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Comment by Nicholas_C | Hacker News Reader

The most confusing thing about this whole Shkreli ordeal is how someone who acts this way and is this young made enough money in the first place to buy out pharma companies. Maybe he inherited it?

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"Shkreli started his career interning for “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer while still a teenager. After recommending successful trades, Shkreli eventually set up his own hedge fund, quickly developing a reputation for trashing biotechnology stocks in online chatrooms and shorting them, to enormous profit."

No. Read the article :

Shkreli’s extraordinary history—and current hold on the public imagination—makes the case more noteworthy than most involving securities fraud. The son of immigrants from Albania and Croatia who worked as janitors and raised him deep in working-class Brooklyn...

I've read a bit about him but did not see that. Thanks.

So, my confusion still remains as to how he accumulated that much capital in the first place.

EDIT: Yes, perhaps through greed and malice. But how exactly? To go from nothing to enough money to buy companies is quite a jump and you need several consecutive breaks/perfect opportunities.

If you're prepared to be dishonest it's extremely easy to lay your hands on capital. You can steal, you can gouge, you can trample people and take everything from them, you can pump and dump, you can play financial games, you can lie to investors, you can lie to the media, you can borrow and then re-lend under false pretences, you can play shell games. In short, there are many ways to make a dishonest living in the corporate world.

If I opted to be a lying shit, I could conjure up several £M by dinner time tomorrow, and then leg it - but most of us have ethical norms that prohibit such behaviour.

What evidence do you have that he acquired his wealth this way? You are just assuming so because since he has done some bad things with his current wealth.

I don't know, the court documents that show he's done at least a few of the items on that list?!

What evidence do you have that they are just assuming so because since he has done some bad things with his current wealth? You are just assuming that they are assuming so.

Basically he is smart and has no morals against doing whatever it takes... he has numerous 'black marks on his record' he just never really had to face repercussions...

and he has capital because he has made money for the people who have given him money... that simple.

He is one of the best investors in pharma. Started out as a teenager in hedge funds. Famous for shorting biotech and earning millions.

The article said he had a reputation for getting on forums, etc. and trashing stocks that he was also shorting. Seems like a form of pump and dump to me, if he really had that reputation it's surprising he hasn't gotten into more trouble.

I looked this up, it's actually called 'short and distort'

When he shorted biotech he triggered the price fall by launching a complaint with the FDA I believe.

Sort of the opposite of pump and dump.

The trick is to convince other people to let you manage their money. If you have a good track record, and attract people with a lot of money to invest, you start making a lot of money off the management fees. Half a percent adds up when it's taken off tens of millions.

Life, and especially the capitalism aspect, is a game of imperfect information. As with any other game of imperfect information, aggression plus the intelligence to exploit the information gained from aggression can get you very far in life.

And extreme luck.

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