Mystery monk makes billions with 5-hour energy (2012)(forbes.com)
forbes.com
Mystery monk makes billions with 5-hour energy (2012)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2012/02/08/manoj-bhargava-the-mystery-monk-making-billions-with-5-hour-energy/
82 comments
For the curious, the LD50 in humans is thought to be somewhere on the order of 200mg/kg. So for a 70kg individual, that would be 14,000 mg (14 grams). A very strong coffee is 100mg, with energy drinks being 200-300mg.
There is a ChubbyEmu video [0] where someone has a large container of powdered caffeine, and he accidentally takes a whole scoop of it - 35 grams.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylqJ0NEVJw
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylqJ0NEVJw
It's horrifyingly high right. That said people with some underlying medical conditions can succumb to far less. See the case where Panera Bread sold large caffeinated lemon-aid with unlimited refills
8oz of Starbucks’ bestselling Pike’s Place Roast is 150mg, and between different roasts and sizes, you can buy a drip coffee at Starbucks that has nearly 500mg of caffeine.
Heh, yeah, I was considering home brew coffee. Measurements do not apply if you get the grande quad espresso.
Contrary to popular belief espresso is not that high in caffeine compared to how much of it you would typically drink. When dilluted with milk or water back down to regular strength (by flavor) it is actually usually lower in caffeine than a typical medium roast drip. Light roast can be very high especially if you brew at 60g of coffee per liter of water that seems to have become popular with internet coffee enthusiasts.
I had to convert it I think that is around 1/4 cup per 6 cups (6 oz for some reason on coffee makers) . I use twice that but measured in dry beans. Is that really that much?
I think your conversion may be wrong. 60g per liter is 15g for 250ml (which is a small mug of coffee). At least with my coffee 15g occupies most of the quarter cup scoop I have been using. The flavor is good at that strength, but it’s a lot of caffeine. In the ballpark of 200mg depending on the beans and how well your brew method extracts it. 200mg is fine on its own but most people drink a few cups in a day.
LD50 just means that’s when 50 percent of people die right? Someone may well die long before they hit 14g but I get the point. That’s still a crap load of caffeine my word.
I believe LD50 is measured with lab rats and proportional to body weight.
LD50 is usually rat dosage unless there exists sufficient evidence to establish a value for humans.
Ethics committees frown on poisoning people just to figure out how much is lethal.
Ethics committees frown on poisoning people just to figure out how much is lethal.
Referring to LD50 is insane, isn't it?
LD10 is plenty for me never touch it outside of a life threatening emergency.
LD10 is plenty for me never touch it outside of a life threatening emergency.
Sure, but you have to pick a threshold somewhere. Going with the median seems likely to be the most robust measurement.
Which is to say, no, I would not feel comfortable consuming the equivalent LD49 of a substance. It is an order of magnitude estimate to give you a sense of toxicity. Which in the case of caffeine - is so high that it is nearly impossible for a healthy individual to consume that much accidentally.
Which is to say, no, I would not feel comfortable consuming the equivalent LD49 of a substance. It is an order of magnitude estimate to give you a sense of toxicity. Which in the case of caffeine - is so high that it is nearly impossible for a healthy individual to consume that much accidentally.
This is basically why caffeine is legal. The stimulation vs harm curve makes it harmful before it’s too stimulating. Illegal stimulants are safer per unit stimulation. That is until they get to folks susceptible to addiction and then they’re more harmful as a result of overuse.
Considering that alcohol is legal and THC is not (federally), I would question whether there is actually any logic behind the fact that caffeine is legal. Rather, it just happens to have made it under the radar long enough to become too ubiquitous to outlaw.
Look into the history. Caffeine wasn't under the radar, it didn't make the cut when drugs started do be banned in the early 1900s. It didn't make the cut because nobody abused it or formed a serious addiction to it, because you can't. Take too much and you feel like you're dying.
Coca-cola = coca leaves + kola nuts = cocaine + caffeine
Caffeine was everywhere too in the era of drug concoctions. Today's soda's were the health tonics of the 1800s. 7-up had lithium in it, the drug used to treat some bipolar cases.
The drugs that survived public use were the ones that were paradoxically safer and more dangerous at the same time, depending on how you measure it.
Coca-cola = coca leaves + kola nuts = cocaine + caffeine
Caffeine was everywhere too in the era of drug concoctions. Today's soda's were the health tonics of the 1800s. 7-up had lithium in it, the drug used to treat some bipolar cases.
