Numex

Michael Franzese says the mob made up to $8 million a week. Not from drugs. From gasoline. He was handing his boss $2 million a week in cash. “That bought a lot of loyalty.” In the video below, the former Colombo family captain explains exactly how it worked. “We were selling half a billion gallons of gas a month. We were taking down 20, 30, 40 cents a gallon.” The trick wasn’t the gas. It was the tax. Every gallon sold in America carried federal and state taxes. The government made wholesalers collect it and pass it on. So Franzese’s crew became the wholesalers. “I had 18 different companies that were licensed to collect the tax.” Some of them ran through Panama. They charged the tax at the pump. They kept it. When the government came asking, the company was gone and a new one had taken its place. When he first saw how big it could get, he went to his boss. “I’m going to show you more money than you ever saw before.” The boss said one thing: “No drugs.” “It’s gas.” Soon Franzese was bringing him $2 million a week. Other families wanted in. One mobster was making so much he didn’t know where to hide it. He bought a brand-new Mercedes for a girlfriend he didn’t even like. It ended the way these stories end. The man who designed the scheme became an informant. Franzese was convicted, sentenced to prison and ordered to pay millions back. Then he did something almost no made man does. He walked away from the mob and lived. Today he runs a YouTube channel and interviews people like Pablo Escobar’s son. The case for the scheme: no guns, no drugs, no victims you could see. Just paperwork. The case against it: every driver in America was paying that tax at the pump. The mob just kept it. One gallon at a time, 40 cents at a time, $8 million a week. So was the gas tax scam the smartest crime the mob ever pulled, or just stealing from everyone who filled up a tank?

Paul Allen gave Bill Gates the idea for Microsoft. Gates gave him 36% of it. Then Allen got cancer. Still in radiation, he says he heard Gates planning to cut even that “down to almost nothing.” In the video below, Allen tells 60 Minutes: “They were basically talking about how they were planning to dilute my share down to almost nothing.” They met at a private school in Seattle. Allen was 15. Gates was 13. They dug through dumpsters for computer code because nobody would give it to them. In 1974, Allen saw a magazine cover with a new computer called the Altair. He ran to show Gates at Harvard. “This is the computer we’ve been waiting for.” That idea became Microsoft. Gates was the sharper businessman. He asked for 60% of the company. Then 64%. The fights could last for hours. “We’re just screaming at each other for hours,” Allen says. Then, in 1982, Allen was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. One night, still in treatment, he walked past Gates’s office and heard Gates and Steve Ballmer talking. He burst in. That night, someone came to his house to apologize. It was Ballmer. “Bill didn’t come. He sent Steve.” Allen left Microsoft in 1983. He kept his shares, nearly a third of the company, and later became worth an estimated $40 billion. In 2009, his cancer came back. This time Gates came to his house, more than once. “There’s a bond there that can’t be denied.” Allen died in 2018. Gates wrote that personal computing would not have existed without him. The case for Gates: Allen was stepping back. Gates was the one working nights and building the company, and Allen still left with a fortune. The case for Allen: the idea was his, he was sick, and his best friend was talking about his shares instead of his health. One friend had cancer. The other had a plan for his stock. So was Bill Gates protecting Microsoft, or betraying his best friend?

