7 ms·

I always find myself looking at the uber successful and thinking: "society is discounting the possibility of them being frauds" In the end only them know if th

by GDC7 5y ago

I always find myself looking at the uber successful and thinking: "society is discounting the possibility of them being frauds" In the end only them know if they broke the laws or not, but for sure it's not the 0% which society implies. Trump has been mentioned and the consensus around him is pretty high that he committed white collar crimes, but at the same time I think that the intelligencia pricing Obama's possibility of white collar crimes at 0% is too low. Same goes for the elite of the elite in business: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin...only them know what they did, and if something about them emerges it should be received as a surprise ....but not that huge of a surprise if you get what I mean. Musk we know that he has repeatedly violated securities laws, but for sure there is much more brewing below the surface that we don't know of.

Spooky23 5y ago
The hard part is understanding the difference between hustle and fraud. Sometimes, they can look the same from the outside.
- darkerside 5y ago
  Sometimes the only difference is success
- humbleMouse 5y ago
  Not surprised this is downvoted on hackernews. A lot of people around here don’t want to acknowledge that a lot of these software companies are engaged in fraud and pushing hustle culture.
- watwut 5y ago
  The hustle is fraud made sound cool. That is the only difference.
bpodgursky 5y ago
> Musk we know that he has repeatedly violated securities laws Fwiw, "insider trading" is not an actual law. It's a constantly-shifting regulation maintained by the SEC. In the example you're citing, Musk tweeted financial information about Tesla. This would have been totally precedented and OK for the company to release as a PDF on their website, but there was no standing principle on whether a tweet counted as a public release of financial info. After deliberation and some caveats, the SEC said "Yes, this is fine" [1]. I don't think this counts as a "violation of security law". Would most CEOs have played it safe and asked their lawyers first, who could have consulted the SEC, and waited six months for a draft new regulation? Probably. But I don't think it makes the tweet illegal, or even especially wrong. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm
- dannyw 5y ago
  the issue was Musk making up an acquisition offer at an imaginary price of 420.69 because his girlfriend thought it was funny.
- H8crilA 5y ago
  No, Musk said "a deal is done" while in reality the other side of the deal didn't agree to anything, and ultimately nothing happened. Would've been the same fraud if it was a press release on EDGAR, probably worse since you can always play cute and say "lol it's Twitter it's for shitposting". Nothing to do with insider trading (that we know of) and little to do with the form of the disclosure/lie. It was just a cacophonous stupidity. (I'm talking about the 420 tweet)
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Ah. Still, it's hard to see who got hurt by that one, given that anyone who bought Tesla hoping for a $420 exit is now sitting pretty above $700.
    - naturalauction 5y ago
      That doesn’t make his conduct legal. See Martin Shkreli who was convicted of fraud and sentenced for 7 years despite making his investors money.
    - H8crilA 5y ago
      The people that bought on the "announcement", and sold on the "lol, got you". But yeah for some (many?) people it was a non-event. Also what the sibling wrote.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
specialist 5y ago
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." —Balzac I agree with some of the nuance, too: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/

by GDC7 5y ago

Spooky23 5y ago

The hard part is understanding the difference between hustle and fraud. Sometimes, they can look the same from the outside.

darkerside 5y ago
Sometimes the only difference is success
humbleMouse 5y ago
Not surprised this is downvoted on hackernews. A lot of people around here don’t want to acknowledge that a lot of these software companies are engaged in fraud and pushing hustle culture.
watwut 5y ago
The hustle is fraud made sound cool. That is the only difference.

bpodgursky 5y ago

> Musk we know that he has repeatedly violated securities laws Fwiw, "insider trading" is not an actual law. It's a constantly-shifting regulation maintained by the SEC. In the example you're citing, Musk tweeted financial information about Tesla. This would have been totally precedented and OK for the company to release as a PDF on their website, but there was no standing principle on whether a tweet counted as a public release of financial info. After deliberation and some caveats, the SEC said "Yes, this is fine" [1]. I don't think this counts as a "violation of security law". Would most CEOs have played it safe and asked their lawyers first, who could have consulted the SEC, and waited six months for a draft new regulation? Probably. But I don't think it makes the tweet illegal, or even especially wrong. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm

dannyw 5y ago
the issue was Musk making up an acquisition offer at an imaginary price of 420.69 because his girlfriend thought it was funny.
H8crilA 5y ago
No, Musk said "a deal is done" while in reality the other side of the deal didn't agree to anything, and ultimately nothing happened. Would've been the same fraud if it was a press release on EDGAR, probably worse since you can always play cute and say "lol it's Twitter it's for shitposting". Nothing to do with insider trading (that we know of) and little to do with the form of the disclosure/lie. It was just a cacophonous stupidity. (I'm talking about the 420 tweet)
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Ah. Still, it's hard to see who got hurt by that one, given that anyone who bought Tesla hoping for a $420 exit is now sitting pretty above $700.
  - naturalauction 5y ago
    That doesn’t make his conduct legal. See Martin Shkreli who was convicted of fraud and sentenced for 7 years despite making his investors money.
  - H8crilA 5y ago
    The people that bought on the "announcement", and sold on the "lol, got you". But yeah for some (many?) people it was a non-event. Also what the sibling wrote.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

specialist 5y ago

"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." —Balzac I agree with some of the nuance, too: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/09/09/fortune-crime/