I have exciting news folks! Over the past 16 months, I’ve been talking to a few executives at Netflix about a potential new show. They live only 50 minutes south of me in Los Gatos. Today I am proud to announce that I will be producing a new Netflix original series called Love Is Money!
The idea came about when I was chilling alone in my hot tub one day. It’s my regular haven where I come up with new post ideas, read, browse social media and meditate.
A friend of mine, let’s call her Sarah, confided in me during the pandemic that her love for her husband was on the wane. Sarah was 34 at the time and was doing very well in her career, but her husband was not.
When the stock price of her husband’s company collapsed, so did their hopes of buying a $3.8 million dream home to raise their growing family in the expensive Bay Area. Sarah was pregnant with their second and they both wanted to upgrade to a new home.
Sarah asked me, ‘Sam, is it weird that I find him a little less tolerable every time his company’s stock drops another 10%? I used to think it was a slob, but not anymore!’
Then I realized that love is often not blind or pure. Instead, the amount of love you have for someone can be highly correlated with the amount of money they have. A new show and relationship experiment is thus born! There will even be Asian people in it!
The rules of love is money
In the first season of Love Is Money it goes like this.
My team and I interviewed hundreds of people to find 20 participants who were looking for true love. These participants have all signed an oath saying that they do not believe that love has anything to do with money.
Here is the composition of the participants:
20 heterosexual and bisexual participants in search of love consisting of 10 men and 10 women Age range: 21 – 70 Net worth range: negative $700,000 to positive $100 million. Personality scores between 3 – 8, with 8 being the best personality. Physically attractive scores between 3-8, with 8 being the most attractive.
We have verified the net worth of each participant. Meanwhile, we assigned a random group of 30 people to interview each participant for an hour and assess their personality. The random group also had to assign a physical attraction score. Then we added up the scores and compared how the candidates stacked up.
The broke and beautiful participants
We were able to find 10 participants who scored very high on personality and attractiveness, but were all broke. For various reasons, these participants are deeply in debt, have gone bankrupt and all have negative assets.
During the interview screening process, these participants were described as “stunners,” “knockouts,” “gorgeous,” “kind,” “patient,” “loving,” “understanding,” “empathetic,” “humanitarians,” ” warm and comforting’, ‘clogs of steel’ and ‘a smile to warm my heart’, just to name a few.
The rich and nasty contestants
We were then able to find 10 participants with net worth all in the top 1% for their age group. The only problem with these participants is that they all scored low between 3 and 4 on physical attractiveness and personality.
During the interview process, they were described as “workaholics”, “sociopaths”, “disgusting”, “snooty”, “ignorant”, “annoying as F”, “egomaniacs”, “unfortunately insecure”, “full of rubbish”, “dirty stuff “, “unsanitary”, “completely selfish”, “emetic”, and more.
Love and Money: Phase 1 of the Experiment Begins
Are you addicted yet?! This is what happens in phase 1 of the experiment.
The 10 participants are divided by gender, a living space for the men and a separate one for the women. As with the Netflix show Love Is Blind, contestants take turns going on “dates” in separate pods for each person. This way they can’t see each other during the dates, but we the viewers can.
There are daily rounds of 20-minute conversation data over the course of three days. The show captures the most interesting dialogues and combines them into neat segments for the viewers.
Here’s the X factor. Each participant’s net worth is displayed at the top of an electronic board next to their name for the other person to see. In this way, both participants are fully aware of how rich the other is before and during the conversation.
After getting to know each other for three days, each participant must choose one person to match. The only way the contestants can see each other is if they both pick each other as their desired match.
We will definitely see some drama especially when a person wants to match up with someone who loves someone else. Love Triangles are so much fun!
Love is money: phase 2 of the experiment
As a producer, my theory is that the poorer contestants tend to pick the richer contestants and look beyond their personality issues. I want to capture their faces and body language when they first see each other. Keep in mind that we found very wealthy participants who scored only a 3-4 on the attractiveness scale.
Will great wealth overcome a bad personality and bad looks? We will see! The contestants go on three dates to see if love will bloom or break.
Some dates will be extravagant, such as taking a private jet to a remote island to board a private yacht with champagne and caviar. While other dates will be simple, like camping under the stars with no toilets. They are only allowed to dig one hole for two people.
Multiple outcomes and twists will make things fascinating!
The reality is that anything can happen, and that’s the great thing about Love Is Money! And as with any good reality show, there are twists and turns.
Maybe one of the rich and nasty contestants is actually lying about their net worth and being dirt poor. During our due diligence process, we discovered an anomaly and decided to let the contestant continue with the show if they agreed to give up during phase 2.
Perhaps one of the broke and beautiful contestants is actually rich but has successfully practiced stealth wealth to make them look poor.
You just need to tune in and find out!
A dream to produce
This relationship experiment was so fascinating to produce and I think you will love it. Maybe only the beautiful and broken people will end up together, proving that love is much more than money. Or maybe the rich and mean people will stay united, proving that money beats everything.
My theory that went into the show was that the rich and filthy go after the beautiful and broken people and succeed. After all, if you’re already rich, you don’t have to look for someone with more money. And if you’re poor, it’s part of evolution to find someone who can ensure your survival. We will see.
Love or money might be the better question
I believe that marrying for love is better than marrying for money. But that’s easy for me to say as I come from a middle class and never worried about my next meal.
If I was in debt and unemployed, I might have looked for a rich husband to save me. First, I would eat better and train like crazy to look my best. Then I would go hunting with my rock hard abs. Once I was stuck, I could always divorce and love someone!
Ideally, you’ll find a match and get rich together. This way you know that money has never been the driving factor in your relationship. If the difference in wealth is too great, the rich partner can always wonder if the poor partner loves them for who they are.
But then again, I’m biased because I found my wife in college when we both had next to nothing.
Maybe it would have been nice to get married in extreme wealth. I wouldn’t have had to work more than 60 hours a week for more than ten years and attend business school part-time for three years. I also wouldn’t have had to save that much or worry about my investments at all!
But being uncomfortable is one of the biggest drivers for change. So maybe marrying an extremely rich person isn’t the best thing after all. If the person is so used to having everything, what more can you give him?
I have to say, I’m pumped Love Is Money is out on Netflix on April 1, 2023! I think it’s going to work great and ironically, it’s making me so rich I don’t know what to do with myself!
Related Post: You will always regret sacrificing love for money
Reader questions
So what do you folks think? Do you think love tends to rise and fall with the amount of money you have? If not, what percent has money to do with a great relationship? Happy April 1.
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