Jimmy Burke stole $6 million from Lufthansa in one night. Then he started killing the men who helped him, because a bullet was cheaper than their share. 11 people died. Henry Hill took about $100,000 and lived. In the video below, the real Goodfella says it himself: “I guess Jimmy figured a $150 bullet was cheaper than paying the guy.” It started with a gambling debt. Hill says a Lufthansa cargo worker owed a bookmaker $47,000. To pay it off, he offered something bigger: he knew where the airline kept the cash at JFK. Hill had just walked out of prison after a long stretch. He took the tip to Jimmy “the Gent” Burke. In “Goodfellas,” Robert De Niro played him. Burke loved it. He put the crew together and ran the job. December 11, 1978. The crew walked out with about $5 million in cash and close to $1 million in jewels. It was the largest cash robbery in American history. It could have been bigger. “We probably left $3 million in cash,” Hill says. The crew was supposed to bring two vans. Only one showed up. Then everyone started spending. New cars. Fur coats. Burke told them to keep quiet. Every police agency in New York knew who did it. So Burke cleaned up. One by one, the men who knew too much disappeared. “There was 11 bodies. Nine guys and two wives.” “What did you get out of it?” “Maybe 100.” “I’m the only soul survivor.” Hill went to the FBI, testified against the mob and disappeared into witness protection. Burke died in prison in 1996. In 2015, the last man charged in the heist was acquitted. Not one dollar has ever been recovered. The case for Hill: he testified, put dozens of mobsters away and lived to tell the truth. The case against him: he brought the job to Burke, took his cut and only talked once he was next. $6 million stolen. 11 people dead. One man walked away with $100,000 and a new name. So was Henry Hill a survivor who did the right thing, or a gangster who just talked first?

Steve Jobs denied his daughter for years. Behind closed doors, he told his parents the real father was probably his best friend. That friend helped build Apple in a garage. When Jobs became worth $200 million, he gave him zero shares. In the video below, Daniel Kottke tells the story himself. “Steve told his parents that I was probably the father. It was a surprise to me.” Kottke met Jobs in college. They went to India together. They built the first Apple computers in the Jobs family garage. He even lived with Jobs and his girlfriend, Chrisann. Then Chrisann got pregnant. Jobs said the baby wasn’t his. In 1980, Apple went public and Jobs was suddenly worth over $200 million. Kottke got nothing. When an engineer offered to match any shares Jobs gave him, Jobs reportedly said: “Okay. I will give him zero.” By then, the two friends barely talked. Jobs worked “from morning till night. Work, work, work.” Then Time magazine called. “Oh, Mr. Kottke, I’ve just one more question for you. Does Steve have a daughter named Lisa?” Kottke had no idea Jobs was denying it. “Well, that’s not a secret. He never told me it was a secret.” “As his friend I thought: come on, get a grip.” “Of course he’s the father. There’s no one else who could be.” Decades later, he found out what Jobs had been saying at home. The man Jobs blamed was him. The case for Jobs: he was in his 20s, he didn’t want the relationship, and he was busy “changing the world.” The case for Kottke: he built Apple from the garage, told the truth when asked, and got zero shares and the blame for a child that wasn’t his. One friend told the truth. The other told his parents it was the friend’s baby. So was Steve Jobs a genius who couldn’t handle his own life, or just a bad friend?

Steve Jobs was worth over $200 million at 25. He paid his daughter $385 a month. Her mother cleaned houses and went on welfare. The county had to sue him to pay it back. In the video below, his daughter Lisa talks about growing up with him. Jobs was 23 when she was born. He helped pick her name. Then he denied she was his. A DNA test said he was the father. He told Time magazine that 28% of men in America could be. The same year, Apple went public. He became one of the richest young men in the country. He named a computer after her: the Apple Lisa. For years, he refused to admit it. One day her mother was on the phone with him, sobbing, begging for money. Lisa, a little girl, took the phone and said: “Just give her some money.” Then she hung up. Another time, her mother asked him for a house. He said yes. Then he bought one for himself. At 14 she moved in with him. His condition: she couldn’t see her mother for six months. Years later, he was dying of cancer. She sat by his bed. “The thing he kept on saying is, ‘I owe you one, and I’m so sorry.’” Did she forgive him? “I think not at the time.” “In many ways, yes.” When her memoir came out, his widow and his sister released a statement: her story “differs dramatically from our memories.” The case for Jobs: he was young, he came back, and he tried to make it right before he died. The case for Lisa: a billionaire’s daughter shouldn’t have grown up on welfare. He named a computer after her. He wouldn’t say she was his. On his deathbed, he said, “I owe you one.” Was “I’m sorry” enough, or did it come 30 years too late?

