How to Negotiate with a Billionaire: Lessons from an 8X Salary Offer
When a Billionaire Comes Knocking
One of my clients — a highly accomplished academic type — was earning just enough to live in a high-cost city and occasionally score a half-off clearance sticker on her groceries at Whole Foods.
Then came the plot twist: a new startup, funded by a billionaire, recruited her.
The final written offer? Eight times her current income.
We don’t know who the billionaire is. It doesn’t matter. (We do know it’s not Elon Musk, whew.)
The Fantasy of Extreme Wealth
Over the weekend, when I rode the subway (not a stretch limo) in NYC, I saw someone proudly wearing a shirt that reads: Eat the rich.
Another time, I bought a $5 lottery ticket for a family member who enjoys imagining what life would be like after winning hundreds of millions.
That’s the thing about extreme wealth: for most of us, it exists in the same realm as fantasy.
We can see its effects all around us — in penthouses, in politics, and in the technology we hold in our hands — but it’s not part of our day-to-day reality.
And when it does suddenly touch your life, it can feel like stumbling into a dream you’re not sure you’re allowed to keep.
When There’s No Playbook
Here’s where I need to ground this in reality: if you’re negotiating with your current employer, something like this is extremely rare. The more common path is incremental raises, not 8X leaps.
In my client’s case, there were no comparables to the offer she was considering. No Glassdoor benchmarks. Just a salary range that started at three times her current pay.
Like me — and so many of my amazingly talented clients — she came from humble beginnings. No silver spoons. No trust funds. No inheritance to cushion a career misstep.
So her first reaction? Disbelief.
"Is this an elaborate prank?"
"Am I being conned?"
But after the due diligence checked out, and after conversations with other team members, the offer seemed real. That’s when she reached out to me.
The Work Before the Work
We didn’t focus on her insecurities or her past or what could go wrong.
We focused on her future potential — the scope of what she could achieve under the right circumstances.
In the best of worlds, she could create abundance even without the billionaire. She could found a company, grow it, and guide it to a successful exit event that generates significant returns for herself and her shareholders.
So together, we crafted a negotiation script that anchored her starting salary above the stated range. We aimed for 4X her current pay.
The result? The billionaire countered with even more — beyond what either of us had imagined, landing her at 8X.
The Real Point
The point of this article isn’t to fuel fantasies about instant riches.
Opportunities like this are rare — maybe one in a billion — and they don’t happen just because you “ask big.” They happen when the circumstances, timing, preparation, and a dash of luck all align.
But regardless of whom you’re negotiating with, you want to think about the value of your future contributions from your counterpart’s perspective.
You want to frame your potential with optimism and boldness, and make that your rationale for your ask.
And you want to remember — you and what you’re capable of are also one in a billion.
Ready to go to bat for yourself?
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