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Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

The Einsteins of Our Time

Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing

The Motley Fool

Investing, Business

4.33.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2023

⏱️ 25 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Did Elon Musk break Twitter? Or did Twitter break Elon Musk? Ben Mezrich is the author of “Bringing Down The House,” “The Accidental Billionaires,” “Dumb Money,” and, most recently, “Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History.” Ricky Mulvey caught up with Mezrich to discuss: Twitter’s impact on Musk’s legacy, The philosophies that drive Einstein-esque founders, And the startup working to “de-extinct” the Woolly Mammoth.   Tickers discussed: TSLA, META, GME, AMC Host: Ricky Mulvey Guest: Ben Mezrich Producer: Mary Long Engineer: Annie Pope, Rick Engdahl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

I mean it's crazy I mean they 90% of the revenue used to be from advertising and he

0:05.8

cradered that and you know Linda Yacharin is brought in to try and bring that

0:09.3

advertising back and some advertisers has come back but in general they value the site now at less than half of what he bought it for and that's entirely because he chased all the advertising away and he created all this debt situation.

0:21.0

So you took a company that was near break even and turned it into a massive

0:27.0

money pit. I don't see how you walk away from that with your reputation unscathed. I'm Mary Long and that's

0:37.0

Ben Mezrich, a chronicler of wild true stories and author of books like

0:41.9

bringing down the house and the Accidental Billionaires.

0:44.8

His latest book, Breaking Twitter, tells the story of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover.

0:49.3

Ricky Mulvey caught up with Mezrich to discuss how X will impact Musk's legacy, the intentions and

0:54.9

philosophies of famous founders, and what the return of the woolly mammoth could

0:59.6

mean for mankind. Joining us now is Ben Mezrich.

1:05.7

His books include dumb money, the accidental billionaires bringing down the house, his

1:09.1

latest is called Breaking Twitter.

1:11.0

I bet you can guess what it's about.

1:12.4

Ben, welcome to Motley Full Money again.

1:14.0

Thank you so much for having me, yep. You usually write about people making a bunch of money or beating systems. This one's about a billionaire losing money why the switch well you know I didn't

1:25.3

mean to step into this morass as it were I was a big fan of Elon Musk I thought

1:30.0

Elon Musk was like Edison or Einstein you you know, he is the guy that Walter Igeson would write a biography about.

1:37.0

And then he stepped into Twitter and to me it's an unmitigated disaster not just for Twitter but the

1:45.0

conceit of the book is Elon Musk didn't just break Twitter but

1:48.0

Twitter broke Elon Musk and so yeah it's it's a it's a horror movie in some ways.

1:54.1

It's an absurd comedy, but it is a disaster as a business.

...

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