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Comment by fitzroy | Hacker News Reader

For anyone interested, the documentary Betting On Zero is very good (on Netflix). I'd be curious to hear how the film came together and got financed. It certainly has an agenda and Bill Ackman comes out looking pretty good vs Herbalife.

That said, Ackman looks a lot less good in episode 3 of "Dirty Money" regarding Valeant (also on Netflix).

Obligitory "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" quote.

EDIT: Just noticed Herbalife owns bettingonzero.com. They put up a "FAQ" saying Ackman secretly funded the doc and they're promoting the link with ads on Google.

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I worked at a small MLM. Saw the actual numbers. The Company took 80% of the revenue. There's some BS about how you're only supposed to steal 42% or something maybe that's the payout, it was a while back.

Interesting short term job. GTFO as soon as I saw the real numbers.

It's interesting that Ackman seems to have been doing against Herbalife exactly what his opponents were doing when they were shorting Valeant. With Valeant, Ackman seemed pretty naive and/or delusional about its value and operations.

(That said, Valeant still exist today, despite its extremely immoral and shady past doings. I was dismayed to find recently that one of my favourite brands, CeraVe, is actually a Valeant company.)

No need to worry then, Valeant sold CeraVe to L'Oreal last year.

Interesting, thanks. Apparently the deal was completed in March. I guess it takes a while to update the products.

Problem with Ackman is he thinks he's doing God's work by shorting Herbalife, but in reality if he wanted to "do good" himself he would have gone to law school and taken up the cases themselves (pro bono likely), or pay lawyers to take it on. Maybe the exploited customers would have even won a larger class action. Even though he showed a human side, Ackman failed at doing what he's supposed to do which is invest other people's money.

He might say he's shorting for a good cause, but we don't know if that's true. From what we know of his Valeant involvement, there's nothing indicating that his investment decisions are based on morality.

(Based on how much money he's lost, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's hard to say exactly what else his investment decisions are based on.)

> Obligitory "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" quote.

Investing in large financial scams isn't irrational in the current regulatory environment. The only danger to them is that they conflict or compete with some other, larger business that can lobby politicians. Ackman personally was actually the biggest threat to Herbalife, which is why we heard so much about this.

Also worth watching the Dirty Money episode (Netflix as well) on the pharmaceutical company Valeant. Ackerman was heavily involved here on the flip side (he was helping the wrongdoers rather than trying to short them and expose the fraud)

Ah, I didn't saw your comment.. +1

I can't imagine it is very difficult for anyone to come out looking good when compared to Herbalife.

I'd also advice "dirty money" on Netflix. It's very good ( but nothing to do with Herbalife though)

Note: that documentary is in support of Bill Ackman.

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