Living life as the personal embodiment of capitalism makes some things in life much easier. But no matter how wrong things go the important thing is to keep providing shareholder value, which in this case is pretty close to friendship. K. Mike Merrill has been a publicly traded person for thirteen years. Each day he wakes up and checks the price of his shares which trade every day, giving him a somewhat warped sense of his “value” at all times. He’ll tell you this motivates him to stay productive but the truth is hurts more when the stock is down than feels good when it goes up. His shareholders also take a more active role by voting on his life choices. This has mostly worked out great except for the time they had him try polyphasic sleeping and register as a member of a different political party.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx