The article makes it sound like his ouster had nothing to do with Maria Butina, and everything to do with speculating on shady crypto ventures.
> The problem is, with just two tokens—representing Overstock’s and Tzero’s own shares—available to trade on Tzero’s platform, almost no one uses it. The company says it is aiming for 5 to 10 tokens by the end of the year.
A nearly empty stock exchange that no one uses. What a joke.
> Fumed Byrne in May, after investors bombarded him with calls and emails when he sold 900,000 shares of stock, “Frankly, I had no idea that shareholders would demand explanations of why and how I might want to use my cash derived from my labor and my property to pursue my ends in life.”
Nonsense. Every CEO is familiar with the concept of "skin in the game." You're cashing out because you've lost confidence, and that sends a signal to your shareholders.
> A nearly empty stock exchange that no one uses. What a joke.
What a terrible, terrible website. No wonder nobody uses it. Who asks for your email a section that fills the entirety of your window without giving you any information as to what the site is (and no, "Enabling the market to tokenize and trade digital assets through blockchain technology." isn't any information):
Looks like a basic beginner marking site template filled with absolute nonsense:
> Our goal is to make traditional markets more efficient, reliable, and accessible to everyone. We are creating platforms and products that overcome the limits and constraints of legacy market models by introducing new possibilities and making significant improvements to elevate the status quo.
Many paragraphs just like that, but none that really describe what it is, how it benefits me or how I access it.
"Nonsense. Every CEO is familiar with the concept of "skin in the game." You're cashing out because you've lost confidence, and that sends a signal to your shareholders."
> Byrne is the beneficial owner of 4,910,431 Overstock shares as of May 16
Why should he have to justify his sale of a fraction of that, 15% before the sale?
Jack Dorsey doesn't have to justify his monthly sales of 70,000 Square shares, typically netting him 4 million usd.
Jack Dorsey simultaneously prints completely new Class B shares, and converts them to Class A common stock, continuously diluting everyone. Jack Dorsey satisfies your would-be criticism if held to the same standard by creating new shares at $0.00 for every one he sells for millions.
What is the difference in the tolerance people have for Jack Dorsey's behavior and Patrick Byrne's behavior? The mere element of surprise and lack of pattern?
> Overstock’s heavily shorted stock plummeted from $87 in the beginning of 2018 to about $17 today as some $1.6 billion in market capitalization has evaporated. Once reliably profitable, Overstock lost $206 million last year and $110 million in 2017. In recent months, Byrne fired some 400 people.
That's the context in which the ceo dumped 15% of his holdings.
If I have shares in my portfolio even because I happened to have issued them, I trade them just like anything else I own.
Do I want fiat? Sell asset for fiat. If I see an opportunity I would consider rebalancing the portfolio. Some shareholders have anxiety problems grasping for confidence from aspects that are irrelevant.
First, to state where I am coming from, I am biased: I appreciate Byrne's underdog role of refusing to submit to what he perceived as corruption through Wall Street (hence his Dutch Auction option) as well as uncovering the middlemen roles of front-runners in the stock exchange (among other issues).
So with that in mind, I label this article a type of hit-piece. What I see is a person (Byrne) who has made profitable companies as well as unprofitable ones, and who sets targets on difficult goals.
The political aspects of the whole Butina angle I treat with suspicious "wait until all the cards have finally been revealed" caution, since there seems to be extreme polarity in rhetoric on the political stage today. There have been far too many cases of "what we know that just ain't so" just in the last 10 years I have been paying attention to for me to assume all the facts are in. And when one challenges/attacks powerful figures, I expect there to be much uproar/furor.
He seems to be doing the same thing another successful client of mine has been doing, which is running one company to fund other ventures in other venues. The author's main focus seems to be only on the first business (Overstock), and on the effects the speculation by Byrne is having on it.
And Byrne is also the kind of person I try to be: When I want to learn something, I dig into it fairly deep. Unfortunately, I sometimes get quite angry at the corruption/unfairness of it all that I uncover during those deep dives. But that is another rant for another post.
