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I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming. He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. He does, however, have a couple of m
by discombobulate 9y ago
I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming.
He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. He does, however, have a couple of major flaws. 1) He trolls. Hard. 2) It seems he lies. Which I picked up from a previous news article. (He claimed to have ~$50mm under management @ his previous hedge fund. It was more like $1.6mm. Something like that).
I can forgive the trolling. It's over the top, IMO. But it is what it is.
The lying is another kettle of fish. You can't go around bullshitting ppl. &, as he found out, you can't go around bullshitting investors.
I think he loves money too much. The thought of being poor may have pushed him to do something stupid (ultimately his call!).
I hope he doesn't have too hard a time in jail. Losing his fortune (I believe he loses his shares from Retrophin. ~$65mm. That's already a punishment.
Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted. I'm being honest. Fuck you people, frankly.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Guncat12 9y agoThe reason you like Martin is because you are young and naive and you wish you had his life. This is further evidenced by your very black-and-white, idealistic "lying is the worst thing a person can do" mentality. I can only hope then when you grow older, you will realize how ridiculous your current way of thinking is. > Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted. I'm being honest. Fuck you people, frankly. This is exactly the response that I would expect from a young person like you when they face criticism. Haters gonna hate, am I right?
- aphextron 9y ago>I quite like Martin. I talked to him a few time on YouTube, whilst he was live streaming. He's a sociopath, of course you liked him. That's what those kind of people do. Build confidence and exploit people.
- surrey-fringe 9y agoNice armchair psychology. Do you have more?
- sliverstorm 9y agoI'm not sure a well-known phenomenon (talented sociopaths can make excellent manipulators & get everyone to love them within five minutes of meeting) counts as armchair psychology.
- l33tbro 9y agoI think the point is that 'sociopath' has become used as a tired catch-all for anyone displaying a few traits of the disorder, as in this case.
- Guncat22 9y agoThe reason you like Martin is because you are young and naive and you wish you had his life. This is also evident in your very black-and-white, idealistic "haters gonna hate" mentality. I can only hope when you grow older you realize how ridiculous your current way of thinking is.
- KingPrad 9y agoI went to high school with a fellow like Shkreli and with same story: rising fortunes, financial lying, fraud, conviction. Same traits as above, though unlike Shkreli this guy was extremely personable and likable. He was just a congenital liar and driven by something inside to... do more, do something bigger. He had the most incredible stories in high school that largely turned out to be lies, but at the time it all hung together with enough reality you couldn't see through it. It's interesting knowing someone like my acquaintance and seeing the same story in other people of playing fast with lies trying to make it really big, when they actually have the skills to do it more honestly.
- discombobulate 9y ago> when they actually have the skills to do it more honestly. That crossed my mind. That's why I think accepting failer is an inherant factor in business. Risk/reward. May win. Could lose.
- binarymax 9y agoOh so his only two flaws are trolling and he lies. But he's OK sure. How about the fact that he caused the suffering of patients needing the drug that he was raised prices on?
- discombobulate 9y agoI believe he corrected the price of a drug. & no one went without. Those unable to pay for insurance got the drug for free. Also, I said two major flaws. Obviously, ppl have many flaws. Edit: It's economic illiteracy if you don't understand that. If you have evidence which says otherwise(?), I'm happy to look at it.
- singhrac 9y agoOne thing to consider is: why is he the one who decides who can afford the drug or gets a free version? Seems horrible to me - we have laws to protect equal access to services like this (Medicare, Medicaid). Another argument of his I found extremely disgusting is that he claims he's reinvesting profits from the price raise to further drug research. Ok, but again, we only have his word for that (and he's been convicted of fraud(!)). You can only claim you're smarter than the system and more responsible so much before people realize what's going on.
- discombobulate 9y agoIt's insurance that pays, I believe . So it's a function of price. He changed the price based on market condition. Agree on the second point. Personally, I don't think that's relavent.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoAnd who pays insurance?
