Just last week, Vice uploaded a
There were two main takeaways I found from this video, however. One is that Vice has some seriously crappy reporters/interviewers, and Martin Shkreli definitely got beat up a lot in high school... But all jokes aside, he is a strange character. Anyone else have some input?
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I watched the video and didn't think he was awkward. He seems like a very normal, average guy.
In fact, I find it very hard to believe that he is anything other than an average guy. It perplexes me that he has been able to become as successful as he is.
Ponzi schemes are usually pretty profitable... until the whole prison thing happens.
The fact that you find him to be a normal, not awkward and average guy is evidence that you have been in finance too long
The fact that this is such a big deal is mind blowing to me.
What I came away with from this interview (the 7 minutes I watched) is that this guy is a sick, sick manipulator and liar, but not very smart. He may be a sociopath, and definitely has an immense craving for attention. I especially appreciate how he feeds off of his interview's "chill normal girl" vibe to project his own "chill normal dude" vibe. This is con artist 101 shit, and I find him completely disingenuous (specifically the bit about his sick sister or w/e).
Watched the interview.
The man would like to have scorn for others, but he can't help but seek their affirmation. If he's reached his 30's and he's still torn by high school popularity issues that he should have got over in his 20's, then he's pretty much beyond help as a person.
No amount of monetary success, multiple guitars, unreleased Wu Tang Clan albums or other consumer symbols of "success" are going to plug that hole in his soul that he is terribly, terribly self-conscious of.
Wealth and consumption aren't buying him happiness. Trying to get affirmation through an ill-advised VICE interview won't buy him happiness either.
Neither material success and nor the tears of others are soothing his wounds and he clearly knows it, but doesn't know any other way to fix the problem.
I appreciate that the interview was edited by VICE to present a particular picture. There's enough raw material in the interview plus his other behaviour that's consistent with him being a lost soul, somewhat emblematic of where 21st century consumer capitalism can take people.
A good lesson for those aspiring to a models & bottles lifestyle. The shot of Shkreli at 14:45 squatting on his hoverboard, moving in circles is the loneliness and void you'll feel when the the highs are wearing off and they're not delivering the endorphin pay off they once did.
The subsequent section of him trying to make some sort of life philosophy justification based to a fucking hip hop album as his impressive couch talk is the epitome of having all the consumer signs of success money can buy, but none of the cognition of the higher forms of culture and thinking that humanity has raised itself to.
He may be devouring a lot of money, but his snout is doing that from the very bottom of the trough.
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