Dave Chappelle walked away from a $50 million contract. Years later, he said he never got paid for the show that made him famous. He says the money was never the point. In the video below, David Letterman asks him if he regrets it. In 2003, Comedy Central gave him his own sketch show. It became one of the most quoted shows on TV. In 2004, he signed a two-year deal for seasons three and four. $50 million. In 2005, in the middle of shooting, he walked off the set and flew to Africa. Almost no one knew where he was. Letterman asks what happened. “Technically, I never quit. I’m seven years late for work.” The trip that started all the rumors? “I was there for two weeks.” Then Letterman asks the real question: does he regret saying no to that money? He answers with a story. He is at a nice restaurant with his wife. Across the room sits a man with $100 million. “We’re eating the same entree.” “The only difference between having $10 million and $50 million is an astounding $40 million.” He admits he would like to have it. “Money is the fuel for choices.” In 2016, Netflix reportedly paid him up to $60 million for a run of stand-up specials. In 2020, Chappelle’s Show appeared on Netflix. He later said Comedy Central licensed it without paying him. He had signed that contract at 28, broke, with a baby on the way. He asked fans to stop watching his own show. Netflix pulled it. A few months later, he said Comedy Central had made it right. The case for Comedy Central: he signed the contract. They offered him $50 million to keep going. He was the one who left in the middle of a season. He left $50 million on the table. Netflix reportedly paid him $60 million. And he still fought for the show with his name on it. So was walking away from $50 million the worst decision of his career, or the best one?

Martha Stewart was worth over $1 billion. She went to prison over $40,000. She told Barbara Walters it was “about 0.006% of my net worth.” Then she said: “I don’t think I will be going to prison.” In the video below, she tells it herself. She grew up in New Jersey, one of 6 kids in a house with 1 bathroom. She modeled at 13, worked as a stockbroker, then built an empire out of cookbooks, TV, magazines and Kmart. In 1999 she took her company public. “Well over a billion dollars,” she says. America’s first self-made female billionaire. On December 27, 2001, on her way to Mexico, she got a message from her broker, Peter Bacanovic. ImClone was about to drop. Its CEO, Sam Waksal, who had dated her daughter, was secretly dumping his shares before the government rejected his cancer drug. She sold that day. “I sold 3,900 shares.” It saved her “approximately $40,000.” Waksal got 7 years. Then prosecutors came for her, not for the trade, but for lying about it. She stepped down from her own company and watched her stock crash. “My net worth has been cut at least in half.” Barbara put it at $400 to $700 million. “Of course I’m scared,” she said. “The last place I would ever want to go is to prison.” In March 2004 she was found guilty on all four counts. In October she reported to a federal prison camp in West Virginia. The case for Martha: more than 7 million ImClone shares traded that day, and she became the face of it. The case against her: she wasn’t convicted for selling. She was convicted for lying. Today she’s 85, rich again, and still says the prosecutors “should have been put in a Cuisinart and turned on high.” She saved $40,000. She lost up to $700 million. She swore she’d never see prison. Was she punished for lying, or for being Martha Stewart?

He made $110 million in the NBA. Two years after he retired, he was bankrupt. His filing showed $4.3 million in assets and $12.7 million in debt. He says nobody stole it from him. In the video below, he tells it himself. Antoine Walker grew up in Chicago with nothing. At 20, the Boston Celtics drafted him 6th overall. 3 All-Star games. An NBA title with Miami. 13 seasons. While he was still playing, he put his name on real estate loans with 7 to 8 banks. Then 2008 hit. The banks wanted their money back. All at once. But that wasn’t the only hole. Private flights. The best hotels. Everywhere he went, his crew went too. Stephen A. asked how many people he was paying for. “10 to 15 people. On a consistent basis.” Not family. Friends. “How much did they cost you?” “A couple million dollars.” “When I made it, I wanted to make sure my guys got to enjoy it too.” Then Skip Bayless gave him an easy way out. Did he blame his financial advisers? “No. I blame myself.” After the bankruptcy, the former All-Star went back to the minor leagues, playing for a fraction of his old salary to pay off what he owed. Today he talks to young players about money, so they don’t end up like him. He made $110 million. He owed $12.7 million. He still says it was his fault. Was he a loyal friend, or did his friends cost him everything?

