It’s too bad that Wu-Tang Financial never became a real thing, especially now that Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the real monetary wiz kid of the group, is no longer with us. (R.I.P. Dirt McGirt.) But now life is imitating art, if by the Wu-Tang Clan you actually mean Linkin Park: The rap-rock group recently launched its own venture capital firm, Machine Shop Ventures, according to Consequence Of Sound.
Turns out that that “Numb” money doesn’t last forever, and now that the group is getting a little older and facing the very real prospect of having to go on the Faygo circuit until rap-rock comes back (it’s going to, by the way, so get ready), its members have decided to look into alternate ways of increasing their respective cash flows. The firm, which touts itself as an “innovation company,” was reportedly developed with input from Harvard Business experts and professional investors who studied the business models of successful musicians and alt-tycoons like Jay Z, Pharrell, Vice, and Red Bull.
The Machine Shop Ventures website is currently just a landing page, but there is an email listed, so maybe send them a message if you’d like your investment portfolio to have the diversity and uniquely irritating quality of a band who took two great musical genres and managed to ruin them both. Speaking of, Linkin Park says it will keep making music, although Machine Shop executive VP Kiel Berry says, “creating and selling music now plays more of a supporting role in our overall business mix.” Given the alternative, maybe this is a pretty savvy move after all.