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Stop your protesting! Stop your organizing! The only thing we need is 🤑 MANIFESTATION 💸

It's time to talk about the Pyramidschemification of America. This episode has so many fun characters: 17th century Puritans, Tammy Faye Baker, Amanda Frances, an MLM hun on a regional jet somewhere over Sandusky, Ohio, and Elizabeth Holmes???

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Timestamps:

10:30 - The Puritanical roots of Mulitilevel Marking

21:00 - Stop organizing! Start manifesting!

30:00 - Turns out, Regan pyramidschemified America

35:00 - Betsy Devos putting in 40 hours at the Stupid Idea Factory

Links:

Little Bosses Everywhere

2023 FTC report on MLMs

The Unkillable Appeal of Multilevel Marketing

They Spent Their Life Savings on Life Coaching

The 'Exciting Business Opportunity' That Ruined Our Lives

The Miseducation of Betsy DeVos

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

DeVos held in contempt for violating judge's order on student loans

DeVos-Linked Adoption Agency Exposed Highly Sensitive Children's Medical Data

Blackwater Guards Found Guilty in 2007 Iraq Killings

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Good News: Media, the nation's first Fair Trade Town, marks 20 years supporting farmers in the developing world

Learn more about Fair Trade Certification

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We're willing to bet that there's a 92% chance that Prediction Markets are a pyramid scheme!

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are EVERYWHERE. Are the the future of democracy powered by collective wisdom? OR just another product of the 30 under 30 grift factory?

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You should hire Jennifer Tisdale!

Pictures

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Timestamps:

00:00 - An orgy at a SF Area tech convention?? WHO COULD HAVE GUESSED!!!

11:30 - BREAKING NEWS: A group of isolated white 20 something men with a high risk appetite have it all figured out!

21:00 - It's not called insider trading, it's called "having an edge"

35:00 - Do you like my new app? I designed it on the toilet

53:00 - Good News: Meta on trial

Links:

Resources for problem gambling

The Wager That Betting Can Change the World

The CEOs of Kalshi and Polymarket Are Betting On the Most Hated Experiment in Business

They quit their day jobs to bet on current events. A look inside the prediction market mania

Polymarket shouldn't allow people to profit by betting on the L.A. firestorm

On Polymarket, 'privileged' users made millions betting on war strikes and diplomatic strategy. What did they know beforehand?

America's financial markets are ready for a golden age

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Good News: Social media companies face legal reckoning over mental health harms to children

Palantir - a new custom hellscape or same sh*t different toilet? Has Silicon Valley gone completely red-pilled or was technofacism in the valley's DNA all along? Adam and Becca trace the cookie crumbs from a pioneering mid-century nobel prize winning white supremacist to the post-9/11 origins of Palantir and ultimately meet CEO Alex Karp. Lately, he's been hitting the eject button on his own brain and twisting himself into pretzels both physically and metaphorically to justify his belief that he personally should be rich and successful!

Toronto Copy Editing (Use code OLD-F for 10% off!)

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Links:

Democrats Drove Silicon Valley Into Trump's Arms

How a racist genius created Silicon Valley by being a terrible boss

Headed for technofascism': the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley

Unlocking Secrets, if Not Its Own Value

Trump Taps Palantir to Compile Data on Americans

'ELITE': The Palantir App ICE Uses to Find Neighborhoods to Raid

Palantir CEO Alex Karp Recorded a Video About ICE for His Employees

Alex Karp Goes to War

CEO of Palantir Says He Spends a Large Amount of Time Talking to Nazis.

Tech Workers Coalition

Central Ohio businesses form mutual aid network to help families impacted by ICE

Minnesota Mutual Aid Fund

Instagram of Columbus Mutual Aid Fund: @corazonhilado

Immigration and Mutual Aid Resources

We'll be back with season 7 on February 13th! This Patreon episode is free for all (no paywall) in solidarity with the National Strike on January 31st. If you like what you hear, please consider joining us on Patreon.

It seems that for every person energized to activism this year, there's another three ready to shit on their efforts (it's not organized enough! it's not widespread enough! You'll never make a difference!).

They're wrong. We're going to prove it by getting on our mumus and night caps and becoming the ghosts of general strikes past. We take you with us to the Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 (05:50), the Bahamas General Strike of 1958 (16:00), and the NYC Hard Hat Riot of 1970 (27:30). Three events that are essential to understanding where we are today. Hopefully when we deposit you back to the present, you feel jacked up on history and ready to rip in 2026.