At 13, she was a meme on Dr. Phil. At 18, she made $1 million on OnlyFans in six hours. Now the number people ask her about is $75 million. In the video below, she’s asked if it’s true. She doesn’t argue. She explains how the money arrives. In 2016, Danielle Bregoli went on Dr. Phil as a “troubled teen.” She told the audience to “cash me outside.” The clip went viral. She became one of the biggest memes on the internet, and the joke was on her. She didn’t disappear. She turned the meme into a rap career as Bhad Bhabie. Then, in April 2021, just over a week after her 18th birthday, she opened an OnlyFans account. By her own account, she made about $1 million in the first six hours. And about $4 million by the end of the first day. In 2024, she posted a screenshot: $57 million in net earnings. So how does that kind of money show up? “I’m signed to an agency, and they pay me bi-weekly.” “Every other week.” Direct deposit. What does she do with it? “I bought a lot of cars. I bought a lot of houses. I have three houses. I have like seven cars.” “I don’t really go too crazy.” The case for the critics: she became famous as a child crying on daytime TV, and the internet never let her forget it. The day she turned 18, the same internet was ready to pay. The case for Bhabie: everyone made money off her at 13. At 18, she made sure the money finally went to her. Dr. Phil got the ratings. The internet got the meme. She got the $75 million. So who really profited from the “cash me outside” girl?

She told them no to porn. Two weeks later, her parents were watching her on Pornhub. The company behind it reportedly made $17 million. She says she never saw a dime. In the video below, she tells it herself. She was 22. A yoga instructor, paying her own way through college with clothed fitness modeling. The ad on Craigslist said: “Female fitness models wanted, age 18 to 22.” The website looked professional. She talked to the photographer. She did FaceTime calls with two “reference models” who swore the guys were great. After about 10 calls, they mentioned they also made adult films. $10,000, instead of “just a couple thousand” for yoga clothing. “Absolutely not.” “It’s always an option,” they said. She flew to San Diego. Her parents had her flight and hotel details. A black Escalade picked her up at the airport. The doors locked. They took her purse with her phone in it. In the hotel room, they unplugged the phone and put papers in front of her. “Sign here. Initial here.” She asked to read them. “No, no, we have to hurry.” She says she was raped through the night. When she tried to stop it, they told her: “We’ll put everything on the internet with your full name, or we’ll send it to your parents. Do you want them to find out?” Two weeks later, it was online. With her full name. A boy from high school sent it to her first. Her parents got it from family friends that same night. The link everyone was passing around was on Pornhub. The company was GirlsDoPorn. Performer Ruben Andre Garcia got 20 years. Prosecutors said owner Michael Pratt made about $17 million before he fled the country. The women won millions in court. She says she has never seen a dime. She has changed her phone number six times. “I’ve never done any of this for money.” They promised her $10,000. They made $17 million. She’s still trying to get the video taken down. Should the sites that hosted her video pay too, or is a prison sentence enough?

