ABC/Adam TalorIt’s official: Bono and Paul McCartney have good heads for business.
The duo is included in Forbes magazine’s 100 Greatest Business Minds, alongside SpaceX and Tesla’s Elon Musk, Microsoft’s Paul Allen, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Oprah Winfrey and others.
In an essay, Bono explains, “Capitalism is not immoral, but it is amoral. And it requires our instruction. It’s a wild beast that needs to be tamed, a better servant than master. That’s my philosophy with (RED), which partners with corporations to direct profits to fighting HIV/AIDS…. I realized that going to big companies and trying to break into their more modest philanthropy funds was a huge missed opportunity. It was their robust marketing and publicity budgets that we needed.”
The U2 frontman admits, “Some of the most selfish people I’ve met are artists — I’m one of them — and some of the most selfless people I’ve ever met are in business, people like Warren Buffett.”
For his part, regarding the raised eyebrows when Michael Jackson bought the Beatles’ publishing rights, McCartney writes, “It all goes back to the very beginning of the Beatles, when we signed the music publishing contract. We didn’t care what it was…we wanted to get published. It turned out to be basically a slave contract; no matter how successful we made the company, we didn’t get a raise.
Paul concludes, “It’s so important to have good people around you. That’s why I’m anywhere near this list. My lawyers…are really smart, both great guys, and I listen to them. In recent years, they’ve helped me recover my copyrights…If I’m wheeling and dealing, life becomes very difficult for me. I’ve got to reserve a portion of my brain for writing songs.”
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