The Apprentice Survivor

“Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.” - E. B. White

As everyone knows, for the past few years the most successful shows on television have been reality shows - much to the delight of producers and the chagrin of writers and actors. The first was Survivor and the most successful of late The Apprentice. Survivor has nothing to do with surviving unforgiving environments, of course, but is much more akin to an excercise in office politics. For it’s part, The Apprentice has nothing to do with apprenticeship but more resembles a freshman hazing. Nonetheless, comparing these two shows gave rise to a notion for a reality show I would watch faithfully. First, some background regarding my viewpoint here:

Rich people and entrepreneurs would have us believe that they are who they are because of a few essential character traits: imagination, determination and diligence probably being the key ones. In other words, they deserve their wealth and power. They earned it. Well, maybe. Sometimes. There certainly are those who have risen from nothing and against all odds accumulated vast wealth. On the other hand, there are the many who have simply inherited their wealth or have been, for want of a better word, lucky. Would Bill Gates, despite his obvious brain power, be Bill Gates had he been born to beggars in Calcutta or Nairobi, rather than to a wealthy family of American lawyers? Would The Donald be flying around in his private jets and pontificating to the masses on subjects about which he probably knows nothing if he were not blessed with a father there to bail him out when he screwed things up?

So, The Apprentice Survivor:

The players:

- 3 or 4 homeless, penniless people from any North American city who believe they can succeed if given an opportunity.
- 3 or 4 wealthy businessmen or entrepreneurs who believe their success has been entirely of their own making.

Each player is stripped of credit cards, Blackberries etc and given $500. They are all dropped in the downtown of a foreign city having a large number of Englilsh speakers. They may do whatever they like with the following prohibitions:

1. They may not make contact with anyone - business or personal - currently in their life or in their past life.
2. They may not engage in any business activity they have previously engaged in. (So that, say, someone in the textile industry could not say “Aha. I know where I can but $300 worth of material and where I can sell it for $450.”)

The playing field must be as level as it can be made to be. Assets: $500 and one’s brain. Period.

So, we follow them for 6 months - or whatever the length of a television season is.

At then end, we tally the assets. If the winnner is an entrepreneur, the show donates a million dollars to charity or sets up a business school scholarship in the winner’s name. If the winner is one of the indigent, the entrepreneur with the lowest total must pay the winner one million dollars and ALL the entrpreneurs must run full page ads in all major business papers and magazines carryng their picture, that of the winner (in indigent stage) and a bold caption ,“I, Joe Smarty Pants, was beaten in business by a bum.”

Think there’d be any takers amongst the Moet et Chandon set?

I don’t.