The drugs that survived public use were the ones that were paradoxically safer and more dangerous at the same time, depending on how you measure it.
Then why did cocaine get put on the list? As far as overdosing, it seems to work the same. You will feel really bad before you get to a fatal dose. Many claim it is also not highly addictive. At least, not in the way that opiates are addictive, but more like how people are addicted to caffeine.
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I used to be into Olympic weightlifting and worked out at a gym of people that also took it very seriously. They were for the most part the farthest thing from “meat heads” as one could imagine. Except the one guy…
He found a container of powdered caffeine someone had brought and decided that he didn’t have to follow the instructions like normal humans. Not only that, he mixed up the measurements. In the end he took what very well could have been a fatal dose. Even with a visit to the hospital his heart rate was above 200 resting for over a day. They had to work to flush his system and whatever but he said it took weeks to sleep normally again.
He found a container of powdered caffeine someone had brought and decided that he didn’t have to follow the instructions like normal humans. Not only that, he mixed up the measurements. In the end he took what very well could have been a fatal dose. Even with a visit to the hospital his heart rate was above 200 resting for over a day. They had to work to flush his system and whatever but he said it took weeks to sleep normally again.
Here is a related story about a guy who did this by mistake. This made me scared to ever use caffeine as an ingredient in a drink.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylqJ0NEVJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sylqJ0NEVJw
Yes, stick with pills if you wanna take raw caffeine.
Not particularly to do with caffeine, but tangent to the weightlifting: Eddie Hall deadlifting 1102lbs / 500Kg world record and the moments behind the scenes with paramedics unable to get a reading on his heart rate, and then having it read over 200bpm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K0chGkV0IE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K0chGkV0IE
During my powerlifting days, me and my fellow meatheads used to get ephedrine powder from Mexico and mix with Mountain Dew before contests. I almost had a heart attack once, but I totaled over 1700 pounds that day, so it was all worth it. Not. I totally regret it now. Live and learn.
I'm not strong but I can lift 10lbs 170 times in one day, totally natty.
Worth it or not, those were some prodigious lifts.
Many years ago I worked with a textbook pathological liar and narcissist. His stories were many and varied.
He lived with a harem of women who pleasured him at all hours. He divorced his wife, but he was such a good lover, she begged him to reconcile, so he remarried her.
Once a customer happened to be a WWII Medal of Honor recipient, and gifted him a rifle used to kill many Germans as a gift for his good work as a food delivery expert.
One time he delivered food, and the recipient said, "Dan, you are so good at this, here is a $10,000 tip."
He could have easily received a PhD, but instead dropped out of community college after a single semester, because college was beneath him. His professors all gave him A's and cried when he dropped out.
He drank 2 liters of Mountain Dew every single night to keep his energy levels high. Without Mountain Dew, he would die.
He had been asked numerous times to manage all of the region's chain restaurants, but was satisfied to be a delivery boy, as this was his true calling.
He lived with a harem of women who pleasured him at all hours. He divorced his wife, but he was such a good lover, she begged him to reconcile, so he remarried her.
Once a customer happened to be a WWII Medal of Honor recipient, and gifted him a rifle used to kill many Germans as a gift for his good work as a food delivery expert.
One time he delivered food, and the recipient said, "Dan, you are so good at this, here is a $10,000 tip."
He could have easily received a PhD, but instead dropped out of community college after a single semester, because college was beneath him. His professors all gave him A's and cried when he dropped out.
He drank 2 liters of Mountain Dew every single night to keep his energy levels high. Without Mountain Dew, he would die.
He had been asked numerous times to manage all of the region's chain restaurants, but was satisfied to be a delivery boy, as this was his true calling.
This man's stories sound fitting of a president.
One thing I miss about high school was being around guys like this. There was always some dude who said he secretly had a top secret mission to Afghanistan over the summer and the military was begging him to officially join when he turned 18. It's interesting how no matter where you are in the US, there's a guy with a similar backstory of being a total badass who chooses to be humble and normal because the world couldn't handle his true power.
One thing I miss about high school was being around guys like this. There was always some dude who said he secretly had a top secret mission to Afghanistan over the summer and the military was begging him to officially join when he turned 18. It's interesting how no matter where you are in the US, there's a guy with a similar backstory of being a total badass who chooses to be humble and normal because the world couldn't handle his true power.
You can still have that in any expat bar anywhere anytime..
