Anyone watching Undercover Billionaire?

[AsLan7]

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Season finale next week on Discovery Channel. The Erie PA scenes were the draw for me. Enjoyed his business advice throughout the series.

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[cmattj]

I’ll have to catch up as that promo video was great!

[NautiGirl]

I will admit when I saw the previews I was excited. I wanted to like this show, the premise is great, but in the end it was just too obviously fake for me. I made it two or three episodes. I mean lets think about this for a few:

He is driving around a truck that gets 12 mpg and only puts $8 in gas one time in it?

Someone pays him $1,500 for tires that he "finds" on someone else's property?

He is able to purchase a 2005 Honda Civic for $700 and sell it a day later for $3,900? All he does is run it thru a car wash and vacuum it. That doesn't happen.

He gets an apartment lease with NO background check , NO credit check, NO rental history check, NO proof of stable income, NO assets (not even furniture), from someone already asking about stiffing them on the security deposit?

He is able to buy a house and obtain a construction loan, again /w no proof of income or assets?

All these people just agree to help him for free /w no promise of a salary?

I like that they are promoting the idea that you can start with very little and with hard work can be successful, but I feel the message is lost behind all the obvious lies.

He does give a few good business tips, but then again his investment firm filed for Chapter 11 a few weeks ago, so perhaps take them with a grain of salt.

[AsLan7]

I will admit when I saw the previews I was excited. I wanted to like this show, the premise is great, but in the end it was just too obviously fake for me. I made it two or three episodes. I mean lets think about this for a few:

He is driving around a truck that gets 12 mpg and only puts $8 in gas one time in it?

Someone pays him $1,500 for tires that he "finds" on someone else's property?

He is able to purchase a 2005 Honda Civic for $700 and sell it a day later for $3,900? All he does is run it thru a car wash and vacuum it. That doesn't happen.

He gets an apartment lease with NO background check , NO credit check, NO rental history check, NO proof of stable income, NO assets (not even furniture), from someone already asking about stiffing them on the security deposit?

He is able to buy a house and obtain a construction loan, again /w no proof of income or assets?

All these people just agree to help him for free /w no promise of a salary?

I like that they are promoting the idea that you can start with very little and with hard work can be successful, but I feel the message is lost behind all the obvious lies.

He does give a few good business tips, but then again his investment firm filed for Chapter 11 a few weeks ago, so perhaps take them with a grain of salt.

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Couldn’t agree more. In fact Stearns may not even be a Billionaire. Although to be fair, his company was sold to Blackstone for probably under 500 million with Glenn keeping a 29% stake before it filed for bankruptcy after the Feds raised rates.

Regardless, ALL the “reality” shows you see on TV have elements of truth with drama injected for viewership ratings. As my wife would say it’s Soap Opera for guys. It’s called entertainment ...and Hollywood (& news agencies) have been stretching the truth for some time at the expense of the public.

Again for me, the Erie slant was the hook as are his business principles. The rest is fun for water cooler talk.
Now if they could just come up with a show about a fiberglass slide maker who pivoted his business (to avoid slide lawsuits) into copying another certain high speed boat manufacturer’s mold so he can eventually produce quality boats. . Of course I’m sure the media would untruthfully add that they were an accomplice to drug running to spice things up.


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[liquid]

I will admit when I saw the previews I was excited. I wanted to like this show, the premise is great, but in the end it was just too obviously fake for me. I made it two or three episodes. I mean lets think about this for a few:

He is driving around a truck that gets 12 mpg and only puts $8 in gas one time in it?

Someone pays him $1,500 for tires that he "finds" on someone else's property?

He is able to purchase a 2005 Honda Civic for $700 and sell it a day later for $3,900? All he does is run it thru a car wash and vacuum it. That doesn't happen.

He gets an apartment lease with NO background check , NO credit check, NO rental history check, NO proof of stable income, NO assets (not even furniture), from someone already asking about stiffing them on the security deposit?

He is able to buy a house and obtain a construction loan, again /w no proof of income or assets?

All these people just agree to help him for free /w no promise of a salary?

I like that they are promoting the idea that you can start with very little and with hard work can be successful, but I feel the message is lost behind all the obvious lies.

He does give a few good business tips, but then again his investment firm filed for Chapter 11 a few weeks ago, so perhaps take them with a grain of salt.

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Couldn’t agree more. In fact Stearns may not even be a Billionaire. Although to be fair, his company was sold to Blackstone for probably under a half million with Glenn keeping a 29% stake before it filed for bankruptcy after the Feds raised rates.

Regardless, ALL the “reality” shows you see on TV have elements of truth with drama injected for viewership ratings. As my wife would say it’s Soap Opera for guys. It’s called entertainment ...and Hollywood (& news agencies) have been stretching the truth for some time at the expense of the public.

Again for me, the Erie slant was the hook as are his business principles. The rest is fun for water cooler talk.
Now if they could just come up with a show about a fiberglass slide maker who pivoted his business (to avoid slide lawsuits) into copying another certain high speed boat manufacturer’s mold so he can eventually produce quality boats. . Of course I’m sure the media would untruthfully add that they were an accomplice to drug running to spice things up.


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[sailor55330]

Saw the preview and pegged the same as you guys. Way to fake

[kas232ca]

I've watched so far. Rib-Fest looks like fun. It is OK entertainment, but there is no way in real life. 90 days to open a business valued at 1m - no.

We are currently expanding our facility into an adjoining space. Got the new lease on July 1st, just submitted plans to the city last Friday. City plan check alone will be a minimum of 5 weeks. Add Fire Dept., Health Dept., CAL-EPA, etc. and we will be lucky if we can start construction in early December. It's only 1800 sq. ft.

[Kate]

Some people miss the deeper lesson of that show, and seem to be looking for clay feet.

Might this or that permit lengthen the process? Maybe. Might a return be 2x vs 5x? Perhaps. But that's not the point. What the show wonderfully dramatizes, and Stearns embodies, is the value of certain character traits -- in particular resourcefulness and persistence.

Is his net worth "only" $500 million? That is a remarkable achievement, especially considering that he came from nothing, built the company from scratch, and that his financial company survived the 2008 collapse.

Incidentally, there are people familiar with start-ups. They realize that they're trading a short-term salary for the possibility of a long-term payoff.

[AsLan7]

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Glenn did miss his 1 million dollar business valuation mark (came in at $750k) but it was entertaining nonetheless and I did enjoy his business acumen.

We are going to try his Underdog BBQ restaurant and compare it to Federal BBQ from which he spring boarded. It’s certainly no easy task opening and running a successful restaurant. If it survives I’ll tip my hat to the man.


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