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Tell that to Theranos, Fyre Festival, WeWork, the counterfeiters on Amazon, the myriad of shady ICOs, and on and on. Unfortunately, scammers are rife in industr
by mjfern 7y ago
Tell that to Theranos, Fyre Festival, WeWork, the counterfeiters on Amazon, the myriad of shady ICOs, and on and on. Unfortunately, scammers are rife in industry. Let's not fool ourselves.
- gundmc 7y agoI think your examples help prove the parent comment's point. Each of those companies faced a reckoning when they weren't able to deliver on their promises.
- dillonmckay 7y agoNot the Amazon counterfeiters, yet.
- mjfern 7y agoWeWork had its valuation cut and the founder walked away with $1B+. Where can I sign up for this reckoning?
- isoskeles 7y agoGiven this just happened, I don't think it is over yet.
- big_chungus 7y agoIt is very possible that there will be action against Mr. Neumann. Any court of competent jurisdiction would likely rule that he was in breach of his fiduciary responsibility. There are even richer people who are not happy with him, who can hire even bigger armies of lawyers to make his life hard. I'm guessing they'll wait until they've got the company locked down and him out, then start going after him.
- angry_octet 7y agoI wouldn't be visiting any Saudi embassies if I were him.
- smcl 7y agoTrue, the founders can make out like bandits if they time it but the company itself will go down in flames if it's built on bullshit
- mkhpalm 7y agoWhat is Elizebeth Holmes' net worth before and after Theranos? Are we sure she did any real reckoning?
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- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- catalogia 7y agoSupposedly she stopped paying her lawyers, so she might actually be broke.
- rogerkirkness 7y agoCiting legendary scams from the last 10 years is not exactly a way to show that an entire industry is fraudulent.
- mjfern 7y agoThe housing mortgage crisis, dot com boom and bust, payday loan industry, for-profit universities, fad diet companies, supplements with no scientific basis, cigarette manufacturers... There are whole industries and periods of time where large numbers of shady companies are rising and falling.
- dillonmckay 7y agodot com boom and bust? Like Whole Foods or broadcast.com?
- mjfern 7y agoLike pets.com. It turns out shipping 30 lb bags of dog food via FedEx isn't such a good idea. Edit: Not such a good idea in 1999, when operating without economies of scale and scope, and with high transportation costs.
- sigstoat 7y agoand yet now i receive dense boxes of cat litter from amazon.
- jamiek88 7y agoSeems to work for Chewy.com & Amazon.
- big_chungus 7y agoThis was an issue of bad timing, not a bad business model. People weren't really mentally at the point of buying such thing on-line, and pets.com burnt through their cash so quickly that it couldn't wait for people to start adopting it. As pointed out by others, Amazon made it work; however, they are very smart about diversifying, re-investing, and not being profligate with cash-on-hand.
- Lazare 7y agoYour examples seem to support the point you were replying to. Theranos is a perfect example of a scam unravelling because eventually the scammer needs to produce results, and not just self-referential research papers that never quite go anywhere.
- mjfern 7y agoI provided several top of mind examples. It doesn't take long to think of entire industries that are shady, from payday lenders to cigarette companies.
- Lazare 7y ago> In industry you _eventually_ need to show result and earn money > It doesn't take long to think of entire industries that are shady, from payday lenders I trust you aren't arguing that payday lenders don't earn money! There's a huge difference between "I don't like what this industry is doing" and "this industry is fraudulent, can never produce the goods/services claimed, and will never turn a profit for the investors".
- mjfern 7y agoI don't see much of a difference between these companies and the person in the article. Both are taking advantage of a vulnerable population for some personal benefit.
- yipbub 7y agoThe original point was that people scamming investors get discovered because the investors are invested enough to follow up on their claims. Less so in academia. The immorality of Pay Day is very much known, and it is not relevant because Pay Day is scamming their customers, not their investors.
- Aunche 7y agoIf you have completely terrible credit and have a minor emergency, a payday loan may be your only option. If you take one, you’re supposed to pay it off with your next paycheck or 2, so the interest isn’t that outrageous. It certainly beats losing your job because you can’t drive to work.
- campfireveteran 7y agoYou forgot Solar Freakin Roadways and the water from air bottle, but yes them and the billionaire banksters who nearly bankrupted most of the world who are the biggest scammers, like Dick Cheney, who didn't serve a day in prison for their crimes. (Too big to fail. -> Too big to jail.)