This is interesting. I've worked with people like this, met people like this, and heard of people like this. But one thing you're missing is this guy didn't claim to be a highly skilled killer or ex-military. I wonder why. That's the most common trope I normally see.
Spy as well. I've met multiple expert spies in backpacker hostels around the world.
The best part of being a spy is telling everyone you're a spy
- Sterling Archer from Archer probably
In years past I would have simply looked down on someone like that.
Nowadays I'm more inclined to pity them. It sounds like he's trapped in a pretty shitty state of being, even if it's a prison of his own making.
Nowadays I'm more inclined to pity them. It sounds like he's trapped in a pretty shitty state of being, even if it's a prison of his own making.
Pity them, but from a safe distance. Many of them are very dangerous.
Basically “good will hunting “
drinking 2l of mountain dew per day is the least crazy thing in that list.
Probably the only thing that was true too.
Love it.
>Rural India then sold that 45% stake to Nevada 5, a private for-profit company. In exchange, Rural India got a note worth $623.6 million. Bhargava’s accountant Paul Edwards of Plante Moran says his client is not a beneficial owner in Nevada 5—but another one of his associates says it is a vehicle for Bhargava’s philanthropy and affiliated with Innovation Ventures, the parent company of Living Essentials.
>This kind of deal raises questions, says Roger Colinvaux, professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law and an expert on tax and philanthropy. “If it were a private foundation, it would be prohibited from selling to a company related to a major donor.”
>This kind of deal raises questions, says Roger Colinvaux, professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law and an expert on tax and philanthropy. “If it were a private foundation, it would be prohibited from selling to a company related to a major donor.”
> He spent the next decade dabbling in RV armrests and beachchair parts... devoted himself to buying small, struggling regional outfits and turning them around... expanded his Indiana PVC manufacturer from zero sales to $25 million
Is it just me or can this critical part of the story be summarised as follows:
1. Dabble around with no apparent income
2. ???
3. Profit!
I read many "successful businessman" biographies in my younger years and eventually stopped because the vast majority of them had these unreplicable mysterious inflection points. As a young man seeking the magical formula for success it frustrated me to no end.
Is it just me or can this critical part of the story be summarised as follows:
1. Dabble around with no apparent income
2. ???
3. Profit!
I read many "successful businessman" biographies in my younger years and eventually stopped because the vast majority of them had these unreplicable mysterious inflection points. As a young man seeking the magical formula for success it frustrated me to no end.
Oh yes, I know of one sure way, works 100% of the time:
A man buys an apple, walks around, and sells it. Then, he buys two apples, walks around again, and sells them. Next, he doubles his effort by buying four apples, walking around, and selling them as well. Suddenly, he receives a phone call informing him that his wealthy cousin has passed away, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Now, the man is wealthy.
A man buys an apple, walks around, and sells it. Then, he buys two apples, walks around again, and sells them. Next, he doubles his effort by buying four apples, walking around, and selling them as well. Suddenly, he receives a phone call informing him that his wealthy cousin has passed away, leaving him a substantial inheritance. Now, the man is wealthy.
And doubly suspicious because the obvious gap fillers are
* Corruption.
* Nepotism or family help.
* Some special circumstance they don't want to share because it is either critical or embarrassing.
* Very hard work.
* Corruption.
* Nepotism or family help.
* Some special circumstance they don't want to share because it is either critical or embarrassing.
* Very hard work.
The solution to the mystery, in this instance, is your second idea.
“During this period, Bhargava moved back and forth between the US and India and worked a variety of middle-class office and construction jobs. Bhargava returned to the US and joined his parents' plastic injection manufacturing company, Bhar Incorporated, located in New Haven, Indiana.”
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava
“During this period, Bhargava moved back and forth between the US and India and worked a variety of middle-class office and construction jobs. Bhargava returned to the US and joined his parents' plastic injection manufacturing company, Bhar Incorporated, located in New Haven, Indiana.”
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manoj_Bhargava
> In 2023, Bhargava was named interim chief executive of Sports Illustrated magazine
Wait…what?
Wait…what?
I have one such in extended family. Not a stellar personality (while he thinks he is a rockstar with amazing life, folks are mostly fed up with him and he is raising at least 2 kids with 2 separate women he doesn't date/isn't married anymore).
Anyway he owns and does long term rental of maybe 20-30 apartments mostly in Munich (not airbnb or similar). No problem for him buying additional apartments and houses in very expensive places across Europe on spur (or recently Egypt). Also some old sports cars etc. Yet often a penny pincher when it comes to investing into relationship.