I am still in a "wait and see" mode. If Byrne's expectations of providing blockchain-based land registries in countries that are suspected of being highly corrupt in regards to property rights are successful, that alone is going to improve many, many lives.
Likewise if the TZero platform can pick up speed cutting out the alleged Settlement middleman (DTCC/Cede, see lawsuit re: Milburg Weiss), the market may be more efficient, well, at least until the next group of people figure out another way to game it.
I work in Utah and know many smart and skilled people who have worked at Overstock. They all have Patrick Byrne and Stormy Simon stories; some of the most unbelievable things I have ever heard.
The entire place sounds like it was straight out of a Dilbert cartoon (read through some of the glassdoor reviews, especially the older ones).
Byrne's has had an interesting life to say the least. I followed him years back when he was on a mission to fight naked short selling & steven cohen. What a trip. That said, if you've not read his speech about his fight with cancer, you owe it to yourself to do so. Probably one of the most inspiring things I've read to date. Tried to post in it's entirety but too long for the bots here so will just start with the intro (link follows).
Good evening, Heavy Hitters of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. I am deeply honored to speak to you this evening.
There is a Zen saying that happiness is planting a tree knowing that you will not be there to enjoy its shade. Tonight, I am thinking about the meaning of that saying in the context of cancer and cancer research that is supported by men and women such as yourselves.
Mr. Starr has asked me to speak to you about my own experience, my own struggle with cancer, a struggle which occupied the three years of my life immediately after college, as well as the three transcontinental bicycle rides which helped me to recover physically and mentally from my cancer ordeal. I do have a doctorate in philosophy from Stanford, which he mentioned, and he asked me to share with you all the philosophical and inspirational lessons I learned from these ordeals. I told him if I share all of the lessons, this is going to be a very short speech.
I should tell you that I've never spoken publicly about cancer, and only rarely privately, to a handful of friends. And to borrow a line from Oscar Wilde, I warn you that you would have to have a heart of stone to listen to the story of my struggle with cancer without laughing. I'll be laughing and you're welcome to join in at any occasion. Also, I should tell you that I've always declined requests to speak about cancer because I feel as though I’m boasting, “Hey look at me, I cheated death.” And in general that’s just a bad idea, because I think in the end, he will take the last round.
So with such caveats in place, per Billy's request, I will tell you my story of cancer, pausing to note such meager philosophical and inspirational lessons as I may.
Not really. He fell for an obvious honeypot, eventually figured it out and went to the FBI, and now thinks that makes him an expert in intelligence operations. He's completely unaware of how ridiculous he looks, and talking like he's James Bond when he's really Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading.
About a year ago I attended a talk he gave at the CATO institute (long story, but with Bitcoin) regarding this TZero project and something called Medici which I now forget the purpose of, in part because his wooden mannerisms and appearance were bizarre and distracting.
He dressed not at all like Bond, but exactly like a Bond villain. His tall gangly frame was compressed into this drab grey and nearly seamless tailored pantsuit sort of thing. Picture something Kim Jong Un would wear minus any pockets or visible buttons, topped by a stiff looking mandarin collar. His delivery, while emphatic, was monotonous and repetitive. It was like watching an animatronic version of himself.
I think it's a bit unfair to label the situation an "obvious honeypot". You weren't there, and neither was I. What seems obvious in hindsight often is far from that back at the start of it all, especially when emotion is involved.
(Agreed that his recent cloak-and-dagger routine is a bit silly, though.)
> The problem is, with just two tokens—representing Overstock’s and Tzero’s own shares—available to trade on Tzero’s platform, almost no one uses it. The company says it is aiming for 5 to 10 tokens by the end of the year.
A nearly empty stock exchange that no one uses. What a joke.
> Fumed Byrne in May, after investors bombarded him with calls and emails when he sold 900,000 shares of stock, “Frankly, I had no idea that shareholders would demand explanations of why and how I might want to use my cash derived from my labor and my property to pursue my ends in life.”
Nonsense. Every CEO is familiar with the concept of "skin in the game." You're cashing out because you've lost confidence, and that sends a signal to your shareholders.