How Barack Obama Can Make More Money on Medium than He Ever Earned from Presidency

Because Medium has real money-earning opportunities

If you have a habit of reading articles on Medium and following politicians, you may have noticed that Barack Obama recently joined Medium and published his first story. As of today, July 30th, 2020, it gained 240,000 claps, and the former president already has 52,000 followers on this platform. The article was published exactly two months ago, on June 1st, 2020, and Mr. Obama posted two more stories since then. In such a short time, he managed to attract a lot of readers and subscribers. We can’t be surprised: after all, he is the most recent president who left the office, the very first black president in American history, and a man who captured a lot of attention while serving two terms in this role.

I know people don’t like to talk about money, and discussing someone else’s finances might seem untactful. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and as a financier, I’m purely interested in people’s success stories. Many writers are trying to “make it” in the newly developed digital space, which is why it’s fruitful to discuss the opportunities we have online.

I would like to use Barack Obama is an example of how a public figure can earn a living. I have a lot of respect and admiration for this man, and I hope people won’t see my take on his Medium presence as something negative. Disclaimer: all the numbers and figures in this article are theories and predictions for learning purposes — please don’t see them as allegations.

His First Article Went Viral

The very first story President Obama posted was a huge success — again, it got 240,000 claps. We don’t know how many views the article received, as one viewer can clap multiple times. We are also unaware of the lifetime member reading time: the article requires a four-minute read, but we can only speculate what the average reading time was.

By the end of the day, we don’t know if Barack Obama even joined the Medium Partnership Program. Maybe he didn’t, or perhaps he did. If he opted in to receive compensation for his writing, it could potentially turn into significant monetary gain.

Imagine He Joined the Program. How Much Did His Article Make?

For a moment, let’s imagine Barack Obama decided to get paid for posting his stories. How much money does an article make if it accumulates 240,000 claps? I will attempt to predict this figure.

While I’m not a former American president, I will use my most successful article as an example. It gained around 16,000 views and 1,500 claps. How much money did it make? As of today, $617. Therefore, every 1000 claps brought in roughly $411. I suspect that Barack Obama would get on average many more claps from his followers compared to me, but we need some baseline.

Based on the calculations above, we can predict that 240,000 claps can potentially equal $98,640. Almost $100,000 in two months! Even if we imagine that many readers decided to clap more than once, and the earnings were twice lower, that’s still $25,000 for June and the same amount In July. Now, imagine the former president found time in his schedule to write a few articles each month. Granted, not every one of them will have an exorbitant number of views, but there is still a huge income potential.

How Much Can a Public Figure Make Yearly?

I can see a famous individual making over $50,000 monthly publishing on Medium. I’m not sure if Obama is more prominent than Kardashians, but if one of the Kardashians were to sign up for Medium, the website would crash. When someone with a huge online following joins a new platform, they don’t have to work on gaining subscribers — they already have a long list of loyal fans.

If one were to earn $50,000 each month by writing a story in spare time, it would amount to a yearly income of $600,000. The president’s salary of $400,000 sounds like a sweet deal as well, but the Medium Partnership Program beats that figure. Considering that it takes a few hours to write an article, while you need to invest your entire time into running the country, publishing on Medium sounds so much easier.

What Can We Learn from This?

As a simple Medium writer, I can see a learning opportunity. For instance, it’s a good idea to follow famous figures to hear life lessons from them. It’s also opportunistic, because are you engaging with them and are getting attention from other readers. I didn’t write any comments on Barack Obama’s articles yet, but I always enjoy lively discussions.

Ultimately, once you build a following of your own, it becomes much easier to succeed online. A big audience also translates into more opportunities, including monetary ones. But for now, I will keep learning from others. And I am truly happy for anyone who succeeds on Medium, regardless if they used to run a country or not.