"Charming and unbelievably intelligent" are definitely fair descriptors for this man, just please bear in mind that these terms probably describe many other people who are also guilty of fraud. Sure he has his side. And yes he's probably been treated unfairly by the press. And no, he isn't guilty of all of the things people say. And yet none of that makes him actually innocent.

To add, I would argue that "charming and unbelievably intelligent" are prerequisites to being a truly great fraudster.

- Charm: a lot of people don't realize this, but the "con" in "con man" is short for "confidence". They work by abusing and exploiting people's confidence in them. A con man has to have enough charm to get people to place their confidence in him, or the scheme isn't going to work.

- Intelligence: fraud isn't something you can pull off by brute strength. You need a sharp mind to plan a scheme and carry it out.

If a con man wasn't "charming and unbelievable intelligent", I'd doubt his efficacy as a con man.

And I'll also add that "charming and unbelievable intelligent" is a good way to describe a number of serial killers. Charm and intelligence doesn't a good person make.

It's funny how incredibly susceptible HN seems to be to the smooth talkers.

Yeah, I know this person is technically being charged with being a Russian double agent and committing treason, but he just seems so down to earth, relatable, and smart! Swoon!

It certainly doesn't help that we, especially here on HN, conflate intelligence and morality.

"Ah this guy is smart, so he must be a good person!" or "this person is bad, well he must be an idiot!"

I'd argue, this mental shortcut stems from the way we view ourselves:

"I know I'm smart, but I don't know if I'm good, so I'll just set $smartness = $goodness so I no longer have to worry!"

The outrageous price increases directly led to people dying because they couldn't afford life-saving medication.

There's no redeeming yourself from that just because you're charming or intelligent. Psychopaths often are.

FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it, so that he was really only screwing insurance companies. I believe that he was trying to draw media attention to the outrageous, legally-allowed colluding practices of the insurance and pharma industries. It would have been in his best interest to not draw attention to himself and slowly raise the price of the drug over time rather than rock the boat and put himself in the spotlight. I think this agitated a lot of the established powers in the pharma industry, but we're getting into tin hat territory now, so I'll leave it at that.

> FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it, so that he was really only screwing insurance companies.

Screwing insurance companies means increased costs for everyone. I'd really rather not pay 20% higher premiums every year to pad someone like Shkreli's pocketbook.

Sure, but the solution is not to wish that people like Shkreli don't raise prices on their drugs. Instead, we need to reform the US healthcare system to stop problems like this.

Many drugs of similar kind, as Shkreli would point out, have a similar price. The difference is that those drugs are owned by faceless pharmaceutical companies with PR teams. Shkreli was an obnoxious person who was doing an obnoxious thing and as a result the government swatted him with some unrelated charges (Incidentally, I thought his defense of "I didn't commit fraud, because all investors made money" was a pretty good defense).

>the solution is not to wish that people like Shkreli don't raise prices on their drugs

I can wish whatever the hell I want to wish. Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right, and everyone here arguing that he's a good person because he's not doing anything illegal is inherently arguing that "legal" == "morally right".

No. He's still a shitty person and I can wish him the most painfully infected ingrown toenails and I will still sleep soundly at night.

I wish that people would do the right thing. I also wish Congress would fix our health care issues. I can do both, and they're both just as likely to happen. In the meantime, he deserves all the public shame in the world.

You can absolutely wish whatever you like. That doesn't change the fact that you wishing is not the problem to a poor healthcare system.

>Sure, but the solution is not to wish that people like Shkreli don't raise prices on their drugs. Instead, we need to reform the US healthcare system to stop problems like this.

The solution is both. Just because a broken system allows you to get away with being a monster doesn't justify you being a monster.

I disagree. Only one of those solves the problem. Reforming the healthcare system will (ideally) prevent harmful exploitation. Wishing will do nothing, even if it's your birthday wish.

Why did you think his defense was a good one against fraud? He lied to people who gave him their money. That is what fraud is. The outcome does not matter.

Fraud has other components beyond just lying. For example, I could tell you that I'm Santa Claus, and, due to the rising complexity of children's toys, I need more money to hire additional elves this year, would you please donate?

That wouldn't be fraud though, because, among other things, you aren't damaged by it. You might be damaged by it if you sent me your money, and I actually used it to buy myself sugar cookies, but you didn't.

What I'm trying to get at is "harm" or "damage" is typically a component of a fraud case. In this case, the defense of "My investors didn't lose money, but actually made back multiples of their initial investment" seems very strong to me.

Shkreli had a company which failed and lost investors money. Rather than break the bad news, he lied to them, started another company, made more money, and paid back his investors. I may have the details wrong, but from this article, that was my main takeaway.

The point about damage goes to intent. Did Shkreli lie to people to take their money and make himself rich? Or did he lie to people to get a working productive business and pay off his investors? The fact that he did the latter implies his intent was the latter.