The weird part is, when asked what he was doing before becoming a rentier, 'he had some manager job', in Germany. Now I haven't lived there specifically but I know net salaries don't go that high if you work for somebody else, and taxes and social deductions are brutal. This ain't US where 10x performance can give you 10x salary if you do it right and are lucky. And he ain't a C-suite material.
He keeps claiming its all just his own effort but I just can't calculate a realistic path where even a highly capable person can get in their early 40s such vast net worth from 0 (I could grok some lucky exponential path via airbnbs but thats not what he does).
This is a very conservative investment path of ending up with maybe 2-3 apartments if you really push it hard and do all the right choices at the right time. So he is either laundering money for some mafia/gang (but certainly doesn't seem like so) or got a small help from family initially and refuses to admit that.
Nobody thought about that until I came along and just wondered about those numbers a bit.
Anyway he owns and does long term rental of maybe 20-30 apartments mostly in Munich (not airbnb or similar). No problem for him buying additional apartments and houses in very expensive places across Europe on spur (or recently Egypt). Also some old sports cars etc. Yet often a penny pincher when it comes to investing into relationship.
The weird part is, when asked what he was doing before becoming a rentier, 'he had some manager job', in Germany. Now I haven't lived there specifically but I know net salaries don't go that high if you work for somebody else, and taxes and social deductions are brutal. This ain't US where 10x performance can give you 10x salary if you do it right and are lucky. And he ain't a C-suite material.
He keeps claiming its all just his own effort but I just can't calculate a realistic path where even a highly capable person can get in their early 40s such vast net worth from 0 (I could grok some lucky exponential path via airbnbs but thats not what he does).
This is a very conservative investment path of ending up with maybe 2-3 apartments if you really push it hard and do all the right choices at the right time. So he is either laundering money for some mafia/gang (but certainly doesn't seem like so) or got a small help from family initially and refuses to admit that.
Nobody thought about that until I came along and just wondered about those numbers a bit.
It’s not impossible for someone to have 30 apartments by the time they’re 40. It’s a matter of convincing mortgage companies to loan you money, which is what they want to do given it’s their job. I know several people who’ve done this 100% legitimately, the real question is how much equity they have
It’s impossible to buy 30 apartments in Munich for normal people with normal salary.
You need at least 40 million euros, more if you are not only buying in unattractive areas.
The situation is a bit different if you tell the bank you are planning the rent it out, not pay for the mortgage yourself.
The above poster has explained how one can get loans for those 40 million euros.
Ah so I show up at the bank and tell them “Please give me 40 million so I can buy apartments and rent them out - oh and I also have no money or safety of my own so just hope that I will be able to pay it back”
Good luck with that at a German bank.
Good luck with that at a German bank.
no bank would let you do that in the UK either. The way this typically works is that a bank will lend you ~75% of the purchase price on a Buy-to-Let mortgage, so you buy a £200k property with £50k down payment. This is achievable for normal people with good salaries, let's say they're earning £100k.
The mortgage is likely interest only so the landlord can make approximately £10k/year from rent from that one property. The next year they buy another, their earnings are now £120k. It now only takes them a few months to save another £50k to buy their next property, and the more properties they own the faster it is to acquire the next one. After a few years of this let's say they have 10 properties in total. They are now earning £200k, which makes the bank's decision to lend them more money an easier one, even though they have £1.5m in mortgage debt already.
If they already have 10 properties then it's not that much of a relative leap to get to 20, then 30. With 30 properties they're earning £400k a year and can finance a new property every 2 months. They do have £4.5m in mortgage debt that is not being paid off though, but they're making a bet on the value of those properties exceeding the purchase price by the time the balance of the mortgages becomes due 20 years from now. In the past that was a pretty safe bet.
The risk of doing all of this is that the property market can slow down, rates can go up, values can fall, property maintenance can become a significant cost, bad tenants can ruin a property and wipe out several years earnings and the government can change tax rules that makes all of this far less profitable (as happened in the UK quite recently). But it's absolutely not impossible.
About a decade ago I worked with a perfectly normal guy in his mid 50s who worked as an accountant in a small software company, he had 200 BTL mortgages! He just kept reinvesting the profits and buying more each month.
