Guerrilla Billionaire™

How to Become a Billionaire: Poor Steve Schwarzman

FINANCIAL TIMES HITS STEVE SCHWARZMAN FOR SHARING $300 SUBSCRIPTION

This news story gave me a chuckle. Despite the deluge of stories coming out since last September about Wall Street executives ripping off billions, this one manages to stand out. The company of billionaire buyout king,  Steve Schwarzman, who recently blew a cool million on a birthday party for himself, is being sued over the sharing of a Financial Times subscriber account. These accounts can cost up to $300 per annum. The Financial Times claims that a "senior employee" at the firm opened one account under the name "the blackstonegroup" with "blackstone" as the password.  (I need to try logging in with that.) The account then set off alarms at the FT when the "subscriber" accessed far more files than any one mere mortal could be expected to. Apparently, judging by the IP numbers associated with this user, he or she also zipped around the globe at something approaching the speed of light.

A closer look revealed "widespread use of the single, individual account" by Blackstone employees located both in the US and abroad. The suit also alleged the abuse goes back as far as 2002.

Blackstone's penny-pinching ways stand in stark contrast to the way Schwarzman lives. Two years ago, his wife threw a $3 million 60th-birthday party for the buyout king that featured 500 guests, and included a performance by Rod Stewart. A Wall Street Journal story chronicled Schwarzman's fondness for $40 crab legs and for running up weekend food bills of $3,000.

The Financial Times is suing both Blackstone and 100 unnamed individuals, which it refers to as John Does 1 through 100, for copyright infringement and violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

The Financial Times said it is currently uncertain of the identities of John Does 1 through 100, but said it will name them personally if granted a discovery process that will allow them to be identified.

There's a very funny picture of Steve Schwarzman with the story.

The lesson here is that wealthy people tend to be very tight-fisted when it comes to parting with money.  Just read their biographies to see that this is an almost universal rule. However, that stinginess is an integral part of what helped to make them multi-millionaires or billionaires in the first place.

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