Then, we'll wash it all down with an investigation into Larry Ellison and the biggest AI deal of 2025 (37:00). Was it a shrewd business move? Or a foolish plot by an old man desperate to conquer his inner demons before he croaks?

Links:

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Pictures from the episode

Join me in Albany on Feb 25

Q1 Book Club: Little Bosses Everywhere

Minneapolis:

Labor then and now: 90 years after the Minneapolis Teamsters' strikes

Minneapolis Teamsters Strike Documentary Part 1

Minneapolis Teamsters Strike Documentary Part 2

The Citizens Alliance of Minneapolis

Bahamas:

60th Anniversary of The General Strike: 19 Days That Changed The Bahamas

The 1958 General Strike and the Making of the Modern Bahamas – Bahama Pundit

The Bahamas: Bad News for the Boys

Hard Hat Riots:

The riot that started the culture wars

Watch Hard Hat Riot | American Experience - PBS

The Coffee Klatch with Robert Reich

Larry Ellison:

TikTok Is Now Collecting Even More Data About Its Users. Here Are the 3 Biggest Changes

TikTok users say they are being censored after change to U.S. ownership

Oracle, OpenAI Sign $300 Billion Cloud Deal

Larry Ellison Is More Interesting Than Ever at 81

The Billionaire, His Mystery Wife and College Football's Wildest Recruiting Saga

Big Tech tax breaks could've funded benefits for millions, Senator Warren finds

Thank you for listening to another season of the podcast! We'll be back in February with new episodes. Got suggestions / thoughts / feedback? Email [email protected]

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Trigger warning: suicide, drug use, overdose

Tony Hsieh had a life other entrepreneurs dreamed of. He was the wealthy CEO of a wildly successful ecommerce company with a legion of devoted customers and employees, currently on a bus tour to spread the gospel of his unique management style. But under the surface, cracks were starting to show, and Tony was falling into a severe drug and alcohol addiction. Years after his death that bus tour was a clear turning point in Tony's story, but for those around him at the time, it was just Tony being Tony. They had no clue how much darker things could get.

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Thank you to our episode sponsors:

New York Interventionist

Goodword

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Timestamps:

2:00 - Intro / show notes

6:00 - Zappos / Tony Hshei story

1:20:00 - Good News & Adam breaks a chair

Links:

Wonderboy (Book)

Internal Memo: Zappos is offering severance to employees who aren't all in with Holacracy

How Tony Hsieh Tried to Single-Handedly Transform Downtown Las Vegas

The Rise and Fall of the Management Visionary Behind Zappos

The Death of Zappos's Tony Hsieh: A Spiral of Alcohol, Drugs and Extreme Behavior

Amazon Changes at Zappos Slowly Dismantle Tony Hsieh's Legacy

'Money's a powerful motivator,' Friends, documents detail Las Vegas entrepreneur Tony Hsieh's final months alive

Spinato's Employees Get a "Slice of the Pie" as Spinato Family Transitions 49% of Company Ownership to Eligible Employees

Iconic Cincinnati company Graeter's to become partially employee-owned

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On Monday morning thousands of travelers were locked out of their Sonder hotel rooms and told: Sorry! Our business isn't businessing anymore :) Executives at both Marriott and Sonder turned their phones on Do Not Disturb as frazzled front line employees tried to manage fuming customers.

At first glance, this just seems like a mismanaged PR crisis, but there's SO much more to the story: A bay area unicorn led by a Forbes 30 under 30 wunderkind, co-opted by VC maniacs speeding down the the 2021 SPAC super highway, bailing right before the crash and leaving unwitting investors holding the bag. INTO THE CORPORATE DUMPSTER!!!

Links:

Hospitality Startup Sonder Raises $170 Million At A $1.3 Billion Valuation During Covid-19 Travel Collapse

Gores SPAC's High Redemptions Signal Worsening Sector Sentiment

Sonder faces class action investigation after delaying financial results due to errors in past statements

Sonder Seeks Room in Post-Covid-19 Lodging

San Francisco property-tech company, once worth $1.9B, suddenly goes belly-up

Dear Sonder Guest, Your Hotel Is Closed

This is an updated and unlocked version of an episode that was earlier published exclusively on Patreon. Join now and enjoy FOUR extra episodes a month for as little as $5!