The mortgage is likely interest only so the landlord can make approximately £10k/year from rent from that one property. The next year they buy another, their earnings are now £120k. It now only takes them a few months to save another £50k to buy their next property, and the more properties they own the faster it is to acquire the next one. After a few years of this let's say they have 10 properties in total. They are now earning £200k, which makes the bank's decision to lend them more money an easier one, even though they have £1.5m in mortgage debt already.
If they already have 10 properties then it's not that much of a relative leap to get to 20, then 30. With 30 properties they're earning £400k a year and can finance a new property every 2 months. They do have £4.5m in mortgage debt that is not being paid off though, but they're making a bet on the value of those properties exceeding the purchase price by the time the balance of the mortgages becomes due 20 years from now. In the past that was a pretty safe bet.
The risk of doing all of this is that the property market can slow down, rates can go up, values can fall, property maintenance can become a significant cost, bad tenants can ruin a property and wipe out several years earnings and the government can change tax rules that makes all of this far less profitable (as happened in the UK quite recently). But it's absolutely not impossible.
About a decade ago I worked with a perfectly normal guy in his mid 50s who worked as an accountant in a small software company, he had 200 BTL mortgages! He just kept reinvesting the profits and buying more each month.
That's a nice theory, but it doesn't work like that in most EU countries where banks are reluctant to give you a loan even for the 2nd property, let alone for tens of it unless you have collaterals to cover the cost.
You're assuming getting a mortgage (in the UK) is a click-click-approve process, but it is far from that
Purchasing any property is a many-month endeavour with solicitors/banks etc
Purchasing any property is a many-month endeavour with solicitors/banks etc
I don't know how it works in the UK, but in the US the types of people hustling properties in real estate are not using the same banks/financing an average person looking for a mortgage would. It seems from talking to small time real estate folks that you use these lenders (likely lie or stretch some truth to do so in many cases) to get your first 1 or 2 loans, then move on to specialized lenders.
There are specialized firms w/ private capital that are happy to fund these midsize deal flow guys and finance them. Once you get a working relationship with a few such vendors it seems rather easy to get marginal deals done others would find impossible.
I don't know if this simply doesn't exist in the UK at all - but I'd bet money that it does in some form. Since bankers and finance make their money off the points on deployed capital, especially the loan officer making commission on the deal flow, the incentives are aligned to make more loans vs. less.
I think the hardest part of getting something like this going is the first 2 to 3 properties. After that and a few years of proven ability to manage cashflow here in the US your lending options open up exponentially both in number of lenders and the creative/exotic means of financing now available.
There are specialized firms w/ private capital that are happy to fund these midsize deal flow guys and finance them. Once you get a working relationship with a few such vendors it seems rather easy to get marginal deals done others would find impossible.
I don't know if this simply doesn't exist in the UK at all - but I'd bet money that it does in some form. Since bankers and finance make their money off the points on deployed capital, especially the loan officer making commission on the deal flow, the incentives are aligned to make more loans vs. less.
I think the hardest part of getting something like this going is the first 2 to 3 properties. After that and a few years of proven ability to manage cashflow here in the US your lending options open up exponentially both in number of lenders and the creative/exotic means of financing now available.
Yes it can take several months but it's also a well oiled process that's quite straightforward as long as you have the relevant paperwork ready to go and assuming the properties you want to buy are easily mortgageable (and you have a large enough deposit and a good credit rating)
In Germany?
In the uk. Do buy-to-let mortgages not exist in Germany?
I am sure they do/did but this still doesn't match resulting reality. By financial swings he does, he has 1-2 mil euros of disposable cash, on top of that vast amount of flats. Judging by his age and career path, he had to amass most of it (80-90%) within less than a decade.
No German bank is going to give you 100% mortgage (in fact 110-120% for taxes/fees/additional reconstruction) when you already have 10 properties mortgaged in exactly same way. You also don't build any cash reserve like that, owning properties is always more costly than financial projections make it so.
At the end it doesn't matter, good for him (apart from everything that makes a man the man) but his vague background story as told simply ain't true, and folks were eating all that till I came along and thought about numbers for few seconds.
No German bank is going to give you 100% mortgage (in fact 110-120% for taxes/fees/additional reconstruction) when you already have 10 properties mortgaged in exactly same way. You also don't build any cash reserve like that, owning properties is always more costly than financial projections make it so.
At the end it doesn't matter, good for him (apart from everything that makes a man the man) but his vague background story as told simply ain't true, and folks were eating all that till I came along and thought about numbers for few seconds.
