Hacker News Reader

> Not the kind of behavior you'd expect from the CEO of a publicly traded company.

Threatening people — this I would actually expect... But admitting it on interviews — definitely not.

I guess that Wu Tang album really spoke to him

Or all the cocaine.

Wu Tang speak to him as much as Rage Against the Machine speaks to Paul Ryan.

Rage is so against the machine that they've done over $100 million in revenue for Sony. So, yeah, they make lots of money for a big multinational. Sounds like something a stereotypical Republican would like, no?

C.R.E.A.M. by Wu - Tang addresses this. The song is about how they went from being drug dealers to preaching to kids how gang banging and drug dealing isn't the way. They made a lot of money doing that too, deservedly so. Corporations and cash for that matter are not inherently corrupt. My point is if people really listened to Wu - Tang they wouldn't be corrupt drug dealers even if they sold legal drugs.

Point about RATM still stands. Not because "all corporations are evil — of course not — but because RATM preaches exactly that "all corporations are evil".

It's nice how they got to choose between that and being unknowns for the rest of their lives.

Are you making a joke or is the "RZA" that he refers to the same?

http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/martin-shkreli-wu-tang-cla...

He is the purchaser of a Wu-Tang album of which only one copy was to exist known as "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" [0].

Which has a clause stating that Wu-Tang or Bill Murray can attempt one heist to steal the album back without repercussion [1].

The world is a strange place.

Also sorry about the ad ridden mess that is reference [1], I'm at work.

[0] - http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/martin-shkreli-wu-tang-cla...

[1] - http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2015/12/wu-tang-bill-murray-stea...

The clause is a hoax. A pretty hilarious one though! http://nymag.com/following/2015/12/wu-tang-wont-actually-ste...

When I heard about the hoax, I felt stupid for falling for this thing about a Wu-Tang album with only one copy that the owner hadn't even listened to.

THEN I found out that only the Bill Murray clause was a hoax, and the actual album thing is true. Christ.

Shkreli is indeed referring to the Clan's RZA. Shkreli recently bought the single existing copy of their newest album.

Reminds of a rumor about the CEO of a BigCo. He wanted to buy a news paper company, so he went to them and said "Do you want to work for us or against us?"

This is happening right now in Nevada though its political (for the primary season) not business.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-bought-nevadas-largest-paper...

He's a sociopath. Not even a smart one, just a dumb sociopath. A mildly smart sociopath could not possibly be on record with those statements.

Referring to him as CEO of a publicly traded company (which he factually is) is quite generous. His hedge fund was apparently a pump and dump scheme (generally hard thing to prove in court, so he got away with it). He eventually lost all of investors' money, which he repaid by allegedly committing securities fraud that he's arrested for. The two companies that he started (fired from the first one for fraud, then started the second as a carbon copy) were simple sham operations where he would use the equity from public investors to buy life saving drugs and then simply jack up the prices to make it NPV positive. No real research, no science, just media hype and b/s.

Hope that his lawyers jack up the rates at least 5,000%, prosecutors do a good job and, provided charges are proven, a sensible judge puts him away for some time in a real prison, not a country club for white-collar criminals. Just think a place like Sing Sing could be an educational, growth experience for a guy who threatens one's family like that. May just show him how tough and smart he really is.

No, most CEOs of publicly traded companies are at least smart enough not to brag about it.

Yes. I do not know this man and I have no idea of his habits, but we're entering into "You need to stop doing that damned cocaine" territory -- that is, whether the cause is intrinsic or extrinsic, it appears to the casual observer that he is suffering from severe personality problems.

Makes you wonder who made or approved of him being CEO.

He's the CEO of two companies.

In the case of Turing Pharmaceuticals he's the CEO because he founded the company and it's funded by his hedge fund buddies, who like him because they made a lot of money from his hedge fund MSMB, despite the hedge fund being a failure.

He'a also the CEO of KaloBios. In that case he bought, with the same buddies, 70% of the company stock. As the new majority shareholder he simply appointed himself CEO.

KaloBios is down 50%: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/martin-shkreli-losing-over-...

I doubt he'll be a CEO much longer considering that interview and these charges, shareholders will probably want him out pretty quick.

I think unless you called it "the fucking cocaine" he would probably not even hear the words coming out of your mouth.

"I think he thinks I’m some powder puff white guy CEO that’s got too much money."