Chris Tucker was paid about $10,000 to play Smokey in “Friday.” The movie made nearly $28 million. A few years later, he was reportedly getting $20 million a movie. In the video below, Shannon Sharpe asks him about it on Club Shay Shay. “It was just a small movie. We filmed it in 20 days.” “I got about ten thousand dollars for it or whatever. I didn’t care. I wanted the opportunity.” The whole movie, he says, cost “either two million or three million.” There was no money for mistakes. “We only had two takes. If I mess up one time, you get one more time, and that’s it. We’re gonna cut you out.” They shot on one street almost the entire time. A few small scenes in a studio. That was it. “It was just a camera and me and Cube on the porch.” “And magic came out of it.” Smokey became one of the most quoted characters in movie history. “Friday” turned into a franchise with two sequels. Tucker wasn’t in either of them. Instead, “Rush Hour” made him a global star. For “Rush Hour 2,” he was reportedly paid $20 million. From $10,000 to $20 million in six years. The case for the studio: he was an unknown comedian in a tiny movie with a $3 million budget. $10,000 was a normal deal, and he says himself he didn’t care about the money. The case for Tucker: Smokey is the reason people still quote “Friday” 30 years later. The franchise kept going. His check didn’t. So was $10,000 fair for Smokey, or did “Friday” owe Chris Tucker a lot more?

Paul McCartney told Michael Jackson to get into music publishing. Then Jackson bought the rights to Paul’s own songs. Over 200 Beatles songs, for a reported $47.5 million. In the video below, David Letterman asks him about it. Paul tells the whole story. They were friends. Jackson called him at home on Christmas Day, and Paul thought it was a fan who’d found his number. They made hits together. Then Jackson asked for advice. Paul took him aside: think about getting into music publishing. Owning songs is where the real money is. Jackson’s answer: “I’m gonna get yours.” “I thought that was a joke,” Paul says. In 1985, it wasn’t. The catalog came up for sale, and Jackson bought it. Paul says he didn’t even mind that part. Jackson had the cash, and someone was selling. What hurt came later. Paul wrote to him. More than once. “Even if I was just a writer on the payroll, after 30 years of being reasonably successful for this company you now own, don’t you think I could have a raise?” Jackson’s reply: “That’s just business.” “He won’t even answer my letters,” Paul says. Letterman suggests they go in together and buy the songs back. Paul shakes his head. “The trouble is, I wrote them for nothing. And buying them back at these phenomenal sums, it just rubs you the wrong way.” Years later, Sony paid $750 million for Jackson’s half of that catalog. The case for Jackson: it was a public sale, and he paid the market price. Paul had the money too, and could have bid. The case for Paul: he gave Jackson the idea, as a friend. Then he had to ask that friend for a raise on his own songs. One wrote the songs for nothing. The other bought them, and called it business. So was Michael Jackson a smart businessman, or a friend who took the advice and kept the songs?

Dana White said Francis Ngannou left the UFC because it was “all about the money.” Ngannou says he turned down $5 million while he was broke and owed a friend $200,000. In the video below, he tells the story, sitting next to the man he owed. Ngannou was the UFC heavyweight champion. His contract was running out, and the UFC wanted him on a new deal. He says the new deal would have paid him $5 million for his next fight. Under the old one, he got $600,000. “I took $600,000 for my last fight in the UFC as opposed to 5 million that they were offering. For the same fight.” “And I was broke.” Then he points at one of the hosts: “I owe him 200,000.” “Hey, let’s not talk about that,” the host laughs. So why walk away from $5 million? “I couldn’t sell out what I wanted just because of more money. Obviously I needed that money. Obviously, I never had that amount of money.” One of the hosts says the UFC later offered him $8 million to stay. He still left. He wanted to box. As a free agent, he fought Tyson Fury, put him on the canvas, and reportedly made $10 million. His next fight, against Anthony Joshua, was estimated by Forbes at around $20 million. The case for Dana White: the UFC offered him millions to stay, and every fighter signs the same kind of contract. Ngannou chose to leave. The case for Ngannou: he said no to $5 million while he was in debt. Whatever it was about, it wasn’t the money. One man said he left for money. The other turned down $5 million to leave. So was Dana White right about Ngannou, or did he never understand what Ngannou was fighting for?

