Magellan's Log Interview: Magellan's Log: "Alberich"? How did you come up with the name? Alberich: He's the ugly dwarf in Wagner's Ring Cycle who hides the gold stash at the bottom of the Rhine, and the gods have all sorts of trouble finding it. The bunch I'm loosely connected with, we meet every month or so, and at the first meeting this young woman, a cellist from Juilliard who turned out to be a whiz at analyzing the medium-term value of start-ups, suggested we call ourselves the Nibelung. She'd even brought a cast list and we wound up choosing names. ML: So if I do a search, am I going to find you? Alberich: No way. We call ourselves the Nibelung only among ourselves. Publicly, we don't exist. ML: Why the big secrecy? Alberich: The reasons differ slightly from person to person. But from talking with everybody, I'd say we all have a mix of guilt, fear, and old-fashioned do-gooder idealism. Guilt, because, come on, all Good American Kids want to grow up to be rich, but THIS rich, THIS fast, THIS young? We all feel guilty. Fear because we've talked to people like us who went public in a big way and lived to regret it. The weirdos come from everywhere when they hear you've got big bucks. And idealism because the Nibelung, anyway, are smart enough to know that money is leverage. Most of us come from lower middle-class to middle-class backgrounds. None of us really suffered growing up, but we were close enough to it to see what poverty does to people. And we're smart enough to be extremely skeptical about trying to deal with corrupt pols of either party. ML: So where does that leave you? Seems like you'd just want to pull a Candide and stay in Key West cultivating your garden. Alberich: It's tempting, but you're forgetting the guilt. Imagine what it's like to get a monthly financial report--about YOUR money--that's about an inch thick and reads like something from a mid-size corporation. It's hard to get that thing in the mail and then go back to your little postage-stamp Key West backyard as if nothing happened. ML: What kinds of plans are you making then? You, first, and then tell us about others in the group. Alberich: Personally, I'm doing some stuff that you can only call philanthropy, and some other stuff that's hard to label. I've got a foundation set up (I won't say where or what it's called) that's got a team of people and all they do is attend high school debates, all over the country. They're looking for the stand-out students, not necessarily the smartest. Any student who catches their eye, the foundation gets as much background info as possible. The plan is, every fall we're going to offer to pay 75% of college costs for four years for 20 of those people. ML: Why forensics? Seems like you'd go after some skill or talent that's more easily identifiable. Alberich: It's a little strange, I know. I've spent several fairly long vacations abroad, here and there, and looking at America from a distance, I'm always embarrassed by the low quality of people we have at the highest level of politics. Just plain embarrassed. Most of them can't talk, they can't think, and clearly they can't run a government. Why not plant a few seeds, I thought. Can't hurt, and it might help a little. ML: And you're doing things that are hard to label? Alberich: Here I can't be specific at all. What it is, we're making annual, pretty substantial supportive donations to some private educational institutions. ML: You means schools? Alberich: Can't say more. Sorry, but I've got to maintain my cover [laughs]. ML: Can you talk about what the other Nibelung are doing? Alberich: A little. One woman, Brünnhilde, in fact, shares my passion for the Greek classics. I can't go into detail at all, but let's just say she's using pretty big money (more than I have, that's for sure) to encourage the study of Greek and Latin in--are you ready for this--elementary school. ML [laughs]: You're kidding. Alberich: Nope. She has this theory that the early study of great but dead languages has a purity about it that affects later mental development across the board. ML: There are worse ways to spend you money, I suppose. Alberich: For sure. I don't want you to get the wrong idea here. None of us, I think, has any illusions about saving the world with what we're doing. But along the way to here, all of us saw what other people who struck it rich like us were doing, and we're the ones who decided we didn't want that. ML: Like what? I mean, what behavior did you see that repulsed you? Alberich [smiles]: You have to ask? Think about it. Remember the Arab oil guy with his Beverly Hills mansion and the painted genitals on the sculptures? But for us, example number one has to be Bill Gates' house in Seattle. What was the last price you heard? $60 million? $80 million? Isn't that obscene, just plain obscene? ML: You've made your point. Alberich: Then there's Wotan, who's probably the most committed of any of us. In a way, I wish he were here so you could talk to him. Before I agreed to do the interview, I worried that we'd sound like a bunch of spoiled, rich kooks. Wotan is genuinely and deeply passionate. Give him five minutes and he can convince of the rightness of his crusade. ML: Which is? Alberich: Don't laugh. To stop routine, medical circumcision in the United States. ML: I'm not laughing. Alberich: Maybe you know that there are several well-organized but underfunded anti-circumcision groups already at work. Wotan has in just a few months become a primary source of funding, enabling them to expand their future media presence far beyond the present web sites. ML: Anybody else? Alberich: There's Siegfried, let me tell you
about Siegfried. Siegfried is actually Chinese (don't ask). I can't say anything about how
he's going about it, but his goal--what he's using his money for--is to encourage changing
Chinese writing from character-based to phonetic. He loves the sheer beauty of the old
system but thinks it's so complicated and so hard for kids to learn that it's holding the
whole country back. ML: I see what you mean about idealism. Alberich: Some, maybe a lot of what we're doing is pie-in-the-sky. I still think it's better than collecting Lamborghini's or restoring Palm Beach mansions or buying up movie studios. Anyway, we're just starting. We're going to make mistakes. ML: How many in your group? Alberich: Let's just say more than six and fewer than 20. ML: Do you know of any other young rich who're doing something similar? Alberich: We've heard some rumors, but, no, nothing definite. ML: So you all, the Nibelung I mean, may just be a Late Capitalist anomaly? Alberich [laughs]: Could be. ML: How about if we talk again next year and see how you're doing then? Alberich: Sounds good. I have a favor to ask. Give me a little test. Call me in six months and say you're going to need a place to stay in Key West for a few days. Let's see if I've learned to say no. END |