If I were an investor, I'd be upset that the initial investment failed. I'd be litigious if I realized he had lied to me. If he lied to me and returned my money with profit, I'd just stop doing business with him in the future.

Do the early investors who made money from Madoff's funds not have a fraud case against him since they made money even though it was paid out from later investors and not from the actual investments claimed?

It seems like both cases are fraud, it's just that one has a better outcome for the victim than suing and hoping it wasn't all spent on Wu-Tang albums.

Did ALL of Madoff's investors get paid off, or just the "got-in-on-the-bottom-floor" investors? If it wasn't all it's not the same argument as Shkreli's defense.

Great, then get the FDA to approve more people to make lifesaving drugs? A system where you're counting on the generosity of companies to charge low prices seems rather flawed.

Only a couple thousand people use Daraprim in the US. He claims 2/3rd of sales are to the USG at 1c per pill. So if there's 700 full price patients at $100K a course, that's an extra $70M on 3 trillion?

Companies were doing this before he did, and keep doing it now. So get the FDA to change or have a "dire needs" import rule or fix the system.

>A system where you're counting on the generosity of companies to charge low prices seems rather flawed.

Oh, it is absolutely flawed and completely corrupt. It's so corrupt it's costing lives rather than just money. I'm not saying it's happening, but I wouldn't be surprised if the FDA's mandates and budget for approval aren't somehow related to keeping profits high.

There are a lot of details that people seem to gloss over or haven't heard about. I am not sure if its to be believed or if he was just trying to repair his reputation, but he claims that jacking prices up on common drugs was to fund R&D into medicines for less common diseases where treatments are very expensive or don't exist at all. I found that to be a compelling argument because as far as I see it, at least he is (supposedly) trying to do something for these people, while others ignore them. Basically getting insurance companies to pay a lot for some drugs (even if it leads to premium hikes) will socialize the costs of developing other drugs.

>Screwing insurance companies means increased costs for everyone. I'd really rather not pay 20% higher premiums every year to pad someone like Shkreli's pocketbook.\

- Medical malpractice insurance cost (to cover punitive damages)

- FDA approval process

all increase cost for everyone, who is 'found guilty' for that?

And what do you see public institutions of educations, from public schools to taxpayer funded universities do about that in their educational curriculum? How are children and students taught to analyze the causes of 'increasing costs'?

And what are the journalists, those 'beacons of truth' are doing in that regard? Is the coverage of those legimate reasons for higher cost getting anywhere similar of attention compared to Shkreli's?

(btw, not defending Shrkeli's actions ... have not studied this in detail, just surprised at this onesided moral outrage)

If you make money on a trade, someone else is losing money. That's nothing new.

Where he went wrong is going into the healthcare space with that attitude. Shkreli thought that he didn't care about the bad PR it would bring him, but the microscope on him ended up uncovering illegal behavior.

I believe that's only true in flat or declining markets. Growth raises all boats, figuratively speaking.

Any time you buy, there's a counterparty selling, and vice versa. If they had not bought or sold on their end, they would have made the money rather than you.

That's all I was trying to say. Obviously this is simplistic and there are many reasons why someone might rationally be fine with being on the losing end- they might have something else better or less-risky to do with their capital, for example, or they might be a market maker that is not interested in holding anything long-term, etc.

>Screwing insurance companies means increased costs for everyone.

They already increased prices. And they've made an entire clusterfuck in terms of billing codes, bureaucracy, and negotiations before ACA anyway.

Insurance company does poorly while my health improves? My rates go up.

Insurance company does well? My rates stay steady.

I had a car insurance agent tell me this exact reason today. Their underwriters simply increased the price because the company isn't doing well.

Insurance prices can't always go up. Something is going to break. And we're all going to pay a shitload of money and have a bunch of fallout either way.

You'd rather let an entire industry continue to screw over millions of Americans out of money and access to healthcare, than let one troll and admittedly fraud profit from exposing said industry? Fair enough.

Shkreli didn't "expose" anything except his own greed.

I'd love to see the current health insurance situation go away - I'm an advocate of single-payer. That doesn't make Shkreli any less gross.

>FWIW, he claims that he gave the medicine away for free to people who could prove they couldn't afford it,

Sorry, I find it hard to take the word of someone who was convicted of committing fraud. Fraud that was committed before these claims were made. I guess defrauding his investors was also some 11th dimensional chess move designed to show the weakness of the financial industry, right?

Move over Jesus, we have a new martyr who suffers for our salvation.

That's an extremely valid point. But there are documented cases of it being true.

Can you link to any documented cases? I searched and couldn't find any that weren't reported on by him or the company, not exactly independent sources.

Here's at least one, and IIRC there were others sprinkled throughout this topic when it was much smaller. They're probably much harder to find now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14931689

Find one person who got it for free

Not trying to play contrarian here, but are there any reported cases of people who've actually died for lack of Daraprim?

