Directors Getting Rich

It seems like its the time of year again when people are leveling accusations that the Directors of E-UNI siphon off the wallet to make themselves rich. First of, it is a categorical lie that any director (or CEO) take isk from the corp wallet to enrich themselves. But, let me take some time to explain how you can know this yourself..

1. EUNI doesn't really make as much money as people think.  We've had .1% tax (so we can keep a record of who runs missions) for a while now, and even before that, had some periods with no effective tax rate.  This means our entire organization runs on donations and lotteries.  I will admit, some of our contributors are extremely generous, and it is a great help, but huge donations aren't common. Most donations are <50m.

While the latest lottery was a significant money builder (thanks Nev), this is the exception, not the rule.  I've run lotteries in the past that only made 100m for the Uni. 

2. Some of our services are expensive. People look at things like our skillbook wallet, and say "Its only 1m a day, it can't be that expensive."  However, when you look at this program across 1800 people, it gets much larger. Now, we all know that not every student uses this, and its not always used to the max for a person each day.  So,  lets assume that only 10% of our students use this on a given day, and only for 500k. 1800 * .1 * 500000 * 30 gives us a monthly expense of = 2,700,000,000.  2.7b isk a month isn't exactly pocket change.  If you think 10% is too high, even 2% of our students using this program on  given day brings us to a monthly expense of 540m.

Then, just look at something as simple as our hangars.  Someone could easily fit out a t1 rifter for 500k worth of items from our hangar.  The same math applies as above.  If we had 2% of our students grab a rifter each day, it would be 540m.  Larger numbers quickly scale even higher.  When you factor in cruisers (at over 10x the cost for the hull+fittings), it quickly scales to large numbers of isk.

3.  Any director can see the wallet logs for the entire corp.  For this to actually be true, all of the current and former directors would have to be running a perfect conspiracy where no one has ever broken silence. Additionally, some of the managers can see wallet logs as well, so they would also have to maintain the perfect conspiracy.   We have had several different managers over the last few years, and several new directors as well.  They just wouldn't all agree to be part of a conspiracy of this nature. Anyone who understands human nature knows that this isn't just implausible, but also practically impossible.
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Our wallet is needed to support what we do.  We don't have the isk to spare to make ourselves rich, and we don't have a culture within the leadership that allows it.  As soon as one of us tried, they would quickly be removed and ostracized. 

Now, to be honest, that doesn't mean I haven't benefited economically from students.  Its just not been a direct benefit as a result of my position, or a benefit that couldn't be duplicated by any other eve player. As an example, as a private eve player, I've done things like haul in some t2 hulls/mods (which we don't supply as a corp) and sold them on the local market at our HQ.  So, I did make isk off of students buying my goods, but any other player could have done the same thing. This is also an activity that happens in plenty of corps, with some people working to make a bit of isk off of supplying a market used by the corp.

In fact, several of the Uni directors are quite poor compared to other players of their age, and a very few others are richer.  It has nothing to do with their position as a corp director, and a lot to do with how they spend their time in eve when they aren't doing Uni stuff.  Those that do t2 manufacturing, trading, etc.. have bigger wallets.  Those that avoid that stuff don't....its really as simple as that.

Why do I do it?

In a recent thread, someone asked why people would want to stay in EUNI and teach, be a director, or work as a manager. This isn't the first time I've been asked something like that, so I thought I'd talk about why I do it.

First off, I don't do it for some powertrip, or any of those common accusations.  Thats not the type of behavior I've ever really liked.  I will admit to enjoying the occasional trolling, but thats a bit different. I do it mainly because of  3 reasons.

1.  I actually do enjoy helping people.  My day job also involves a career in which I assist people, and its just part of my personality that I enjoy it.  Now, I don't do this my entire time in eve.  There are times when I just want to get on an alt and do something else, and I do.  Sometimes it might have involved scamming someone.  Other days it might be trying¹ to blow up some unsuspecting guy. It depends on my mood. But, I do consistently find helping new players to be "fun".

2.  I enjoy the community in Eve University.  When I first joined, I didn't have any plans on sticking around for the long term.  However, over time I grew to like the people in Eve Uni.  Yes, the vast majority of the people from my first year have gone elsewhere, but other people have come in and become my friends as well. The people have changed, but the sense of community has stayed the same. 
3. For some bizarre reason, part of my personality enjoys puzzles and organiztion.  My job as Logistics director puts me in a position where I have to take things like production lines, BPO availability, corp roles, isk flow, etc.. and fit them together in a way to maximize our capabilities to efficiently meet our needs.  I know a lot of people would be bored silly by this, but for some reason I'm not.  Call it a major personality flaw, but it does make me find my eve "job" fun.  When someone asks a question about how to redo our title structure to accomplish xy while still being secure and not doing z, I do find it interesting.  God, I'm weird.

Footnotes:
¹I said trying because I am remarkably average in PVP.  I'm probably above average at the market and industry, but I am not a PVP god and will/have never claim(ed) to be one.