Join My Team: Wharton Student Prepares for Fruitful Career in Pyramid Scheme

Wharton hopes to produce successful graduates in a wide variety of fields, from finance, to investment banking, to finance, to many other job fields intent on maintaining the capitalist status quo. 

But one Wharton student, Janyce "Avon" MacArthur (W ’19), is bucking the standard path usually strictly prescribed from the start of the program. She's decided to go into a successful career in “a new multi-level triangle shaped business idea, which is totally, 100%, absolutely not a pyramid scheme.” 

MacArthur earned her nickname “Avon” after trying to sell products on her Instagram and alienating old friends by insisting they “join her team” before she'd hang out with them. From there, she says, her passion for somewhat dubious, ethically questionable business practices was sparked, leading her to form the Multi-Level Marketing Club. Members must recruit at least 10 new freshmen in order to join, who must then recruit 10 new high schoolers, and so on until the entire world is part of the MLM club. 

MacArthur’s new place of employment, Dimaryp Investments, claims to “allow people to seize control of their own futures” by deciding their own hours and setting their own goals. According to the company’s website, “each paying participant recruits two further participants, with returns being given to early participants using money contributed by later ones,” the exact wording of the pyramid scheme. 

MacArthur, the former head of Wharton Consulting and one of the best students within the Wharton specialty in Entrepreneurship, says she thinks the company is exciting and “fun,” and admits that while it may have some pyramid-like features (such as the organizational structure, which is triangular), it isn’t a pyramid scheme, because it says that it isn’t. 

“That’s enough proof for me,” said MacArthur. “Why would a company ever lie to its custome– oh wait, I mean, fellow entrepreneurs? A company can’t lie, since that’s like, totally illegal.”

We wish MacArthur the best of luck in her future enterprises, and would like to formally ask her to stop sending us Instagram DMs about a "money-making opportunity that guarantees financial freedom."