No, you really are a powder puff white guy with too much money. You think because you can hire some goons to watch someone that makes you 'tough'? That's the very epitomization of some powder puff rich white dude that thinks he can buy himself into being a tough guy. Let's see how tough he'll be once he's sharing a jail cell.

This DX interview is CRAZY! I read it before this broke and it pretty much solidified my thoughts about how he must view himself and his actions.

Too crazy. I can't believe any public person, would say anything like that on record. I wouldn't be surprised if the article was revealed to be fake, but apparently he approved it [0]. So, either the article is real, or this [1] twitter account isn't his, which doesn't seem likely.

This must be a case of damage control [2] going haywire.

[0]:https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/677168810432946176

[1]:https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/

[2]:http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/466231/Martin-Sh...

Given that the complete audio of the interview is available on youtube, it's 100% without question genuine.

(Ah, they took the interview audio down, apparently. I listened to the complete phone interview, and I can vouch for the transcript being accurate, for what it's worth)

Can you share the link and the title of the video? I want to find a mirror.

There you go (unlisted videos):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1mmfKSbrww&list=PLOclQd__D4...

I think this is what happens when you believe your own bullshit too hard and for too long. It's one thing to go around acting like you're God's gift to humanity, but if you start actually believing it, large unpleasant men with guns will come and explain how you've got it wrong.

Or they'll believe it too and rally around you. There's being high on your own bullshit, and getting others high on your fantastical bullshit. He wouldn't have got as far as he has if he hasn't at least some knack for the latter.

I suppose the trick is to stay ahead of the wake of your reality distortion field, and being able to maintain such.

Or they will laud and eulogize you as a visionary that forever changed the tech industry.

When keeping it real goes wrong.

> Not the kind of behavior you'd expect from the CEO of a publicly traded company.

FWIW, I know from personal experience this happens in private equity and I'm not surprised it does in publicly traded companies. Suffice to say, I stopped working with those people once I became aware they retained a guy and his goons for such a purpose.

The amazing part is he admitted it.

Wowzers! Talk about being lost in the sauce. Dude is stomping on the broken hamster treadmill in temple of his familiar otherwise known as the wilderness of his mind, currently indistinguishable from the streets or the movies. Presumably, his investors/associates have long known and abided by this as long as he was making them money.

> Dude is stomping on the broken hamster treadmill in temple of his familiar otherwise known as the wilderness of his mind

I'll bite. I'm interested in what this means, because I can't seem to get more than four words in together before becoming completely lost. Mind giving me the cliff notes version?

The doors of perception have opened wide, the fourth wall of his narrative has broken. :)

In short, his interview suggests that he is having issues distinguishing from his internal and external worlds. This is what happens when you lie so habitually you can't remember what's real and what's not - and a good followup to ensure that you really struggle to remember what's what is to spend as much time as possible coked up.

Basically a non-artist formerly known as merely a conceited dude, had the walls between his "knowledge" of his greatness and the perceived reflections of it from outside (e.g. from movies and others' glam lives) collide. Collision fueled by a rage at everyone else's lack of acknowledgement of his greatness.

madaxe_again's summation is on track. But I don't believe coke was necessarily involved - some people just have higher and growing concentrations of asshole within them.

Ah, that mostly matches the general "feel" I got from what you said, without entirely following your expressions.

As a side, I'll note that while densely chained and encapsulated metaphors, allusions and references to esoteric portions of popular culture can be fun to communicate in, and can be effective when used with a specific audience, but when used to communicate with a wider audience often ends up being substandard in the communication department. E.g. Poems are great for communicating complex emotions and feeling to someone interesting in reading poetry, but aren't the natural medium for communicating on most subjects.

Although it's entirely possible I'm too sensitive to this.

You are too sensitive to this. Consider that sometimes, one engages in tightly layered banter, knowing that only some people will read through all layers. Which is fine because at minimum, the main sentiment (in this case, "this person's off the rails") is conveyed.

So, in this particular instance of individual expression of a common sentiment, universal and uniform reception of message is not crucial. Otherwise, rest assured, I'm well aware of the importance of clear communication.

But this is a discussion forum. There's plenty of places to go to on the internet to express yourself if you want tightly layered banter, such as reddit (which is not meant to denigrate reddit, it's comments just service a slightly different purpose in many cases). Clear communication of a point that furthers that discussion is sort of the point of HN comments, and what makes them a little different (hopefully).

