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I know I'm going to get shit for this. But what Shkreli did is common practice, and us disgracing him is Liberals using Alternative Facts. Where in the real w

I know I'm going to get shit for this. But what Shkreli did is common practice, and us disgracing him is Liberals using Alternative Facts. Where in the real world it's common to buy an outdated drug that many people don't use. Raise the price on it and try to innovate the drug into being a better drug, by using the increased profits. He just got himself into trouble because he doesn't know how to handle himself on twitter. I urge people to research this and look further into it, instead of having quick answers. There's a reason he wasn't convicted of anything. Sure, hike pricing drugs does sound evil and I get why people are mad. We want to live in a world where everybody has access to affordable healthcare, but sometimes the way things work aren't always simply put. It's just as easy to make the tech industry look like a piece of shit. Especially with AI and self-driving cars. How dare Gooogle and YC take away jobs from hard-working middle-class Americans. It's almost worse, instead of price gouging, tech is going to take away jobs of many if not all Americans in the near future, but nobody on here wants to state that fact and say how sleazy tech is. Now is more important than ever to be truthful with ourselves and how the world works and not get hyped up over shit, until we understand the whole process. Let's problem solve instead of name call and understand the process of things. Like how YC is testing a universal wage for people in Oakland.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Fantasy. That guy isn't creating drugs. He's just a shyster trying to imitate real labs. But without any lab of his own, it was just a scam really.
- mrharrison 10y ago
  How do you know he isn't creating drugs? When I personally met the people that were going to help him innovate this drug.
  - jjawssd 10y ago
    He is parroting what he wants to believe, not what people actually do
FireBeyond 10y ago
Moreso than the gouging on pricing, I have even more of an issue with the situation where he was short in a pharma company, and lobbied the FDA to deny a drug approval that they were working on, on zero medical grounds, but instead purely from the perspective of helping his short position.
abiox 10y ago
health is an industry where you have the potential for "hard capture" of consumers. the "choice" is pay-or-die in the worst cases, pay-or-physically-suffer in others. price gouging can in effect become a sort of extortion. yes, one can find comparable situations elsewhere, but the hard "choices" rarely achieve the dire potential of healthcare i suspect.
- mrharrison 10y ago
  Sure, I agree. But if you don't have a job you usually have poor healthcare.
maxerickson 10y ago
In practice, innovate the drug into being a better drug seems to be more about getting a patent to increase prices even further than about actual improvements to the drug.
throwaway729 10y ago
> But what Shkreli did is common practice How does this justify anything? Lots of sleazy things are common practice. Some are legal, some are illegal. Commonality and legality aren't really strong justifications for anything. Shkreli may have been singled out in the court of public opinion, but that doesn't make what he did any less contemptible. > It's just as easy to make the tech industry look like a piece of shit... but nobody on here wants to state that fact and say how sleazy tech is. Really? Because I literally haven't seen a single self-driving thread on HN in the past several years that doesn't contain a highly-voted and somewhat lengthy comment thread about this. See also literally every HN UBI thread for the past several years. And that's just comment threads. Yesterday alone there were two stories on the front page for most of the day about social consequences of self-driving. So it seems like people -- especially self-driving people -- are thinking about this, have a wide variety of opinions on the trade-offs. And when they believe as you do, often actively advocate for policies that would help the people whose jobs they might displace. There's also the fact that technology (both self-driving and drugs) brings good along with the bad. Perhaps if Shkreli had created a new drug and then price gouged that drug, the situation might be a bit more comparable. But that's not what happened. > Now is more important than ever to be truthful with ourselves and how the world works and not get hyped up over shit Or, in Shkreli's case, understand how the world works and also get hyped up over shit. His business model should be illegal.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  So you're saying that he should sell the drugs at a low cost, forgoing profits, for what exactly? Service to the US people? If you want companies to give up most of their profit just to be nice, then create laws to do so. Either have a socialised R&D system, or make it easier for other companies to create generics. Nothing besides the FDA is stopping a competitor from selling generic Daraprim. And if it's not economically viable, then maybe the government should contract at fixed prices to ensure the availability of otherwise unfeasible drugs.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    This defense of crooks on the basis that the system is broken is a bit ridiculous. The morality of their behavior is an independent issue. It's possible that the system is broken and also the people who exploit those flaws are assholes. By analogy, insecure software is both common and also often inexcusable. Incentives are not aligned to encourage secure software. That's a real structural problem. But those problems don't make credit card theft morally permissible. Also, I think what Martin does should be illegal. And also that the behavior is reprehensible even when it's not illegal. Criticism and action aren't mutually exclusive...
badsock 10y ago
Since you used the phrase "Alternative Facts", can you point to where people have looked at an objectively verified fact, and then knowingly lied about it being something else?
JackFr 10y ago
> Raise the price on it and try to innovate the drug into being a better drug How can it become a better drug? It's a specific chemical compound.
rudolf0 10y ago
Even if one is somehow able to justify the Daraprim price hike, he's been responsible for a lot of unethical behavior over the years.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago

Fantasy. That guy isn't creating drugs. He's just a shyster trying to imitate real labs. But without any lab of his own, it was just a scam really.

mrharrison 10y ago
How do you know he isn't creating drugs? When I personally met the people that were going to help him innovate this drug.
- jjawssd 10y ago
  He is parroting what he wants to believe, not what people actually do

FireBeyond 10y ago

Moreso than the gouging on pricing, I have even more of an issue with the situation where he was short in a pharma company, and lobbied the FDA to deny a drug approval that they were working on, on zero medical grounds, but instead purely from the perspective of helping his short position.

abiox 10y ago

health is an industry where you have the potential for "hard capture" of consumers. the "choice" is pay-or-die in the worst cases, pay-or-physically-suffer in others. price gouging can in effect become a sort of extortion. yes, one can find comparable situations elsewhere, but the hard "choices" rarely achieve the dire potential of healthcare i suspect.

mrharrison 10y ago
Sure, I agree. But if you don't have a job you usually have poor healthcare.

maxerickson 10y ago

In practice, innovate the drug into being a better drug seems to be more about getting a patent to increase prices even further than about actual improvements to the drug.

throwaway729 10y ago

> But what Shkreli did is common practice How does this justify anything? Lots of sleazy things are common practice. Some are legal, some are illegal. Commonality and legality aren't really strong justifications for anything. Shkreli may have been singled out in the court of public opinion, but that doesn't make what he did any less contemptible. > It's just as easy to make the tech industry look like a piece of shit... but nobody on here wants to state that fact and say how sleazy tech is. Really? Because I literally haven't seen a single self-driving thread on HN in the past several years that doesn't contain a highly-voted and somewhat lengthy comment thread about this. See also literally every HN UBI thread for the past several years. And that's just comment threads. Yesterday alone there were two stories on the front page for most of the day about social consequences of self-driving. So it seems like people -- especially self-driving people -- are thinking about this, have a wide variety of opinions on the trade-offs. And when they believe as you do, often actively advocate for policies that would help the people whose jobs they might displace. There's also the fact that technology (both self-driving and drugs) brings good along with the bad. Perhaps if Shkreli had created a new drug and then price gouged that drug, the situation might be a bit more comparable. But that's not what happened. > Now is more important than ever to be truthful with ourselves and how the world works and not get hyped up over shit Or, in Shkreli's case, understand how the world works and also get hyped up over shit. His business model should be illegal.

MichaelGG 10y ago
So you're saying that he should sell the drugs at a low cost, forgoing profits, for what exactly? Service to the US people? If you want companies to give up most of their profit just to be nice, then create laws to do so. Either have a socialised R&D system, or make it easier for other companies to create generics. Nothing besides the FDA is stopping a competitor from selling generic Daraprim. And if it's not economically viable, then maybe the government should contract at fixed prices to ensure the availability of otherwise unfeasible drugs.
- throwaway729 10y ago
  This defense of crooks on the basis that the system is broken is a bit ridiculous. The morality of their behavior is an independent issue. It's possible that the system is broken and also the people who exploit those flaws are assholes. By analogy, insecure software is both common and also often inexcusable. Incentives are not aligned to encourage secure software. That's a real structural problem. But those problems don't make credit card theft morally permissible. Also, I think what Martin does should be illegal. And also that the behavior is reprehensible even when it's not illegal. Criticism and action aren't mutually exclusive...

badsock 10y ago

Since you used the phrase "Alternative Facts", can you point to where people have looked at an objectively verified fact, and then knowingly lied about it being something else?

JackFr 10y ago

> Raise the price on it and try to innovate the drug into being a better drug How can it become a better drug? It's a specific chemical compound.

rudolf0 10y ago

Even if one is somehow able to justify the Daraprim price hike, he's been responsible for a lot of unethical behavior over the years.