7 ms·
Honestly, I quite like Shkreli. His YouTube videos are helpful [0], and he is transparently offensive rather than secretly so. I'm much more turned-off by peop
by lhnz 10y ago
Honestly, I quite like Shkreli. His YouTube videos are helpful [0], and he is transparently offensive rather than secretly so.
I'm much more turned-off by people that hide in the shadows. Shkreli might exploit the system, but he'll do so in a way that makes it patently obvious which doors need to be closed, and he'll make a joke of it while he does it.
Seems to me he's the George Hotz of the pharmaceuticals industry.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gjB1PSXv_oAUSAQ16S0fA/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8gjB1PSXv_oAUSAQ16S0fA/vid...
- mistermann 10y agoI do too, I've watched him just live streaming hanging out with friends on youtube quite a few times, he's definitely a shit disturber but I actually think he's a very smart guy, and I'm not even sure how evil he is.
- BoorishBears 10y agoI also like that he's knowledgable on many on the subjects on which he speaks, half the people I've spoken to that "hate him" have no idea why other than he made a low volume drug expensive (never mind any of the details behind it)
- dasboth 10y agoI'm curious, what were the details that made that story sound less bad than it does at first glance?
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lionyo 10y agoHe raised the price of Daraprim for insurers, and allows patients to receive it for free if they can't afford it
- maxerickson 10y agoInsurers get their money from premiums. Charging them more drives up medical costs for everyone.
- Arizhel 10y agoThat's correct, which proves that the system is fundamentally broken.
- zimpenfish 10y agoIt might prove the system fundamentally broken but it does it at the expense of people's health and lives. Not a tradeoff I'd care to make, personally.
- Arizhel 10y agoSure, but why should anyone care about what you personally think or what tradeoff you'd make? Are you the CEO of a pharma company? Or a politician who has some power over the healthcare industry? No? Then you don't matter. The people who DO make these decisions think very differently from you. They're all part of the system, and the system is obviously fundamentally broken. Us sitting around and whining about sociopaths doing sociopathic things is not going to make them stop being sociopathic and making decisions that negatively affect peoples' health and lives.
- maxerickson 10y agoIt demonstrates a problem with the system, I'm not sure it is fundamental. There's lots of more widely used generic drugs that are available for a nominal fee.
- rudolf0 10y agoJust because he's pointing out a flawed system doesn't mean he isn't exploiting it and personally profiting off of it as well.
- BoorishBears 10y agoMind you I have no qualification on the subject matter so I'm reluctant to share the results of my attempts to parse the situation and I could be completely wrong, but it sounded to me like there was a drug that was cheap but not very profitable, and he hiked the price to make it more profitable. He argues most patients won't directly experience that hike because of insurance, and that no one who can't directly afford the increased price will be denied access to it because of Turing's assistance programs. He also argues that the real issue is that there's nothing stopping the company from trying to extract that money from insurance companies, and the government in some cases (and from that I infer that it's a case where if you're the company not taking advantage of the system, you won't be a company for long). And that all the vitriol at the price hike should be directed at what's a fundamentally broken system, in his opinion.
- JackFr 10y agoRead the Wikipedia article on him. He is a primarily a stock manipulator who specializes in biotech stocks. Before his drug pricing hijinks he started and shuttered to hedge funds, both of which failed owing millions of dollars to cover trades they had made. He is about as knowledgable about pharmaceuticals as a third tier equity analyst. He's not a researcher -- his degree is in business. (Don't get me wrong -- I have no love for the pharmaceutical industry. But this guy is nothing more than a promoter.)
- ra1n85 10y agoWatch the video of Martin engaging directly with a furious HIV positive person: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXVQOZDKlRE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXVQOZDKlRE
- jjawssd 10y agoWell, this was surprisingly enlightening
- jnbiche 10y agoWhy do you say he was furious? They had a pretty rational discussion.
- davidivadavid 10y agoBut would you have clicked if he hadn't said "furious"?
