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It was alleged that Martin Shkreli harassed an ex-employee, including spouse and their children. Quoted: "I will see you and your children homeless"[1], in a sw
by gizmo 11y ago
It was alleged that Martin Shkreli harassed an ex-employee, including spouse and their children. Quoted: "I will see you and your children homeless"[1], in a sworn affidavit.
Although Shkreli never explicitly denied it, he had implied the accusations were false. Until yesterday, where he bragged about it during an interview with DX:
I’m definitely the real fucking deal. This
is not a fucking act. I threatened that
fucking guy and his fucking kids because
he fucking took $3 million from me and
he ended up paying me back. He called my
bluff. He said, “You’re not fucking going to
go after me.” [I said] “Yes I motherfucking
will.” I had two guys parked outside of
his house for six months watching his every
fucking move. I can get down. I don’t think
RZA knows that. I think he thinks I’m
some powder puff white guy CEO that’s
got too much money. No. No, no, no.
Not the kind of behavior you'd expect from the CEO of a publicly traded company.
[1] http://mic.com/articles/125657/turing-ceo-martin-shkreli-wanted-to-make-former-colleague-and-family-homeless http://mic.com/articles/125657/turing-ceo-martin-shkreli-wan...
[2] http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2825/title.martin-shkreli-plans-to-bail-out-bobby-shmurda http://hiphopdx.com/interviews/id.2825/title.martin-shkreli-...
- Nicholas_C 11y agoThe 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?
- obstacle1 11y agoLife, 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.
- Nicholas_C 11y agoAnd extreme luck.
- sweezyjeezy 11y agoNo. 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...
- Nicholas_C 11y agoI'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.
- desuvader 11y agoHe is one of the best investors in pharma. Started out as a teenager in hedge funds. Famous for shorting biotech and earning millions.
- gnoway 11y agoThe 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.
- gnoway 11y agoI looked this up, it's actually called 'short and distort'
- crdoconnor 11y agoWhen 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.
- 11y ago
- disantlor 11y ago"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."
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- golergka 11y ago> 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.
- _-__--- 11y agoI guess that Wu Tang album really spoke to him
- zappo2938 11y agoWu Tang speak to him as much as Rage Against the Machine speaks to Paul Ryan.
- strictnein 11y agoRage 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?
- zappo2938 11y agoC.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.
- golergka 11y agoPoint about RATM still stands. Not because "all corporations are evil — of course not — but because RATM preaches exactly that "all corporations are evil".
- crdoconnor 11y ago
- 2close4comfort 11y agoThis 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.
- fbbbbb 11y agoToo 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 https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/status/677168810432946176 [1]:https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/ https://twitter.com/MartinShkreli/ [2]:http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/466231/Martin-Shkreli-most-hated-man-Aids-medication-price-hike http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/466231/Martin-Sh...
- gizmo 11y agoGiven 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)
- mikeash 11y ago
- DanielBMarkham 11y agoYes. 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.
- dasil003 11y agoI think unless you called it "the fucking cocaine" he would probably not even hear the words coming out of your mouth.
- gizmo 11y agoHe'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.
- Osiris 11y agoKaloBios is down 50%: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/martin-shkreli-losing-over-25-million-on-his-kalobios-stock-2015-12-17 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/martin-shkreli-losing-over-...
- ultramancool 11y agoI doubt he'll be a CEO much longer considering that interview and these charges, shareholders will probably want him out pretty quick.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoNo, most CEOs of publicly traded companies are at least smart enough not to brag about it.
- eli 11y agoKinda seems like part of a shtick to me. But what do I know.
- j03m1 11y agoOr is it?
- Geekette 11y agoWowzers! 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.
- kbenson 11y ago> 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?
- madaxe_again 11y agoThe 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.
- Geekette 11y agoBasically 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.
- kbenson 11y agoAh, 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.
- qq66 11y agoThis is so over-the-top that it could be a Vincent Gigante-style maneuver.
- peter303 11y agoDefinitely a heavy user of recreational drugs. This crime may have been related to that.
- gmarx 11y agoNot necessarily. Bipolar disorder and/or narcissistic personality disorder and/or sociopathy could account for it too. Or all of the above including coke
- beedogs 11y agoIdono. Sociopathy seems to be pretty common among the executive class.
- k33n 11y agoIs Reddit leaking?
- fweespeech 11y ago> 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.
- bro-stick 11y agoKeltner and Piff pretty much settled that enriched people feel entitled to not give a fuck about anyone other than themselves.
- jl87 11y agoWhat a baller.
- SCAQTony 11y agoNot even borderline! My God, what a clear and distinct admission of having a severe personality disorder.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- efuquen 11y ago"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.
- nemanja 11y agoHe'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.