Who is the top earning dead celebrity for 2008?

Forbes' has been tracking the top-earning, deceased celebrity since 2001. Except for 2006, one person has been on the top of that list from 2001-08. The King of Rock ’n’ Roll Elvis Presley, left this world 31 years ago, but he remains the top-earning dead celebrity. Elvis Presley pulled in $52 million in the past year, helped by increased traffic at his Graceland estate to commemorate the 30th anniversary of his death, and new ventures such as an Elvis Sirius Satellite Radio show added to a long list of publishing and licensing deals.

The famous cartoonist, Charles Schulz, came at second place with earnings of $33 million. Charles died in 2000 and is best known for his “Peanuts” comic strip.

The Joker in “The Dark Knight”, Heath Ledger came at third place. Ledger, 28, died from an accidental prescription drug overdose in January.

The fourth-richest dead celebrity is German-born physicist Albert Einstein, whose estate raked in $18 million in earnings, mainly from Disney’s “Baby Einstein” videos and toys for children.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/

" No nation was ever ruined by trade. " - Poor Richard

Using the pseudonym of "Poor Richard," Benjamin Franklin published his Almanack from 1733 to 1758. The Almanack was hugely popular in American colonies, selling about 10,000 copies per year. Its contant varied, including not only many franklin aphorisms that becoma famous but also calenders, weather forecasts, astronomical information, and astrological data. The content had huge economical and cultural impact during those days. Napoleon Bonaparte considered the Almanack significant enough to translate it into Italian.

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Mycoskie came up with the idea for TOMS after visiting Argentina and seeing many children without shoes living in villages plagued with poverty. While in Argentina, Mycoskie adopted the style of the traditional light-weight Argentinean shoe called alpargatas, which is the shoe that he modeled TOMS after.

“I created TOMS with a singular mission: to make life more comfortable.” – Mycoskie

TOMS Shoes has recently won the “People’s Design Award”, an award sponsored Target and awarded to the company with the best design as voted by the people.

TOMS Shoe Drop Argentina 2006

Sonal Shah works for Google.org on their Global Development team, where she is working on defining their global development strategy. Prior to Google.org, she was Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. and developed and implemented the firm’s environmental strategy. She is also the co-founder of Indicorps (www.indicorps.org), a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year fellowships for Americans of Indian origin to work on specific development projects in India. As the former Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress, Sonal worked on trade, outsourcing and post conflict reconstruction issues. Prior to joining the Center, she was the Director of Programs and Operations at the Center for Global Development managing the daily operations and serving as a strategic adviser to the president. She also developed and managed policy and advocacy programs for the Center. Before that she worked for eight years at the Department of Treasury on various economic issues and regions of the world. She was the Director of the office covering sub Saharan Africa, worked in Bosnia and Kosovo after the war, and served as the senior adviser to the Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury during the Asian financial crisis. She was also awarded the India Abroad Person of the Year in 2003.

Q: What motivated you to start Indicorps?

My sister, brother and I wanted to start a program that would allow Indians from around the world to be part of India's development. For many around the world India is part of their heritage, but they don't have way to reconnect in a way that is meaningful and in which they can make a difference. India was a very strong part of our identity and we wanted others to have similar experiences and at the same time make a difference.

Q: How difficult was it to initiate such an initiative in US? Any major hurdles that you would like to tell us about?

With a strong vision and real belief in what we were doing, there were no real great challenges. In fact, our American colleagues were great supporters and were the first to donate because they strongly believed in the diaspora giving back. However, it required us to articulate a clear vision for what we wanted to achieve.

Q: How is progress on "Teach for India" initiative? Do you really think it will be possible to convince an Indian graduate to teach for a few years before joining a job?

This is a great question. Everything is possible. If we want to see India change we need to be a part of India's progress. It can not just be Indians from abroad, but it is together with Indians in India that we can make a real difference. It requires each of us that we can be a part of the solution. At the end of our lifetimes we should not look back and say I wished I had worked 55 years instead of 57 years. For some period of time in our lives, we should put our education and energy to use for something greater than ourselves. Nothing beats that feeling when you have helped someone else. At the end of the day, it is truly the giver that benefits.

Q: Would you like to share some incidents from your experience in Bosnia and Kosovo?

Those were truly life changing experiences. Being on the ground after the conflict was incredibly challenging, frustrating and at the same time rewarding. The Bosnians and Kosovars were amazingly resilient. Even the days that I was most frustrated, they did not give up. It taught me three really great lessons:

1) bringing people together after a war/conflict requires patience, understanding, and great negotiation skills;

2) that you need to have a vision for success -- for me at the time it was ensuring that the young Bosnians and Kosovars were able to do my job better than me after one year;

3) that diaspora have the ability to make a real difference -- I saw this in Bosnia, Kosovo and now Liberia.

These experiences taught me much about myself and continue to shape my thinking.

Q: How do you see Indicorps growing in future?

Indicorps has an incredible ability to affect the lives of young people from within and outside India. We want to continue to harness and leverage the power of youth to affect real change around them. We want them to see that their personal development is interconnected with the development of the society of around them. That each person has the ability to even small differences around, no matter how difficult the challenge. We want to continue to strengthen the NGO sectors ability to have impact. We would like to expand to do the same with the private sector and the government. We want to create a new generation of leaders who will be ready to take on the world's challenges and more importantly believe that they can affect positive social change.

