Roger McNamee founded Elevation Partners, a tech private-equity firm with $1.9 billion in assets. He can claim Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg as friends. Bono is his coworker. He earned a 700 percent return saving Seagate Technology in the 1990s. But according to Portfolio, McNamee can't succeed in the one thing he really loves: rock and roll.

Here's Moonalice and its lead guitarist Chubby Wombat — McNamee's onstage alter ego — playing "The Nectar." The band is made up of the best musicians money can buy (literally: McNamee pays them), but its sound, to my ears, died about five years before I was even born.

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