flâneur

Founders Notes: Oprah

flaneur.sdan.io · 4,177 words · saved by 1 readers

Oprah Oprah and David In 1984 Oprah Winfrey was riding high. She was already Chicago's most popular TV talk show personality.The local ABC affiliate that produced her show was paying Winfrey $230,000 a year, and her longtime agent had negotiated a four-year contract with annual salary hikes of $30,000.She was pleased at first but then began having second thoughts. "Three separate [ABC] people stopped me to tell me what a great guy my agent was," Winfrey recalls, "and that didn't make sense to me." Winfrey's natural skepticism was aroused. She fired the agent. She replaced him with a Chicago lawyer named Jeffrey Jacobs. "I'd heard Jeff is a piranha. I like that. Piranha is good." That key decision turned Oprah from employee to capitalist and vaulted her out of the ranks of the merely well paid into the Forbes 400. NOTE Hiring a piranha. And transforming from employee to capitalist. Her show now airs on more than 200 stations in the U.S. and in 117 foreign countries, and earns Winfrey more than $70 million a year.It's ownership that has made her rich. Winfrey owns not only her show but also the studios in which it is produced, and a big stake in King World Productions, the company th

Oprah Oprah and David In 1984 Oprah Winfrey was riding high. She was already Chicago's most popular TV talk show personality.The local ABC affiliate that produced her show was paying Winfrey $230,000 a year, and her longtime agent had negotiated a four-year contract with annual salary hikes of $30,000.She was pleased at first but then began having second thoughts. "Three separate [ABC] people stopped me to tell me what a great guy my agent was," Winfrey recalls, "and that didn't make sense to me." Winfrey's natural skepticism was aroused. She fired the agent. She replaced him with a Chicago…

related reading