Behind ‘Mad Money’ was a brilliant writer viewers never saw. We lost him too soon
Long before there was Claude, Grok or even ChatGPT, there was Cliff Mason . You would put a memo together — say, 4,000 words about some stock or some sector — and send it to Cliff, and he would “Masonize” it. He’d distill the memo into 1,250 compelling words that I would read from teleprompter on “Mad Money” because it was done precisely in my voice. Right down to the three- and four-word phrases that got to the heart of the matter, no matter what the matter was. Cliff Mason was my sister Nan’s kid. Todd Mason’s son. My nephew. A brilliant, irascible, lovable comet who brightened the sky before burning out, as if it spent too much time flying close to the sun. To say he was remarkable is to demonstrate your limited vocabulary and your lack of education and imagination. Yeah, he was that critical. Cliff came to us via Nan, as a summer associate shortly after “Mad Money” began in 2005. He was about to go off to college. We used to do a morning call about what the show would be about that evening. After a while, I guess I became such a dictator that no one would offer ideas. Then one day an unfamiliar voice piped up about an idea: a change in student loan policy and how it might benefit Sallie Mae. I asked, who is this? He said, “It’s me, Uncle Jumbo.” I guess you could say that was the day a comet was born. At the end of the summer, he came to me and asked whether he could stay on as a writer, but only on one condition: he would be the head writer and the only writer. No one else was needed. That’s pure heresy and out-of-control arrogance, but Cliff was all about pure heresy, with a deep vein of arrogance, except without knowing it. I went to Jeff Zucker, the head of NBC at the time, to ask if Cliff could give it a try. Jeff was baffled, asking Cliff whether he was still going to Harvard. Cliff said, “Why?” A Harvard grad himself, Zucker said it was hard. “Maybe for you,” said Cliff. That was enough, I guess. He started the next day. Cliff breezed through Harvard and never missed a day of work. Maybe that’s when he started Masonizing. He’d take our raw stuff and memos and turn each around into segment scripts, adding “the bottom line” and a conclusion that only he could reach to tie everything together for viewers. Periodically he would solve huge problems. In 2008, he told us injecting money into every bank would save all banks, and he criticized Fed Chief Bernanke for being late in adopting that kind of plan. During the European debt crisis, Cliff helped us maintain the “this too shall pass” mantra on the show. He admonished European Central Bank President Mario Draghi for dragging his feet unnecessarily to solve the crisis. He said it was time for Draghi to save the euro, by any means necessary. We laughed when soon after Draghi gave his famous “whatever it takes” speech in July 2012. That would help end the crisis. He thought Covid-19 would be a short-term event for the market, and you needed to buy, buy, buy. He loved Nvidia, the dog, and couldn’t use it enough. All of these, and more, you heard in my voice. Was Cliff a ventriloquist? Hardly. We emailed dozens of times a day, sometimes scores of times, to get it right for you. An error would be unforgivable. He didn’t trust the bots. In 21 years, he never made a mistake, even as he could turn 4,000 words into 1,250 words of perfect copy in what sometimes seemed like no time flat. Always on time. Cliff was the most eccentric, high-functioning person I ever met. He never adjusted to people. He was uncomfortable leaving his apartment, so he didn’t, except to walk Sheba and then Noodle. He had a terrific girlfriend, Jenny. But he didn’t venture out. When he first got his apartment he would go to Gap and buy three weeks of clothes at a time, so he wouldn’t have to deal with whoever else might be washing clothes. He could be contemptuous of anyone and everyone, except “Mad Money” research director Ben Stoto and supervising producer Heather Gaines, whom he loved. He worshipped Regina Gilgan, our executive producer, whom he regarded as his protector. He chided me for not getting things the first time. For my lack of rigor. Although he liked my stock picking ability. Regina and my wife, Lisa, and my sister, Nan, would invite him to all sorts of parties and team-building activities. He always said yes, but he almost never showed. He just stayed in his apartment hunting and pecking five days a week for the show, reading and playing video games, sometimes between segments of the show. I didn’t see him for five years, and then only once or twice every three in all 21 years. What does it matter, he would always tell me. All he cared about was that he got his copy in on time, and that it be perfectly Masonized. It always was. As irascible as he could be, there was one entity that was truly sacrosanct: you, the viewer. To him, “Mad Money” was alive, a living, breathing organism that must never be let down. And he never did let it down. Last Monday, Cliff delivered some perfect copy in 20-minute turnarounds. We marveled. Top of game, we cheered. Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. ET, Cliff’s mom, Nan, called me. Cliff was dead, she said. Found in his sleep. There would be no more Masonizing. There would be no more Cliff. The comet had burned out. The enlarged heart of the lovable, brilliant, rigorous best friend and nephew, the head writer, the only writer, as he loved to say, had stopped beating. He was 41. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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