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As other posters have stated, this sounds more like someone leveraging themselves to the hilt than it does someone with mafia money. Perhaps both, but here in the US there are plenty of these small time self-described hustlers who overextend themselves in rentals, then when a minor downturn happens it all blows up. Some do get lucky and exit or die before a downturn happens, but in the interim the universal common theme seems to be they spend it like they won't have it tomorrow - likely for good reason.
Real estate is one of those things where if you have a certain personality that likes to gamble and don't mind operating in a shady manner you are rewarded handsomely for it until a wider economic shift happens. It's the only socially acceptable gambling anyone can do where a bank will give an average joe 5x or more leverage and we see it as totally socially acceptable. Change that to the same guy trying to operate the same strategy in the stock market and he would be laughed out of the room by the bankers he requested the loan from.
When you find banks willing to finance 90-70% of a building on an interest only loan, it doesn't take a very long time to roll that into your next building. It then snowballs as you use the cashflow from those buildings to leverage into new buildings. It works great until it doesn't. So long as rent gets paid and buildings continue to increase in value everything works out fine. Once you get the first half dozen or so buildings set up, it appears to me it's harder finding new deals than it is finding the financing for them. I did the napkin math once and after around half a dozen to a dozen properties (depending on size) you start having enough cash to roll into a similar sized building every quarter.
Pretty much all the "real estate guys" I know own absolutely nothing of their buildings other than appreciated value, as they operate on interest only loans leveraging their monthly cashflow.
tldr; Leverage is a hell of a drug.
Real estate is one of those things where if you have a certain personality that likes to gamble and don't mind operating in a shady manner you are rewarded handsomely for it until a wider economic shift happens. It's the only socially acceptable gambling anyone can do where a bank will give an average joe 5x or more leverage and we see it as totally socially acceptable. Change that to the same guy trying to operate the same strategy in the stock market and he would be laughed out of the room by the bankers he requested the loan from.
When you find banks willing to finance 90-70% of a building on an interest only loan, it doesn't take a very long time to roll that into your next building. It then snowballs as you use the cashflow from those buildings to leverage into new buildings. It works great until it doesn't. So long as rent gets paid and buildings continue to increase in value everything works out fine. Once you get the first half dozen or so buildings set up, it appears to me it's harder finding new deals than it is finding the financing for them. I did the napkin math once and after around half a dozen to a dozen properties (depending on size) you start having enough cash to roll into a similar sized building every quarter.
Pretty much all the "real estate guys" I know own absolutely nothing of their buildings other than appreciated value, as they operate on interest only loans leveraging their monthly cashflow.
tldr; Leverage is a hell of a drug.
It's hard if you pay in full. But if you borrow money and rent the apartments it's not that hard.
I know a guy who is hugely successful now. Millions a year in Profit. Tells everyone it’s hard work blah blah, it’s not. I worked with him on it at one point, it’s because he functions in a manner that is borderline illegal, and rides that line hard. He would brag about how I was “a really smart technical guy” held back by the fact that “I can’t fuck.”
It’s still depressing thinking about it. Because sadly in so many ways, it seems he is correct. I could replicate his business model save for the fact my morals won’t let me.
It’s still depressing thinking about it. Because sadly in so many ways, it seems he is correct. I could replicate his business model save for the fact my morals won’t let me.
What kind of things did he do?
A range of activities. Claims to have shipped when he hasnt, blames covid for delays. Promises people tracking, gives them other peoples tracking numbers, if he responds at all. Claims to have stock on hand, doesnt. Marks product as genuine when they aint, just refunds the people who complain and keeps on keeping on. Charges for one tier of postage, uses another same deal.
His entire business operates off the premise that if he can make good on the 5% of people that complain, that it makes the fortune he makes from the rest that dont viable. Because most people it seems are just too lazy to care about a lot of these activities, even if they do get burned.
Because the business runs purely off google adds (and he has an exceptional return rate) it doesnt matter if any of the above customers come back, its already built into his margins.
A site goes down or gets impacted by a consumer affairs complaint or whatever, he just reboots with another domain in under half a day, starts all over again. He aint tied to his brands, customers, any of it. It's all in the magic of his maniuplation of the ad market.
"In a country with this many people and the modern ads market there is literally always another sucker around the corner."
He can be literally as shitty as he wants, and as long as he manages the fallout (which he has) he prints money. I found out through working with him that there are large numbers of these individuals all following the same model, and all respectively making more than they deserve.
