How smart was Martin Shkreli aKa"Pharma Bro"

Water Cooler
#1

Apart from him getting caught up!

Martin was convicted of securities fraud and sentence to 7. I think this was payback for trying to mess with the insurance business.

His Wiki bio says:
The charges were filed after an investigation into his tenure at MSMB Capital Management and Retrophin. U.S. Attorney Robert Capers said, "Shkreli essentially ran his company like a [Ponzi scheme] where he used each subsequent company to pay off defrauded investors from the prior company."(Martin Shkreli - Wikipedia)

Isn’t this pretty much every company selling for 1000x PE with negative cash flow. Bitcoin comes to mind.

I saw a couple of his finance lessons on youtube. Pretty cool actually.

#2

a ponzi scheme is robbing peter to pay paul. paul gets falsified performance, and peter doesnt know he’s getting robbed.
a 1000x PE company, doesnt falsify performance to paul nor does he pay an outsized dividend to paul.
a company giving a high dividend via debt/share issuance is more like it. especially if they are falsifying performance to convince new investors.

for shrkeli, i think he falsified performance, and used money in cos he controlled to basically take cash out of it to pay off his investors. he also used his investment firm to cover personal expenses. anyways, i think the bigger issue for his downfall, is that he took over pharma companies then proceeded to raise the price at astronomical levels.

#3

prob as smart as nerdy

#4

a lot of people actually thought he was a genius. just unscrupulous. as i have previously stated my moral compass is much like my favorite band, it only goes one direction: true north

#5

Pretty smart. He ran a scam where no one lost money

#6

weren’t companies doing massive leverage recaps in the late 90s? Pile on the debt and send me that thicc div. Martin was too late in the game.

#7

“Someone didn’t sleep through ethics class” - Dr. Dre in Training Day

#8

well he still stole from the company. unless you think its ok to steal as long as you make them more money through other ways lol.

#9

its legal because they’re not falsifying performance. if they did, then that is absolutely a ponzi!

#10

Not saying it’s ethical, just that he’s smart. He made money in business, unlike most scammer who just steal. So he’s got some brains

#11

Martin didn’t graduate high school and was hired by a top hedge fund at 17, I think. Pretty smart guy. He just got caught up in the game.