# Isn't Martha Stewart just cool? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 7, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400 "2005-03-07T18:40:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/1 "2005-03-07T18:40:05Z")
Does anyone else think that Martha Stewarts personal worth will surpass Bill Gates in the next ten years? There’s something about her that tells me she’s gonna be thee number one leader in business someday. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/2 "2005-03-07T18:43:52Z")
Am I being whooshed here? ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/3 "2005-03-07T18:44:54Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Am I being whooshed here? I dunno… If you’re being whooshed, so am I. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/4 "2005-03-07T18:54:58Z")
While I’m certainly sympathetic to Ms. Stewart right now, what with her getting a pretty raw deal in comparrison to the extent of her transgression, I take the annointing of “cool” pretty seriously and am not at all convinced she’s up to the title. My impression of her pre-scandal was that of a bitch, a hugely successful and in many ways admirable bitch, but a bitch nontheless. ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/5 "2005-03-07T19:07:25Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > My impression of her pre-scandal was that of a bitch, a hugely successful and in many ways admirable bitch, but a bitch nontheless. I totally think that’s what they sent her to jail for. I was never a fan, but I was always delighted to read how nicely things were going to her in jail. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/6 "2005-03-07T19:14:57Z")
She may, or may not be bitch, I still think she’s cool. Not for doing what she did (or did not do), but because she’s well spoken, smart, and knows what she wants. In which I’m sure she’ll do them all legally this time around. I’m just saying that if she plays her cards right, she can do extremely well in the years to come. Not just well, but a deciding factor in how businesses will be run in the future. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/7 "2005-03-07T19:18:31Z")
Her strength and resolve have been impressive throughout her ordeal, I’ll sure give her that. If she learned a little humility too then I do admire her for making some good come from a most unfortunate situation. **Parental** , just curious, do you admire her for her business acumen or marketing skills? Or both? ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/8 "2005-03-07T19:21:19Z")
Didn’t preview. My bad. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/9 "2005-03-07T19:24:42Z")
If you mean “cool” in the sense of “chilly,” Martha seems to embody coolness. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/10 "2005-03-07T19:35:32Z")
> [@Caricci](#): > > I totally think that’s what they sent her to jail for. No, she was sent to jail because she tried to plead ignorant to the law, yet at one time _she was a licensed stock broker._ If anyone know they were doing something wrong, it was her. /end informative hijack ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/11 "2005-03-07T20:21:56Z")
She seems extremely snobbish and oh-so-haute-societé in her public persona, but people who have worked for her company and know her casually in consequence have said that she is personally a very warm and caring individual, who treats her employees very well, just one with “a taste for the finer things in life.” (I think there is an ex-Martha Stewart companies Doper who also mentioned this.) And she does have a great deal of business acumen, if perhaps not the finest of business ethics. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Caricci](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Caricci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caricci)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/12 "2005-03-07T20:27:16Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > No, she was sent to jail because she tried to plead ignorant to the law, yet at one time _she was a licensed stock broker._ If anyone know they were doing something wrong, it was her. > > /end informative hijack No, that’s what she was convicted of and for which she might have received a variety of penalties . I mean, come on, they don’t _have_ to send you to jail for lots of crimes, even if it’s an option. But, thanks for the information. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/13 "2005-03-07T20:32:10Z")
When I was doing my rapid-response-server-repair gig in Manhattan (Which is responsible for the time I crossed 5th avenue against traffic) back before Y2K (Which is why I spent New Year’s Eve in Times Square waiting for a bomb in an air conditioned room and having no fun), one of my clients was Martha’s web presence people. And I’ve got to say, they used to complain like hell about the way she treated them. Maybe they didn’t have direct contact, but they said they did, and they said she was impossible. I have independently heard other people who might be in her social circle make the same complaint. Friends of the family through yachting and all that. That said, I have nothing but admiration for what she’s done, and nothing but disgust for the law she broke. (If you come in contact with a federal agent, the only thing you can do safely now, innocent or not, is repeat the 5th, and refer them to your lawyer.) ---
**Author:** ![missbunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@missbunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missbunny)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/14 "2005-03-07T21:10:42Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > No, she was sent to jail because she tried to plead ignorant to the law, yet at one time _she was a licensed stock broker._ If anyone know they were doing something wrong, it was her. Oh come on, though, that was 20 years before. It so happens that I was a licensed stock broker in 1987 and I barely remember any of it. I couldn’t tell you the exact specs of the insider trading laws today if my life depended on it. I am at this moment considered an “insider” at a international corporation and I sign stuff all the time saying I won’t use my insider info and won’t trade stock except in the allowable window, and other than that I have no idea of all the rules that I have to follow. I know some, but I don’t deal with being an insider every day so I don’t remember them all. I do think she knew she was doing something wrong, but _just_ because she had a job 20 years earlier where she would have known the rules doesn’t mean she still knew them perfectly when the incident happened. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/15 "2005-03-07T21:38:27Z")
She didn’t go to jail for any broker or insider malfeasance, did she? I thought she went to jail for perjury . . . for lying to the Securities and Exchance Commission investigators. Was that not the case? ---
**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/16 "2005-03-07T21:53:31Z")
If by cool you mean going to jail when your net worth is $3.3 mil and coming out a few months later with a net worth of $1.1 BILLION, then shaaaaaa, Martha the coolest of the cool. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2005, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/17 "2005-03-07T22:08:41Z")
I thought she showed a lot of class… when she realized she really had no chance of successful appeal of her case. The decision was crafted into a marketing coup by her gracious (read: judicious) acceptance of punishment. Upon her re-entry into society, she’s working the marketing machine with the same brutal efficiency and practiced public image. She will never be anywhere close to Bill Gates’ wealth or even in the same train of thought as far as lifetime contribution to society. Look she’s a great business woman and clearly intelligent. She’s just not widely appealing. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2005, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/18 "2005-03-08T00:21:25Z")
> [@ParentalAdvisory](#): > > Does anyone else think that Martha Stewarts personal worth will surpass Bill Gates in the next ten years? No. She’s more than a decade older than he is and tens of billions of dollars behind in terms of net worth. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2005, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/19 "2005-03-08T01:51:13Z")
> [@UncleRojelio](#): > > If by cool you mean going to jail when your net worth is $3.3 mil and coming out a few months later with a net worth of $1.1 BILLION, then shaaaaaa, Martha the coolest of the cool. She was certainly worth a lot more than 3.3 million when she went to jail. In fact, she has was worth around a billion before the whole scandal, so it’s almost as if it never happened (financially speaking). A better question would be if Martha will be richer than Oprah when they finish their careers. They are both worth about a billion dollars. I would give a slight edge to Martha because I think money means more to her. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400/20 "2005-03-08T02:23:19Z")
Another difference between Martha Stewart on the one hand and Bill Gates and Oprah on the other is that the latter two (publicly) give a lot of money to charity. I’m not aware of M.S. being particularly well known as a philanthropist. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-martha-stewart-just-cool/293400.md?page=2)