It's literally one of the most depressing things i've ever encountered.
You might say "He couldnt do this forever but" yeah well, twelve years and counting and he lives in the multi million dollar house and I assure you, I do not.
His entire business operates off the premise that if he can make good on the 5% of people that complain, that it makes the fortune he makes from the rest that dont viable. Because most people it seems are just too lazy to care about a lot of these activities, even if they do get burned.
Because the business runs purely off google adds (and he has an exceptional return rate) it doesnt matter if any of the above customers come back, its already built into his margins.
A site goes down or gets impacted by a consumer affairs complaint or whatever, he just reboots with another domain in under half a day, starts all over again. He aint tied to his brands, customers, any of it. It's all in the magic of his maniuplation of the ad market.
"In a country with this many people and the modern ads market there is literally always another sucker around the corner."
He can be literally as shitty as he wants, and as long as he manages the fallout (which he has) he prints money. I found out through working with him that there are large numbers of these individuals all following the same model, and all respectively making more than they deserve.
It's literally one of the most depressing things i've ever encountered.
You might say "He couldnt do this forever but" yeah well, twelve years and counting and he lives in the multi million dollar house and I assure you, I do not.
Thanks for the details. I'm very far away from this world but it's always been my suspicion that that is what it takes.
As for your last point, I think if you amass a certain amount of money then you can eventually just get out of that and into something more "legit", it's like buying your way out of morality. I do wonder deep deep down what these people are like in their minds when they're not riding the highs.
As for your last point, I think if you amass a certain amount of money then you can eventually just get out of that and into something more "legit", it's like buying your way out of morality. I do wonder deep deep down what these people are like in their minds when they're not riding the highs.
This guy is pathological i'm telling you.
> As for your last point, I think if you amass a certain amount of money then you can eventually just get out of that and into something more "legit"
I queried this and I got the answer that "the business probably literally wouldnt be profitable, much more profitable this way."
> I do wonder deep deep down what these people are like in their minds when they're not riding the highs.
"Fuck em, if they are dumb enough to fall for it, they deserve it. Ill take a pensioners every last dollar if they give it to me."
I "can't fuck" like that indeed. I simple do not have even one tenth within me of what it would require to be able to live and operate like that.
I saw government organisations, Google, payment processors, paypal, all have dealt with him, and somehow the scheme just keeps on working. Probably because everybody involved is making boatloads of money and none of them actually truely give a shit.
> As for your last point, I think if you amass a certain amount of money then you can eventually just get out of that and into something more "legit"
I queried this and I got the answer that "the business probably literally wouldnt be profitable, much more profitable this way."
> I do wonder deep deep down what these people are like in their minds when they're not riding the highs.
"Fuck em, if they are dumb enough to fall for it, they deserve it. Ill take a pensioners every last dollar if they give it to me."
I "can't fuck" like that indeed. I simple do not have even one tenth within me of what it would require to be able to live and operate like that.
I saw government organisations, Google, payment processors, paypal, all have dealt with him, and somehow the scheme just keeps on working. Probably because everybody involved is making boatloads of money and none of them actually truely give a shit.
This one seemed;
1) Spot small business product that has potential.
2) Remake & update as your own version
3) Build a large distribution network
4) Blow any other competing company away with court cases.
On that, something I changed my mind on years back, distribution network often more important than product and it would be interesting to know what he did here. Generally I would prefer to have an average product with a great distribution network than an amazing product with a poor distribution network. People tend to be very product/feature focused but access to markets is often more important for success.
1) Spot small business product that has potential.
2) Remake & update as your own version
3) Build a large distribution network
4) Blow any other competing company away with court cases.
On that, something I changed my mind on years back, distribution network often more important than product and it would be interesting to know what he did here. Generally I would prefer to have an average product with a great distribution network than an amazing product with a poor distribution network. People tend to be very product/feature focused but access to markets is often more important for success.
Definitely some family help. Guy was born on third base, thought he hit a triple.
Yes, this reminds me of the James Dyson story, of being broke and getting success after 5000 failed prototypes.
Search “Survivorship Bias” and other cognitive biases. You don’t read about the guy who started with nothing, hustled hard, ended
with nothing but in a parallel universe could have been a billionaire.
You sometimes read about them if their hustling ends in a particularly messy fashion: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/02/12/a-teens-fatal-... RIP Zoomer Musk.
