The more than 100-year-old movie theater chain, AMC Entertainment, has been on a wild ride this year after losing $4.6 billion dollars in revenue in 2020. The pandemic pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy, but in October 2021 its market cap was higher than $18 billion thanks, in part, to a group of 4.1 million retail investors who now own 80% of the company.

Some of these retail investors call themselves "apes," a play on Wall Street referring to them as "dumb money." In a digital uprising on Reddit, Twitter and YouTube, they have jumped into the stock giving AMC a billion dollar lifeline.

The company's CEO, Adam Aron, is one of the most interesting characters in this whole drama because he has leaned into AMC's "meme stock status." Aron communicates with retail investors directly on social media and he's incorporating their ideas for the company, like accepting crypto at AMC theaters, into his strategy.

In this podcast, CNBC's Melissa Lee interviews Aron about his experience at the helm as he battled to save AMC and his plans to revive the company. This is their full conversation from September, 2021 and you can watch the documentary, “How The AMC Apes Cracked Wall Street” on Youtube to hear why the apes think Wall Street is rigged and what they’re trying to do about it.

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