- ra1n85 10y agoHe was originally. The context is that Martin and him ultimately had a reasonable conversation, despite the guy being initially furious about Martin's perceived role in increasing drug prices.
- tlrobinson 10y agoInteresting, but I'm skeptical. How accurate are his claims that his company is doing legitimate R&D for better toxoplasmosis drugs?
- theptip 10y agoThanks for sharing -- this gave an interesting new viewpoint on his position.
- Synaesthesia 10y agoI don't like him but the fact that he's pointing out other sleazeballs now redeems him slightly in my eyes.
- DonHopkins 10y agoI think there might be something about his face that make it irresistible for people to throw dog poop at it, like when he tried to speak on a college campus with Breitbart tech editor and unabashed white supremacist Milo Yiannopoulos. [1] http://usuncut.com/resistance/martin-shkreli-gets-poop-face/ http://usuncut.com/resistance/martin-shkreli-gets-poop-face/
- 3825 10y agoI think @nero is a piece of work as well but we have to agree that it is not OK to use violence like this. I'm more sympathetic towards an armed uprising (indeed I say desertion and treason as we define them ought to be decriminalized) even if I don't like it. Throwing a shoe at someone or throwing poop at someone's face is not only stupid but a display of lack of strength. The weak usually throws the first punch.
- thraway2016 10y agoMilo is not a white supremacist.
- DonHopkins 10y agoThat's what he claims. https://youtu.be/YzRbC7lQ-EQ?t=45s https://youtu.be/YzRbC7lQ-EQ?t=45s
- thraway2016 10y agoHe has never claimed any such thing. He is a bit of a civic nationalist, at the absolute most.
- orblivion 10y ago> unabashed white supremacist I would direct frustration toward you, except I've seen news outlets repeat this. (Then again since you said unabashed, perhaps you came up with this conclusion yourself, in which case I'd love to see your evidence.) Milo Yiannopoulos writes for Breitbart, which is associated with the alt-right nominally. The alt-right is at its core a white-nationalist movement, but it's not entirely so. Some of it is a rejection of modern leftist values, supportive of Western civilization. This is where Breitbart falls. Milo himself doesn't adopt the alt-right title BTW. Milo is anti-feminist and anti-Islam, but not anti-non-white. He is half Jewish ethnically, and he makes constant vulgar jokes about his sexual preference for black men (and these jokes don't describe him in a sexually dominant position either.) He even advocates for a form of reparations for black people. (Edit: maybe reparations isn't the best term. Basically a one-time special consideration to get them back on their feet economically, education-wise, etc) Are you confusing him with Richard Spencer?
- rozap 10y agoHe's one of the better performance artists of this decade.
- thrownblown 10y agoI've recently been on a Laibach tip that has led to an analysis by Zizek[0] that I feel is especially relevant. To paraphrase: that Shkreli is using "the system" in its most absurd/brutal/greedy/evil capacity in order to highlight the absurdity/brutality/greed/evil inherent in the system. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZl8ScVYvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZl8ScVYvA
- shostack 10y agoAnd say what you will about him but the guy is an Excel pro. There is something somewhat mesmerizing about watching him do the math to value various companies.
- sean_patel 10y agoThe footer indicates a series of alleged inventions in the pharma space by Shkreli / "Pharma Bro". I thought he was a Hedge Fund / Wall Street hack who hustled his way into the Pharma industry all the way up to CEO. Any facts on the authenticity of these inventions he claims? Here's the list. - Co-Inventor of a new series of pantothenate analogs for the treatment of pantothenate kinase associated neurodegeneration, a lethal pediatric illness - Licensor and innovator of sparsentan, the first endothelin antagonist for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a rare pediatric kidney disease - Co-Inventor of a new series of molecules for the treatment of Canavan Disease - Co-Inventor of a new series of molecules for the treatment of Lafora Disease - Inventor of a fusion protein platform for the treatment of several rare genetic disorders - Co-Inventor of a potential treatment for SLO Syndrome