“Most charge $5,000 or less in annual dues, plus a smaller sign-up fee though those at the top end can charge considerably more..

WSJ

Becoming a member at these clubs might take some time. Zero Bond [a 22,000 square foot private membership club in the heart of Noho] relies heavily on recommendations from current members in adding to its membership roll. Mr. Sartiano declined to say how many members he has but said Zero Bond has about 8,000 members on its waiting list.

NeueHouse earns about 35% of its revenue from membership fees, with the rest coming from brand partnerships, private events and its restaurants and bars, according to Chief Executive Josh Wyatt.

Kate King, WSJ

Zoom fatigue ? Do you really need a private club to go out for drinks and dinner ?

On the wheel of full-throttle snobism, here at Wall Street Financier: Notes from High Altitude, I am the only one seeking refuge from the vagaries of this vane and empty world. I stand alone, as I always stood, firm in my ancestor’s- Spartacus place.

And now a word from Sadhguru, the Indian mystic

Monday June 15th, The WSJ had an article “Negotiating that Raise or Promotion” (Tessa West) I will comment on today.

Unless you are self-employed, most of us today aren’t negotiating for raises, we’re “negotiating” for holding on to our jobs and not being axed in a crashing economy. Forget the raise -nobody is giving any raises, folks. I’m thinking 30% of investment bankers are going to lose their jobs in the next year or so – and they don’t even know it. Who goes out the door first ? Juniors, of course.

I said negotiating with your BB as in Big Brother. See, I call your boss the Big Brother. (of course I know the biggest brother we often use the word for is the government, but what are you going to call your boss, Little Brother ?)

The only way you’ll still have a job in the next few months is if you’re hooking up yours to your boss’s.

We’re not living in a normal economy. We’re living in an economy suffocated by incompetence and artificial status hierarchies.

Back to the article

Tessa West says you need to ascertain your boss social hierarchy status: “hierarchies constantly shift”. Of course they do.

“What does your request ‘cost’ your boss in social capital ?”

Tessa West

“What problems does your request solve for your boss ?”

TW, The Wall Street Journal

Oh ya, like you thought bosses are those little angels here to help people in need. You can read the rest of the WSJ article at your leisure.

Know this: the boss, BB (nice sounding name by the way, bee-bee), whatever, only cares about his/hers social (organizational) status. You either understand this or you don’t.

What have you done for me lately ? is the name of an old song by Janet Jackson, but it is also your boss’s OS.

There you go, Adam Galinsky, “getting inside your boss’s head”.

Here comes my 20+ years of experience dealing with bosses: a very confident boss is just as bad, or worse, than an insecure boss. Bingo ! (Please don’t make this quote into another meme, I’ve had enough of those already).

You need to bring your boss up the ladder of confidence or he’ll lose you faster than a speeding bullet.

With a very confident boss, and we’re talking C-level here, you need to get him out of the stratosphere and back to breathing though the face masks we’re going to be using around one another for at least some time. Unless you’ve discovered a Covid-19 vaccine, he doesn’t care about you.

Talking about Covid-19, remember: there’s no such thing as an “invisible enemy” (I know you’ve heard that term a lot lately.) Your boss is vulnerable no matter what industry you work in or how high up in the hierarchy he’s in.

Let him know the higher up they are, the harder they fall.

I wrote this Book, The Book of the Underdog for people like you, who’ve had enough of being pushed aside and away. After dealing with the wild card bosses are for a very long time, I gave you straight up the truth about bosses, careers, negotiations and lifestyle improvements. Written in 2018, BOU is still the Manual for handling your bosses.

What goes on behind the close doors ? Boards of Directors meetings are off limits to outsiders. In fact, as recent as 1995, even courtroom procedures were not televised (The O.J. Simpson trial changed all of that with the live feed).

Executive meetings of all kinds allowed me to see the interplay of power among the participants. Of course the dynamics were unique to each meeting, but I can talk about: dysfunctional boards, well functioning boards. I’ve seen people unable to contain themselves throwing things at people they were in disagreement with. People resigning on the spot (or better said, after five hours of arguing). Boards firing their CEOs.

Here are some observations from the boardroom I can share with you today:

1. Seating and proximity to the leader (CEO/Pres.) have meaning.

This is self explanatory. Seating at the head of the table is customary. Business Insider picked up on the Trump meeting with tech leaders seating significance. Aides surround the leader who in that case sat at the center of the table.

2. Have a sidekick that keeps on giving.

I’ve often seen the CEO or the top negotiator working in a two-person team. Why is that ? It is a power move where the second character comes in to spin the case. A less notable individual is needed, not to amplify, but to rephrase the spiel of the CEO. If they didn’t buy into the CEO then this second person can try it from another angle, shifting gears. The solution is the same but the delivery is different. The sidekick is usually someone that does not overshadow the main character. Sort of the court jester in the Middle Ages. The court jester in antiquity played a major role in the Kings and Queens negotiations. The court jester wasn’t just a clown, but an essential, entrusted, personal sidekick.

3. Some people make up imaginary talks with non-existent people. Distracting ? Annoying, perhaps ?

One interruption too many: At a meeting there was this individual excusing herself to “talk to her adviser”. As it turned out, she was going outside the room pretending to talk, there was no one she was consulting with over the phone. Her tactic, designed to bring attention to herself, will backfire if done too often. I thought she was manic depressive.

4. Overheard short power phases CEOs repeat over and over with the highest number of repetitions:

“That’s not right.”
“At what cost ?”
“We are family.”
“It’s anything but ordinary.”

5. When you speak with authority people will believe almost anything.

To quote one executive: “We’ve transposed a new record of liquidity after retiring 40% of outstanding debt”. Whatever that means…People will often try to “hide in plain sight” and express dismal results in flowery language. It works in deceiving those that don’t know how to delve in metrics and numbers.

6. While public and private boards have perhaps different bylaws, founder-led Boards have the highest degree of governance “impunity” risk (it’s important to have D&O liability insurance on those). They all have a strong fiduciary duty, however. Sometimes Boards bring notable academics and media celebrities on “just to have folks everybody knows”. One board had a well known singer in it, who was saying he had agreed to join because he liked their main product. I think his ability to do any critique was close to zero.

7. You have to take sides. You can’t be a bystander. 
Spineless people need not sit on boards. You are given a vote for a reason. A lot of Boards look for the diversity factor nowadays, when what they should be doing is vetting out spineless executives.