Ty Haney is back at Outdoor voices, the cult athleisure brand she founded. Can she successfully suck us all into her time machine back to 2014? Or will this company's death rattle be loud enough to convince the brand's private equity investors to put OV out of its misery.

Today, Adam and Becca try to figure out how the once beloved brand got so weird and shitty and how Ty Haney fell off the top of the Abby Lee Miller girl boss pyramid.

All pics can be found on Substack

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Links:

Outdoor Voices Became A Staple For Millennial Cool Girls Thanks To Its Chill Aesthetic. Employees Say They Were Drowning.

Outdoor Voices Founder Ty Haney Has Moved On. Mostly. Three years after her dramatic exit as CEO, she still has some things she'd like to say.

How Outdoor Voices, a Start-Up Darling, Imploded

Ty Haney is Elon Musk's Reply Guy

Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney accused of defrauding investors in $3M energy drink deal

The demon living inside Les Wexner's head brings us into the Victoria's Secret gremlin lair! Adam and Becca go back to the early 2000s to tell the story of the rise and fall of this retail behemoth and the corporate crooks who drove it into the ground.

CW: Sexual Assault, Suicide

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Visit the Pullman National Historical Park

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Timestamps:

00:00 - Intro & Ed Razek's creep club

16:30 - The toxic culture inside Victoria's Secret

25:00 - Les Wexner's childhood & mommy issues

42:00 - Jack Fucking Welch shows up!!! The fall of Victoria's Secret

Links:

Selling Sexy: Victoria's Secret and the Unraveling of an American Icon

'Angels' in Hell: The Culture of Misogyny Inside Victoria's Secret

The Mogul and the Monster: Inside Jeffrey Epstein's Decades-Long Relationship With His Biggest Client

Listen to the full episode on Patreon. Join today at the Murdoch's Mates level and get FOUR bonus epiosdes every month plus the Corporate Gossip Book Club and group chat!

On a chilly October night, I like to cuddle up with a good ponzi scheme. It's my comfort fraud <3

Links:

'Do You Believe I'm a Scam? Haha' Tai Lopez became YouTube famous promising men they too could own a Lamborghini. Then came the alleged Ponzi scheme.

Tai Lopez's RadioShack Ponzi Scheme

Read the SEC complaint

This Clown Is Still Around

its always the guy you suspect the most

Please Rate and Review this Podcast!!

CW: Suicide, Sexual Assault

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No game developer would even think to create a dungeon troll as sinister as Bobby Kotick. Bobby's life is a video game where gobbling up cash is the mission and when it comes to retribution there is no side quest too small!

When the WSJ drops a bombshell report about years of sexual harassment and toxic culture at Activsion Blizard, will Bobby Kotick finally run out of lives? Or will he respawn in the form of a trash goblin who gets bonus points for punching down?

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Time Stamps:

00:00 - Background on Activision Blizzard

09:30 - Bobby Kotick meets Daddy Wynnbucks and becomes an adopted nepo baby, starts game publisher Activision and develops expert level skill in suing people less rich than him

29:30 - Blizzard origin story, early reports of sexual harassment

51:00 - Activision Blizzard merger, Bobby Kotick turns the company into the Triangle Shirtwaist factory while board members look the other way

56:00 - Bobby Kotick completes the CEO right of passage - bending over for the CCP!

60:00 - The lights come on and everyone realizes Bobby Kotick is a little dungeon troll

Note:

Activision Blizzard denied any wrongdoing, and the settlement confirms California Civil Rights Department (CRD) could not substantiate those claims. As part of the settlement, the CRD withdrew the claims related to harassment from its complaint.

Links:

Play Nice (book)

'Scorched earth' and big profits: How embattled gaming titan Bobby Kotick outlasts his opponents

At Blizzard, groping, free-flowing booze and fear of retaliation tainted 'magical' workplace

Blizzard Sets Off Backlash for Penalizing Hearthstone Gamer in Hong Kong

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick Knew for Years About Sexual-Misconduct Allegations at Videogame Giant

A group of Activision workers say their C.E.O. should step down.

Parents Say Sexual Harassment at Activision Blizzard Led to Their Daughter's Suicide