> Find one person who got it for free

This guy got it free, for life. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/this...

Patrick Rice gets it free for life after a Reddit AMA. Google not work for you, or were you trying to stonewall the discussion with Rush Limbaugh tactics?

http://nypost.com/2016/02/02/i-was-a-victim-of-the-pharma-ja...

There's that one, very public, case. That happened after the entire ordeal blew up, and happened after shkreli had said that people got it for free if they needed it

It's not nothing, but it's not exactly impressive either

So maybe instead of saying, "Find one person who got it for free," you should have said, "Find one person who got it for free that I like even though the US has some serious medical privacy laws and therefore it's nearly impossible to find unless that sick someone (with HIV) voluntarily comes forward publicly, risking their career and future job prospects, to be on the side of a person that has been heavily vilified in the media circus."

Or find me a page on company's website that lists steps needed to qualify that are not too onerous and hopefully clear. Phone number would be appreciated too.

You know, something that looks more like a deliberate program and not a one-off.

Patient assistance programs are pretty common.

I'm on a $10k once every three months medication, and the drug company called to offer to pay any out-of-pocket costs up to $20k/year (deductible, copay, coinsurance etc.) I might have had, regardless of income.

The med probably costs them a couple hundred dollars in manufacturing, so they're happy to pay $20k/year to get $40k/year from my insurance.

(I turned them down - I have no deductible and a $15 copay, but plenty of others aren't in that situation.)

>The outrageous price increases directly led to people dying because they couldn't afford life-saving medication.

Who died? I'm curious because if that happened, I figure we would have heard about it. Do you have a link to a story I can read?

I think it's interesting that since we can put a face and a name on that behavior, it's easy to see that if those price hikes led to someone's death, his actions were immoral or downright evil. It's easy to draw a direct line from his actions to someone else's suffering.

It's well established that what he did so wantonly happens in more hushed tones as a matter of business. The lines are blurred, we find it hard to point fingers at individuals. If Skreli's actions are immoral, so are the actions of the anonymous thousands like him. This is the textbook "banality of evil", and we can see similar consequences everywhere. This seems like classic Philosophy 101 material, is it moral to raise the cost of food when someone will starve?

Do you have evidence of this happening? Shkreli said publicly that if anyone couldn't afford his pricey drug he'd ensure that they got it. I have no idea whether he ever followed through.

BTW it's common for drug companies to do this:

* https://www.medicare.gov/pharmaceutical-assistance-program/

* https://www.astrazeneca-us.com/medicines/Affordability.html

* http://www.pfizerrxpathways.com/

How many people died directly due to Martin's actions? I'm very skeptical of your claim and found nothing to back it up after a quick Google search. The first result was a Quora answer that even said that his moves resulted in no deaths. Do you have any citations for your claim?

I would like to know more about this if you have sources, I have been following Martin Shkreli on a lot of social media for a while and by his explanations, there shouldn't be any person hurt as result of the price hike that he is famous for.

No it didn't. Provide a source to one person dying from the price hike. His company literally provides it for free if someone can't afford it.

The outrageous fact that police officer pulled over drunk driver and his license got suspended for six months for DUI caused said driver to commit suicide because he couldn't get to work anymore and as a result - he couldn't support his family.

What a horrible police officer right? There is no coming back from this...

In all seriousness I have a hard time blaming investor who had all rights to raise the price of his own product for whatever the fuck reason he wanted to, in a democratic society and on the free market that USA supposed to be. And thenof course then there is EpiPen.

> The outrageous price increases directly led to people dying because they couldn't afford life-saving medication.

Show a single piece of evidence of that.

This is absolutely not true. You're speaking out of your ass here. 0 people died. If they couldn't afford it HE GAVE IT TO THEM FREE.

>I find him pretty charming and unbelievably intelligent.

Isn't that part of why people claim he is a psychopath? Smart, lack of empathy, easily gains people's trust, and charm all bang on for traits for psychopathy.

I have a hard time psychopaths are quite as… blunt, frankly.

He pumps a lot of money into medicine research. He gave away drugs for free to people who couldn't afford it. Neither seem particularly likely for a psychopath, and even if they are, then it's a psychopath having a net positive impact.

He is, largely, just a regular but intelligent asshole. I'm getting kinda tired of seeing "charismatic, smart, has money" == "psychopath" lately.

It is very common for "psychopaths" to play charming. That is one of many ways in which they manipulate others because it makes the victims lower their defenses.

Lots of sociopaths are charming. Fun article: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qbxb4m/charming-manipulat...

These are words you'd use to describe any successful con man.

That Vice piece felt like great PR for him, so much that I was very suspect of my feelings of sympathy towards him.

He can be both charming and intelligent, and a complete douchebag at the same time.

Yes, hat was rather my point, I guess I was just trying to put it more delicately