Discussed (a bit) at the time:
The Mystery Monk Making Billions With 5-Hour Energy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3572596 - Feb 2012 (3 comments)
Also:
Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357663 - Oct 2015 (20 comments)
The Mystery Monk Making Billions With 5-Hour Energy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3572596 - Feb 2012 (3 comments)
Also:
Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357663 - Oct 2015 (20 comments)
Just wanted to chime in after the troll left his attack on you - your work is much appreciated. You moderated me one time and you were absolutely right. HN makes the internet better.
Seconded. You once gave me great advice on civil discourse. I'm grateful you stick with this job. Thank you again.
Thunderf00t on YouTube has done a 'busted' video on the powering homes with bikes thing (it's more polluting, more expensive, less convenient, larger, slower, and less powerful than a portable gas generator. "all you're really doing here is running human generators on bio-diesel") which includes a snipe at the "5-hour energy" drinks which have no energy in them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS99oFm33nM
Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357663
Oct 2015 (20 comments)
Creator of 5-hour Energy Wants to Power Homes with Bikes
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/151006-en...
Sounds like a PR piece for the "interim chief executive of Sports Illustrated magazine".
What the hell was that whole character assassination over Bhargava's "lack" of philanthropy?
From his Wikipedia:
From his Wikipedia:
Bhargava is a member of the Giving Pledge campaign.[22] In 2015, he pledged to give 99% of his wealth to philanthropic causes.[20] His foundations include the Hans Foundation[1][23] and Rural India Supporting Trust.[24] In 2016, Bhargava told National Geographic that he planned to distribute 10,000 of his stationary, power-generating bikes to rural homes and villages in India.[14]
In 2013, Forbes reported Bhargava's net worth to be $1.5 billion, but he was dropped from its list of billionaires in 2014.[8]
>Forbes really hates Bhargava, for no apparent reason.
It's not Forbes, it's just a random contributor writing clickbaity articles for the $.
Forbes is trash and is closer to Medium in the way it is structured than to a typical news media site. It's generally just random contributors. You can see from the URL (forbes.com/sites/[contributer-name]). There are thousands of contributors with various incentives.
Forbes’ staff of journalists could produce great work, sure. But there were only so many of them, and they cost a lot of money. Why not open the doors to Forbes.com to a swarm of outside “contributors” — barely vetted, unedited, expected to produce at quantity, and only occasionally paid? (Some contributors received a monthly flat fee — a few hundred bucks — if they wrote a minimum number of pieces per month, with money above that possible for exceeding traffic targets. Others received nothing but the glory.)
As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were “contributors” — or as they told people at parties, “I’m a columnist for Forbes.”
https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/02/an-incomplete-history-of-f...
It's not Forbes, it's just a random contributor writing clickbaity articles for the $.
Forbes is trash and is closer to Medium in the way it is structured than to a typical news media site. It's generally just random contributors. You can see from the URL (forbes.com/sites/[contributer-name]). There are thousands of contributors with various incentives.
Forbes’ staff of journalists could produce great work, sure. But there were only so many of them, and they cost a lot of money. Why not open the doors to Forbes.com to a swarm of outside “contributors” — barely vetted, unedited, expected to produce at quantity, and only occasionally paid? (Some contributors received a monthly flat fee — a few hundred bucks — if they wrote a minimum number of pieces per month, with money above that possible for exceeding traffic targets. Others received nothing but the glory.)
As of 2019, almost 3,000 people were “contributors” — or as they told people at parties, “I’m a columnist for Forbes.”
https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/02/an-incomplete-history-of-f...
Is there any evidence of him actually following up on any of those pledges? The example from the article about his "billion dollar" donation (of which only $4MM seemed to have actually been spent) makes me skeptical.
Edit: It appears the Hans Foundation is doing some things, at least if their annual report [1] is to be believed. Looking at the graphs at the end, their total budget was somewhere around $45MM USD for FY2022-2023 (but there are two graphs which seem to have different numbers, among other problems).
[1] https://thehansfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/THF...
Edit: It appears the Hans Foundation is doing some things, at least if their annual report [1] is to be believed. Looking at the graphs at the end, their total budget was somewhere around $45MM USD for FY2022-2023 (but there are two graphs which seem to have different numbers, among other problems).
[1] https://thehansfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/THF...
Article written in 2012. Those happened after?
We missed his stories where he was variously an MMA fighter, a firefighter, and a marine who served as a secret sniper assassin who trained somewhere the actual marine informed us doesn't actually exist.