Johnny Hilbrant needed a laugh.
He’d been stuck in one too many conversations at one too many weddings listening to one too many private equity finance guys nonchalantly tick off life successes and lifestyle excesses — until his Midwest nice almost burst.
Hilbrant, 36, a fitness instructor who teaches spin classes in Boston, grew up in Winnetka, the well-heeled suburb north of Chicago. But casual flaunting and humble bragging had somehow reached new heights of ridiculousness, he thought.
Quick definition: Private equity firms — PE for short — raise money from investors to buy companies and optimize their operations, potentially generating enormous returns.
Hilbrant filed away his exasperation until March 21, when he hit record on his phone camera and harnessed all the eye rolls he suppressed into an over-the-top composite character of an obnoxious private equity guy.
He posted it on Instagram along with a filter that made his eyes bug, his nostrils flare and his lip curl.
It went viral.
More viral posts followed.
PE GUY was born.
For PE GUY, choices from vacation destinations to what school you went to are “decent.” Anything that’s highly approved — ski instructors from Chamonix or membership at the highly exclusive Los Angeles Country Club — are “awesome” and “so sick.”
He has a “wifey” and three kids — Tarantino, 4, who’s musically and athletically gifted; Montauk, 2, loves escargot; and EBITDA, the baby, whose name is also a finance acronym for “Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization.” His golden retrievers are Amalfi and Roosevelt. And he’s able to afford luxuries “due to my role.”
His Instagram followers have jumped from 7,000 to 195,000, and his TikTok followers rose from 12,000 to nearly 51,000.
A profitable side hustle
As it turns out, people inside and outside the world of business, including actual PE guys, think PE GUY is nailing it, according to feedback Hilbrant gets from people he knows in the business and from the comments section.
“I’m very surprised by it,” Hilbrant said. “The PE people I’ve heard from think it’s funny, like almost a check on the most ridiculous parts of that world.”
Hilbrant created a Cameo account in May, where people pay for videos (currently $200 a pop is his going rate) of PE GUY roasting a friend. He’s fulfilled more than 600 requests, many from head honchos in the business world, he said.
Hilbrant was shocked when a tuxedo rental company emailed him in June to ask if PE GUY would promote their brand. Why not? he figured, and ran with it.
Toward the end of August he started selling hats emblazoned with “Decent” and “Due To My Role.” He sold out of his first shipment of 100 hats — a feat he’s repeated three more times.
In mid-October, he collaborated with actor Brian Baumgartner, better known as Kevin from “The Office,” on a promotion for the financial technology firm Ramp.
Too legit to quit
Leah Berend, managing principal of Marrin Investment Partners, a private equity firm based out of Minneapolis, is a huge fan.
“Private equity is the highest performing asset class historically, and it attracts a lot of greed and people who are trying to keep up with the Joneses,” she said, noting that family money and Ivy League backgrounds traditionally accompanied many in private equity.
Hilbrant does his homework, consults with industry types about proper lingo and uses suggestions from followers on lampooning their city’s status symbols.
Hilbrant went to New Trier High School and studied business at the University of Denver because of flawed thinking he now boils down to: “Go to college, interview at a bank or investment firm, land job at firm, work in finance for 40 years and then die.” After college he worked at a popular daytime talk show in Los Angeles for two years with dreams of becoming a comedy writer.
“I looked at comedy and always wondered ‘Oh, could I do that?’ I always respected improv and standup, but ultimately I was like ‘You’re not going to be that, so just enjoy posting silly stuff on [social media] and making people in your life laugh.”
In his video lampooning Chicago, PE GUY went to Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business (“Booth is awesome, man, but we’re a little more EQ, less quant”), lives in Lincoln Park but is renovating the “Home Alone” house for a move to Winnetka.
He’s also trying to become a member of Indian Hill Country Club, a place Hilbrant knows from his childhood because his parents were members.
“I thought I was going to get in trouble and my parents were going to yell at me,” he said. “But it was well received by my folks and their friends.”
In real life, Hilbrant just bought a new house outside of Boston with his husband, an oral surgeon, who is pleasantly surprised Hilbrant’s newfound success means he can contribute to their furniture fund. Hilbrant hasn’t told his fitness club employer to take this job and shove it, but he might be headed in that direction.
Perhaps the most head-spinning development: In recent weeks three separate private equity firms reached out to discuss the possibility of partnering with PE GUY to raise a private equity fund.