If I had been able to parse your comment enough to be sure it was just an overly verbose joke at his expense along with a disparagement of anyone that's happened to partner with him, I would have just downvoted you and been done with it, as the comment's not really in good taste, but more importantly it doesn't really contribute anything. That's not really meant to be an insult, we all go off-topic at times. You just happened to do it in a way that kept me from even determining whether you really were contributing anything.

Discussion can certainly proceed without knowing every last bit of nuance of my commentary because my key point is clear: the guy's off the rails and his business partners apparently tolerated this as long as he was making them money.

Naturally, you're entitled to your opinion of it, which differs from mine. Hence, we agree to disagree.

> Discussion can certainly proceed without knowing every last bit of nuance of my commentary because my key point is clear

No, your key point wasn't clear, at least not to me. It was so unclear, except for what I assumed based on some general feel and what you were replying to, that I actually stopped and asked you what you were trying to say.

> Hence, we agree to disagree.

Fair enough.

The most confusing thing about this whole Shkreli ordeal is how someone who acts this way and is this young made enough money in the first place to buy out pharma companies. Maybe he inherited it?

Life, and especially the capitalism aspect, is a game of imperfect information. As with any other game of imperfect information, aggression plus the intelligence to exploit the information gained from aggression can get you very far in life.

And extreme luck.

No. Read the article :

Shkreli’s extraordinary history—and current hold on the public imagination—makes the case more noteworthy than most involving securities fraud. The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who worked as janitors and raised him deep in working-class Brooklyn...

I've read a bit about him but did not see that. Thanks.

So, my confusion still remains as to how he accumulated that much capital in the first place.

EDIT: Yes, perhaps through greed and malice. But how exactly? To go from nothing to enough money to buy companies is quite a jump and you need several consecutive breaks/perfect opportunities.

He is one of the best investors in pharma. Started out as a teenager in hedge funds. Famous for shorting biotech and earning millions.

The article said he had a reputation for getting on forums, etc. and trashing stocks that he was also shorting. Seems like a form of pump and dump to me, if he really had that reputation it's surprising he hasn't gotten into more trouble.

I looked this up, it's actually called 'short and distort'

When he shorted biotech he triggered the price fall by launching a complaint with the FDA I believe.

Sort of the opposite of pump and dump.

Basically he is smart and has no morals against doing whatever it takes... he has numerous 'black marks on his record' he just never really had to face repercussions...

and he has capital because he has made money for the people who have given him money... that simple.

If you're prepared to be dishonest it's extremely easy to lay your hands on capital. You can steal, you can gouge, you can trample people and take everything from them, you can pump and dump, you can play financial games, you can lie to investors, you can lie to the media, you can borrow and then re-lend under false pretences, you can play shell games. In short, there are many ways to make a dishonest living in the corporate world.

If I opted to be a lying shit, I could conjure up several £M by dinner time tomorrow, and then leg it - but most of us have ethical norms that prohibit such behaviour.

What evidence do you have that he acquired his wealth this way? You are just assuming so because since he has done some bad things with his current wealth.

I don't know, the court documents that show he's done at least a few of the items on that list?!

What evidence do you have that they are just assuming so because since he has done some bad things with his current wealth? You are just assuming that they are assuming so.

The trick is to convince other people to let you manage their money. If you have a good track record, and attract people with a lot of money to invest, you start making a lot of money off the management fees. Half a percent adds up when it's taken off tens of millions.

"Shkreli started his career interning for “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer while still a teenager. After recommending successful trades, Shkreli eventually set up his own hedge fund, quickly developing a reputation for trashing biotechnology stocks in online chatrooms and shorting them, to enormous profit."

Definitely a heavy user of recreational drugs. This crime may have been related to that.

Not necessarily. Bipolar disorder and/or narcissistic personality disorder and/or sociopathy could account for it too. Or all of the above including coke

This is so over-the-top that it could be a Vincent Gigante-style maneuver.

Kinda seems like part of a shtick to me. But what do I know.

Keltner and Piff pretty much settled that enriched people feel entitled to not give a fuck about anyone other than themselves.

Not even borderline! My God, what a clear and distinct admission of having a severe personality disorder.

Or is it?

What a baller.