Michelle Williams was paid less than $1,000 to reshoot “All the Money in the World.” Mark Wahlberg got $1.5 million. Same movie. Same reshoots. She calls it “the exact same amount of work.” In the video below, she stands on Capitol Hill and tells the story herself. In 2017, Kevin Spacey was cut from the film after allegations against him. The studio replaced him with Christopher Plummer and reshot his scenes, weeks before release. Williams offered to help for nothing. She told ET Canada: “You can have my salary, you can just take it.” Director Ridley Scott said the same thing in public: “Everyone did it for nothing.” Not everyone. Wahlberg’s team negotiated $1.5 million. Williams got an $80 per diem. When the numbers came out, Wahlberg gave his $1.5 million to the Time’s Up legal fund, in her name. Their agency added $500,000. But for Williams, the worst part came after. “The news broke that I had been paid less than $1,000 compared to the $1.5 million that my male counterpart had received for the exact same amount of work. And guess what, no one cared.” Then she asks why she came to Washington: “If it was like this for me, a white woman in a glamorized industry, how were my sisters suffering across their professions?” The next year, she won an Emmy. On stage, she thanked the studio for one thing in particular: “paying me equally.” The case for Wahlberg: his reps asked for money, which is their job. He didn’t set her pay. And when it came out, he gave every dollar away. The case for Williams: she worked for free because she was told everyone was. He didn’t. She offered her salary to save the movie. He was paid $1.5 million for the same days. So was Wahlberg the problem, or the system that let one actor ask and told the other not to?

Snoop Dogg says his music hit a billion streams on Spotify. His check wasn’t even $45,000. That’s about $45 for every million plays. In the video below, he tells the Business Untitled podcast how he found out. His publisher sent him the Spotify numbers. A billion streams. He asked for one thing: “Break that down. How much money is that?” “That shit wasn’t even $45,000.” Then he says it again, slower: “Crazy.” This is one of the most famous rappers alive. 30 years of hits. And a billion plays paid less than a mid-level salary. So he tried something else. With his son, he started selling music directly to fans through NFTs. His split was simple: he takes 60% for putting the song out, the artist takes 40%. “That may sound like a lot, but you just made $100,000.” And every time the song is resold, the original artist gets 10%. “Without Sony, Apple, all these taking percentages.” His point is transparency. Every sale shows up in the artist’s wallet. No waiting for a statement from a label. His closing line: “You got to get a billion streams to get 45,000. You sell a hundred, and if you’re selling it for $10, you do the math.” The case for Spotify: it doesn’t pay artists directly. It pays labels and publishers, and they pay artists under their own contracts. Snoop’s $45,000 may only be one slice of what that billion streams earned. So who really got Snoop’s money: Spotify, the labels, or the contracts he signed?

Harrison Ford was paid about $10,000 to play Han Solo. Star Wars made over $300 million in its first release. Alec Guinness took a cut of the box office instead. Over his lifetime, it reportedly made him about $100 million. In the video below, Ford tells Good Morning America how he got the part, and what he said when he heard the offer. He wasn’t even auditioning. A producer friend got him to read lines with the actors trying out for Luke and Leia. He thought he was just doing George Lucas a favor. When it was over, they asked if he wanted to play Han Solo. His first question: “How much?” They said $1,000 a week. “And I said no.” Then he laughs. “But I did. I did it for $1,000 a week for the first one.” That came to about $10,000 for the whole film, reportedly. Alec Guinness, who played Obi-Wan, made a different deal: a $150,000 salary plus 2.25% of the gross. Star Wars became the highest-grossing movie in history at the time. Asked if his pay went up for the sequels, Ford smiles: “A little bit.” 38 years later, for The Force Awakens, he was reportedly offered up to $25 million upfront. The case for the studio: in 1976, Ford was a supporting actor with almost no leading roles. Nobody knew if a space movie would work, and $1,000 a week was a normal rate for an unknown. Guinness was already an Oscar winner, so he had the leverage to ask for a percentage. So was $1,000 a week fair for an unknown actor, or did Star Wars owe Han Solo more?