Q: What is your message to Indian youth to help in the progress of the country?

To coin a term from the US election -- "Yes, we can." We can make a difference. We can change the system. We can improve society. We can help those around us. As a young and upwardly mobile community, we are in an unprecedented position to affect change; the only thing between us and greatness is our will.

“A little bit imagination can make anything possible”

Thought to ponder: Children are not afraid to go wrong. Then why as adults do we loose our ability to think beyond the obvious and try something new?

17th verse of Tao Te Ching from the book "Living the wisdom of the Tao" by Dr. Wayne W Dyer.


With the greatest leader above them, people barely know one exists.
Next comes one whom they love and praise.
Next comes one whom they fear.
Next comes one whom they despise and defy.
When a leader trusts no one, no one trusts him.
The great leader speaks little.
He never speaks carelessly.
He works without self-interest and leaves no trace.
When all is finished, the people say, “We did it ourselves.”

American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850. It used to ship products across the United States and capitalized on the limited reach and slow speed of the United States Postal Service. Their main customers were banks and they shipped various financial instruments like stock certificates etc. They began selling money orders and traveler’s checks in 1882. American Express issued its first credit card in 1958.
(Source: http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/os/history.asp)

The article given below has been contributed by Balasubramanian V.


My good friend Ratnakar is a great fan of football manager 2008. During his interminable hours of play with that game, he came up with a fantastic observation that makes for good learnings in management as well!

A football manager is always scouting for talent. And football has 3 major types of players. They can be split into the strikers, who range forward to score goals. They include stalwarts like Ronaldo and the more recent Wayne Rooney. Pace and raw talent makes them great.

The next group would be the midfielders. They are the stars who play at the centre of the pitch. Their skill and artistry are the tools that they use to weave magic at the centre of the pitch. Bamboozling the opposition, they are playmakers...either going down the centre or running down the wings. David Beckham and Zinedine Zidane are the most frequently quoted lot here.

The neglected bunch in this group are the poor defenders. Usually sitting at the back, they are known for trying to block those heroes, the forwards and strikers from doing damage. To do this, they can slide into the striker (if they get the ball first), shoulder barge the man, or just kick the ball aimlessly away from the strikers.

So much for context. Now lets look at average age and price of a striker. Strikers are most valuable when they are young. between the tender ages of 19-25 they are at their fastest, and with spectacular reflexes, are capable of feats that most cannot even imagine. Its no wonder that a Wayne Rooney would be transferred off for an almost 50 million dollars at the tender age of 19. By 25, he would be all burnt out, and his market value drops significantly. But if like AC Milan, you get a Kaka at $8.5 million dollars, you can get a great star at bargain basement prices.

As for wingers and attacking midfielders, they need pace first...and although they need those reflexes as well, they are not quite in the same league as star strikers. But because they control the game, and are versatile, they get paid staggering amounts too when they are young. Here, the retirement age would be close to 30. David Beckham at 32 is seen as over the hill, although at 25, he was seen as at his prime. So he has to play in the USA because the Real Madrid's and the Inter Milan's of the world no longer see him as the star he was.

But defenders just seem to go on and on. For example, the AC Milan and Brazilian defender Cafu is 38 and going strong. Defenders hit their peak at 32-35, and can go on even longer. That is because the defender is not about pace as much as anticipation and experience. Like wine, they get better as they get older. So Cafu is worth a lot more at 30 than at 20, and his market price is fairly detemined.

So where is the management analogy? well, here it is. In management, as in football, different people perform different functions. Each person's talent is valuable at certain stages, and experience is valued at other stages.

In a marketing manager, the hunger to get hold of a new account makes a young man take a bus 500 km across beat up roads and obscure villages. Here, his experience does not count as much as his hunger and drive for success. And only when you are young can that hunger be matched with physical stamina and committment to career. As the marketing man grows older, he might marry, settle down in a city with 2.2 kids and sit back. He might no longer want to spend every weekend hunting for those new accounts. Instead he would be content to spend his days at the corporate office, using his experience to design corporate "strategy". A sales and marketing star is a bit like a striker, who is best at a young age.

On the other hand, the finance and legal team are more likely to be the defenders of the firm. A finance man needs to know the ropes and learn through time. No matter how talented he may be, a few years in the trenches help the finance man develop a "feel" for the numbers that talent does not always give. And the legal man needs years and years before he knows which loopholes can let the proverbial elephant pass through, and which ones will merely drown you in a morass of legal battles. These gentlemen tend to be most valuable in their 50's when they know the tricks of the trade (And keep themselves updated with the latest moves).

The problem is this though. When you hire a young marketing man, you always take a risk. He or she would be unproven and untested, but only when they are young can you extract maximum value out of them. Getting the right pay for these people is a challenge. If you underpay a star, the star shall disappear faster than beer in a college party. But you always run the risk of overpaying someone who is later found to be unsuitable.

The issue is very different for experienced financial managers. By the time they are 40-45, they have a proven track record. By this time, the market prices them fairly. So the problem here is that you never actually can get a bargain basement finance guy who is very good. The market ensures that the good ones are already paid stratospheric levels.

So, what's the lesson? Well, its this. Recruiting talent is tough. But while recruiting, it might be suitable to evaluate what "hunger:experience ratio" is. It makes it easier to decide at what age and price a person ought to be recruited at.