Can we talk about Josh Kerr having 4-5 employees

There is a lot to unpack there, but is it 4 or 5? An employer should probably know how many employees they have, especially when the number is that small.

T&F just lost the top Marathoner. Ingebrigtsen family is imploding. Seems like top T&F athletes need good people around them.

I hope his social media girl reminds him to do a congratulatory post when Ingy smokes him in the Olympics.

When you earn $2mil/year you can do what you want.

All the little things he doesn't have to worry about adds up so he can focus on training and racing. Jakob had his mom and dad to do that and a manager and agent perhaps. And now he has his wife in place of his parents plus his brothers.

I remember seeing his dad with a big spreadsheet on the show. Travel logistics takes up time and thought.

He needs to fire whoever is responsible for his bono-inspired clown specs.

Top athletes do a great job at mentally preparing themselves to perform at a top level. In a way, they’re spoiled little kids, but it’s necessary because they spend their lives preparing for high level comp. The less stress, the better athletes are off to recover and train at the top elite level.

People who performed at just the high school and college level and did it for the socialization aspect wouldn’t understand it. These athletes have to put their “adult” responsibilities on hold to be great.

Again, it’s hard to explain to people who don’t know what real “athletic pressure” is like. Even if you know somebody who qualified to the marathon Olympic trials, that doesn’t make you an expert.

You’ve got to be insane and/or completely delusional if you think he’s making $2mm a year. I would be shocked if he made >$200k/yr including endorsements, bonuses, and prize money. You’re completely out of touch.

Right, there’s no way he’s making Kipchoge money. Probably more like $37,000 a year. I think this dude has a trust fund.

And his personal groomer. He seems to have issues choosing acceptable facial hair patterns.

I doubt he's their only client if that's what you're gathering from this. But yes it does feel excessive.

They're not employees. They're people he hires to perform tasks, much as many of us hire contractors to do things for us. He might use their services regularly, but he has not incorporated a business and created a staff who receive W-2s (or maybe the British version thereof). Most of Kerr's "employees" probably have multiple clients.

This is similar to the frequent misunderstanding that someone like Kerr is an employee of Brooks. He's an independent contractor.

He said “a lot of those people are full time”. This is implying full time for him. If someone does part time work for you, you wouldn’t refer to them as full time just because they fill out their schedule with other clients. PR team working for him too. I can’t figure out how a lot of his 4-5 employees are full time

Josh gon' need a 12 squad to even sniff Jakob this summer.

Agreed. Him calling them employees is because he’s egotistical. That’s not really relevant though. He said a lot of the people that he’s hired are full time. That implies they are working full time for him and getting paid a full time salary/rate. If they do work on top of that is irrelevant. I have a full time job and have a side job I do some weekends

I believe he said last year that his girl friend had call him out regarding his lack of commitment to being the best runner because of his eating habits. So he hired a personal dietician/chef. He said it made a difference and was one of the things that helped him in his preparation and training that resulted in a win at World's.

So now, after experiencing the difference a chef made, he seems to be going all in and has hired all these other people to do other things so he can focus more on his job to train, recover and ultimately run fast.

This is not surprising as other athletes in other sports have been doing this for years, and to a much greater extent than Kerr suggests he is now doing.

Pro cyclist teams have popularized the pursuit of marginal gains, which are small seemingly insignificant improvements in performance as a result of sometimes massive expenditures of time/energy and money in pursuit of those gains. But there is much more money in pro cycling than running and it is more of a team sport, so the teams can afford and justify doing whatever it takes.

Its impressive that Kerr is pursuing marginal gains to the extent he is, although I believe his dietician/personal chef will result in the biggest gain for his investment. And his willingness to commit to doing whatever it takes has made me want to root for him much more than before.

It's surprising more pro runners do not do what Kerr is doing. Especially regarding their diet (its shocking to watch some of the top runners share videos of their eating habits).

Whether or not these people are actually working full time for him is questionable. But if he believes they are, it might provide extra motivation for him.

Does Josh Kerr really only make that much? If that's all a guy near the top makes, most "pro runners" gotta be more like semi-pros.

Perhaps the people close to him are offered benefits and housing in exchange for full-time commitment?