinks, though!
Fuck, maybe I should stop drinking those? :P
I always think it would be nice if people were able to be valued by the value they add, rather than what they can extract for themselves from the system. Not sure how that would work in practice, but it would basically fix capitalism if it was possible, since preying on suckers often seems the easier and faster route to wealth and power.
I've noticed the same about many of the super successful "entrepreneurs" who frequent places like /r/Entrepreneurship, various entrepreneurship blogs, and even sometimes here on HN. They get rich off of selling books, classes, access to "forums" [sic], and from referrals to their fellow "entrepreneurs", and not from any other entrepreneurial activity that they've done previously.
PF makes money selling tools that help people make money online (doing anything - read some of his article on "article spinning" and how he defends it and it will make you want to vomit). Darren Rowse makes money selling tools that help people make money blogging. Even Nathan Barry (who I'm a big fan of) made a lot more money from Authority than he ever did from his design books. ConvertKit was just a shift from product to service.
Along the same vein, a lot of people in Amway want to "make money" and not very many want to "start and grow an MLM business." Selling $40 CDs and lecturing your down-line about buying non-Alticor products is just the best way to do it.
Exactly right. Cf "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder, but don't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weights."
Nobody ever says "I kinda get the vibe that, in addition to your virtuous OSS contributions, you might be angling to sell software / programming time. Not that there is anything wrong with that." Well, yes. I was employed as an engineer; I then ran a succession of software businesses. Taking money for software is indeed what one does in these jobs / businesses. HN seems to be pretty well-acquainted with selling software for money.
I wish HN were similarly well acquainted with training, consulting, or infoproducts, to pick three examples of business models which "sell knowledge" if you squint a bit. They are no less real, value-producing businesses than software is. They happen to be easier to build and grow to mid six figures than SaaS businesses, in a way which is of material interest to the stated goals of many HNers, and I say that as someone whose financial situation is historically dominated by SaaS businesses.
Maybe it's related to a stigma against selling knowledge in general. Consider Aaron Swartz and the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto. Many geeks tend to do a lot of learning via freely available content online, and may be even more inclined than the average person to want open access to knowledge. Just some thoughts.
Have you run into this reaction from geeks before?
There are 20 other reasons to be 'weary' of living in SF that are just easier to grasp, like 'rent'. Also - maybe I'm wrong but when I lived there it felt like 3 guys to every girl. At least the way social networks work because they are so tech-focused.
But materialism is what it is ... so yes, you'll get some negative aspects from having clusters of money.
The Battery, MaiTai, and other private clubs facilitate such encounters.
Having been to cougar nights at The Rosewood I have a bit of an idea on how it ends and it's not pretty :(
In Latin Europe and South America it's quite common.
Not so much in US. Not even really in SF as much as Spain or Italy.
I hope this doesn't mean that you aspire to one day be the guy that girlfriends leave their boyfriends for.
Edit: I used to build risk analysis products for finance
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439247153/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=...
It is an interesting cult. Never quite figured out the attraction; you're either the kind of person who likes / falls for MLM schemes or you aren't I think.
Also Amway isn't a pyramid scheme. It's stupid and an incredibly risky way to try to make money, but it simply doesn't fit the legal definition of a pyramid scheme. It's pretty easy to dismiss Amway for a whole host of reasons, no reason to do it based on one of the few claims that isn't legitimate.
Nobody joins Amway because they believe in the products, they join because they believe in the pyramid concept.
But I agree with you that nearly everything else was garbage. Some of the food was good but I was not concerned with health in 2007/8 so it may be garbage from a health/nutrition standpoint.
MLM is equivalent to a pyramid scheme in a practical sense. What the lawyers are paid to say is none of my concern.
Edit: I have neither the skills nor desire to be successful in MLM, but to imply that all MLM is a pyramid scheme is idiotic. I don't see nearly the vitriol for Pampered Chef that I do for Amway, maybe because Pampered Chef isn't a $9.5 billion global enterprise? Because the majority of people have either done Amway, know someone who used to, or have been asked to, and they resent hearing about it over and over? I talked to probably ~300 people in the short time I was involved in it and I only remember 2 who had never heard of Amway before.
If you've bought into MLM, as I suspect you might have, get out now. That money might as well have been set aflame.
Skills to be successful at MLM? What skills are those? Sociopathy?
It was very valuable to know about Amway at such an early age.
Years later the salesman was out of Amway. He apologized to our family. He said he would have sold Amway to president Nixon.
The first time I showed up at his house, I was surprised to see that he had a two-car garage converted into a pretty nice home office / mini-warehouse. Couple of desks with their computers and printers set up, lots of shelves to store tapes, videos, soap, and other products to be sold.. with a double glass door leading to his indoor pool.
We had an agreement: he wouldn't try to sell me or my family anything, and I would fix his computers as needed for money. It worked out well.
A few months after I'd started fixing things for him, I got suckered into going to a presentation by a friend (classmate). I'm sitting there on the front row, and the promised Big Important Speaker walks up.. and it's my client. He sees me in the front row. "Bill ,what are you doing here!?" "Hey Robert. A friend asked me to come.."
It was rather funny seeing all the people oooh and ahhh over THE AMWAY DIAMOND SELLER and I was just, "Hey, while I'm here.. need anything fixed next week?"
Throughout elementary school I came to understand that Amway was for losers. It was not uncommon at that time for Amway to be the punchline or subject of other mockery. So by the time I reached adolescence I had a full-fledged paranoia that friends or classmates would find out. At sleepovers and camping trips I'd have to hide my Glister toothpaste. When friends visited I'd be afraid they'd spot our L.O.C. dish soap.
But the worst was when my parents decided to “draw circles” for my friends’ parents. I think this only happened a couple of times - I'm pretty sure I even asked my parents not to do it.
My parents are good people, perhaps very naive. I think they are still involved with Amway to this day. I’m sure they never made any money from it, and I shudder to think how much it has cost them. Since I left home for college I don't think we've ever discussed it. I doubt they know how much I resented it.