- discombobulate 9y ago
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- burkaman 9y agoTrolling is lying. Either you believe terrible things, or you lie about believing them to make people angry. Normal lying is usually intended for personal gain, trolling is just lies intended to hurt other people.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- MSM 9y ago>Trolling is lying Not at all, I think one of the most famous "troll" things he did was buy the master Wu-Tang album and threaten to destroy it so no one could ever hear the album. There's no lying or anything meant to "hurt" anyone there, but you can imagine that it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- burkaman 9y agoThreatening to destroy it so nobody else can hear it is explicitly intended to hurt people who want to hear the album. If you don't mean to hurt anyone, by definition it isn't trolling. Maybe I'm stretching the meaning of lying, but I think it's dishonest to represent yourself as a patron of the arts, as the album was produced as a piece of art, when you're really bidding on it with the sole purpose of depriving others. If that's not the reason he bought it, then he wasn't trolling.
- Sangermaine 9y ago>He's whip-smart & knowledgeable. People keep saying this as if it matters. What did you expect, that he'd be a drooling idiot? So he's smart and personable. Of course he is, most con men are.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoThere's this weird feeling that somehow, even though he's gouging everyone who pays for insurance at best and just the sick at worst and after being found guilty of fraud we should still like him and because why? Because he's familiar with internet culture in the same way we are? Afterall, he may be a fraudster and a gouger but he's not so bad because he's also a troller! He may be a conman but he's our conman (and intelligent!)
- discombobulate 9y agoGouging is a debatable economic concept.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y agoHow so? EDIT: Also, is that the only flaw you found with my comment? If so, lol.
- discombobulate 9y agoHere's something on Wikipedia. I've not read it, yet. Not having a basis in economics is a reasonable argument, imo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging#Opposition_to_laws_against_price_gouging https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_gouging#Opposition_to_la... Edit: I'm trying to listen to a live Shkreli interview & replaying @ the same time. Sorry if I didn't rebut it as fully as I would normally.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- 9y ago
- chippy 9y ago> Fuck you people, frankly. 27 minutes ago You might find that waiting a few more minutes might make readers more sympathetic to your thoughts. Often I suspect some users may downvote because they see both the impatience and the swearing at "you people" which they see as being every user except you. Just a helpful hint. By the way, at 29 minutes, your comment was in the black and was not downvoted and was at #3. Welcome to Hacker News. I hope you enjoy your time on this technology site.
- discombobulate 9y agoI've been around HN for a while. It went from 2 points to 0 to 1. I had already written the edit. I decided to keep it. I probably shouldn't have. I thought it would help. I guess it shows I'm human. I don't want to come across as a psychopath. I have a tendency to stick to ideas others feel are wrong (vs actually being wrong). Actually, HN is quite good on that front. Accepting logic. Edit: Could have lied here. Just took the downvotes. Edit2: Which is what I just learned. Better to be disliked & be truthful. In most cases. (Would lie to someone trying to murder me, for example. Despite what Kant says).
- always_good 9y ago> It went from 2 points to 0 to 1. So you were complaining about 2 downvotes?
- discombobulate 9y agoI wanted to eat dinner (it's late in the UK) & took the time to type out the comment. Yes. Edit: I've also already said I would wait in future. Not sure what else you'd like.
- elliotec 9y agoI agree with you, but I might suggest editing out the last sentence of your edit because that's like, rude.
- discombobulate 9y agoI'll keep it. I'm going to try & not do it it again. At the very least wait before saying anything!
- njharman 9y ago> Edit: I don't know why I'm being downvoted. Don't whine about the Internet. Seriously, waste of time and beneath anyone with a modicum of confidence. Also it earns you downvotes.
- savanaly 9y agoI automatically downvote any post that makes mention of its own downvotes or upvotes no matter the other content. It is tawdry.
- PaulRobinson 9y ago> He claimed to have ~$50mm under management @ his previous hedge fund. It was more like $1.6mm The number of people who think the leverage their account gives them - and he could have easily had 20x-50x leverage - means that is money under management is surprising.