Behind the Curtain: Overstock.com, Inc.
I love discovering outwardly normal, boring companies with strange, dark secrets. Today I found a good one.
Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Overstock.com Inc. sells surplus furniture and other homeware at discount prices online to US millennials. Its sales have been growing at a modest pace as people aged 24-36 begin to start families and need to furnish their homes on a budget. The online retail business accounts for 99% of the company's revenue. But not quite all of it.
The remaining percent comes from a division called Medici Ventures (spooky). Medici and its main subsidiary tZERO were set up by founder and CEO Patrick Byrne within Overstock in 2014 to invest in blockchain technologies. The specifics are unclear but Overstock's filings refer to a "Government-as-a-Service" business model with six applications: identity and social media, property and land, money and banking, capital markets, supply chain, and voting; its website talks about circumventing "monolithic trust institutions". It whiffs a bit of Randian Libertarianism to me.
Going back to Overstock. Despite rising sales (up 4% to $1.8 billion in 2018) the company's profits have been declining, slowly at first but quite precipitously now. It reported a $206 million net loss in 2018, an increase on a $110 million loss in 2017.
Dig a bit into its filings and the reasons become clear. Overstock is funneling huge quantities of cash into Medici Ventures, totaling an eye-watering $210 million since its inception. Medici itself posted an operating loss of $60 million in 2018 and management expects no improvement in 2019. And despite the big investment, Medici has annual revenue of just $20 million. Like a parasite, the unit is bleeding its parent dry. Overstock's share price has tanked. Its cash levels are low and getting lower as its operations burn through cash.
At this point I thought this piece was close to its conclusion. A short sketch of a sensible and healthy company being destroyed by a weirdo's pet project.
Then I started to pull on the Patrick Byrne thread and things got strange, fast.
*
There's a lot to say about Patrick Byrne, Overstock's founder and ex-CEO. First of all, he's gigantic, sources say between 6'5" and 6'8" – and very blonde (picture Rutger Hauer and you're close). He was a good friend of an NBA player called Bison Dele (also known as Brian Williams), who died in suspicious circumstances in July 2002, and played a key role in the investigation into his death. Now in his mid-fifties, Byrne has survived cancer a couple of times. And he's passionate about Overstock and cryptocurrency. In fact, Overstock was the first major retailer to accept bitcoin.
Byrne stepped down after 20 years as CEO of Overstock in August this year and published two SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulatory body) filings explaining why. They referred obliquely to his involvement in an investigation into Hillary Clinton, his participation in the "Deep State", some "Men in Black", the murder of Brian Williams, political espionage, and someone he calls the "Omaha Rabbi".
Byrne's statements caught the attention of the press and he was invited on Fox News to explain further. He made several long, confusing, and incoherent interviews on the channel, including one in which he sported a red Make America Grateful Again hat. Byrne claimed political espionage was conducted against Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential Elections, but that the "apparatus of Washington will grind [him] into dust" if he came forward about it, and that he had to resign to protect Overstock. Insurers would not touch Overstock while he was in charge, he said. Byrne's sentences are rambling and often circular and he has trouble following a thought through to the end.
His composure then deteriorated, and on the brink of tears he confessed that, as an actor in the Deep State, he felt partially responsible for the wave of mass shootings sweeping the States. He claimed to have received guidance from his "rabbi" -- "a guy in Omaha" he says, (implying Warren Buffett, aka "the Oracle of Omaha") -- and took pains to downplay the involvement of the FBI, saying the investigation was hijacked from the top by the "men in black". He namechecks Peter Strzok, former head of the FBI's counterespionage unit, having concluded that Strzok was behind the orders he can't discuss by watching his congressional hearing.
It goes on.
Byrne then turned to his relationship with a woman called Maria Butina. Butina is a Russian national currently serving an 18-month jail term in the US for working on the Russian government's behalf without registering with the DoJ; in common parlance that's known as "spying". The pair met at a libertarian conference Byrne was speaking at (although he claims only partial allegiance to libertarianism but was the third largest political donator in Utah in 2000-2003). Butina was there advocating pro-gun causes and, according to the trial, creating backchannels to the Russian government that could be exploited at a later date. Butina said there were agents in Russia who wanted to talk to him. The pair began dating, broke up after about six months, and then, says Byrne, some time later he received instruction from the "Men in Black" to rekindle the romantic relationship.
Those are more or less the key themes. There's a lot to process. Is any of it true? Does it have anything to do with Medici and Overstock? Is Patrick Byrne OK?
From here, all I can do is speculate wildly. So that's what I'm going to do.
Byrne created Medici as a result of the onset of paranoid schizophrenia caused by the death of his father.
1) He has a fear of government. He outlines his politics in one of the Fox News videos as "small 'L' libertarian and a small 'R' republican", libertarians being anti-government; he refers repeatedly to the "deep state" and "men in black" conspiracy theories; makes other inferences to some kind of shadowy nexus of power within existing structures; and has claimed he "knows enough to fry to Deep State to ashes".
2) Medici's purpose seems to be escaping the reach of government and circumventing the before-mentioned "monolithic trust institutions", such as "big banks, insurance companies, and other trust institutions". Byrne has fanciful notions about Medici's (and blockchain's) potential, viewing them as revolutionary and causing him to recklessly abuse his main asset and life's work, risking its collapse. He has undoubtedly not pursued growth in Medici in a rational way.
3) His identification of former FBI man Peter Strzok as central to the espionage against Clinton, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump taps directly into the right-wing Spygate conspiracy theory. He concluded Strzok was the man giving the order was by watching his testimony and picking up on certain clues. It's easy to imagine Byrne watching a dull testimony, seeing and hearing certain familiar phrases and expressions, and using them to validate his delusion.
4) Medici was founded in 2014. Byrne's father died in 2013. Byrne's father was in insurance, a sector Byrne seems to have a particular gripe with.
What do you think?
Researching this story has been a wild ride. Who'd have guessed that a boring online discounter would lead to a deep state conspiracy, sexy Russian agents, the Quixotic pursuit of a dream, paranoia, and a dead father?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5J-1rs1LJo
https://www.si.com/longform/bison-dele/index.html
https://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/overstock-ceo-patrick-m-byrne-
resigns
https://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/overstockcom-ceo-comments-deep-state-withholds-further-comment
https://saraacarter.com/overstock-ceo-turned-over-docs-to-doj-on-fbis-russian-and-hillary-clinton-probes/
https://newrepublic.com/article/153036/maria-butina-profile-wasnt-russian-spy
I love discovering outwardly normal, boring companies with strange, dark secrets. Today I found a good one.
Based in Salt Lake City, Utah, Overstock.com Inc. sells surplus furniture and other homeware at discount prices online to US millennials. Its sales have been growing at a modest pace as people aged 24-36 begin to start families and need to furnish their homes on a budget. The online retail business accounts for 99% of the company's revenue. But not quite all of it.
The remaining percent comes from a division called Medici Ventures (spooky). Medici and its main subsidiary tZERO were set up by founder and CEO Patrick Byrne within Overstock in 2014 to invest in blockchain technologies. The specifics are unclear but Overstock's filings refer to a "Government-as-a-Service" business model with six applications: identity and social media, property and land, money and banking, capital markets, supply chain, and voting; its website talks about circumventing "monolithic trust institutions". It whiffs a bit of Randian Libertarianism to me.
Going back to Overstock. Despite rising sales (up 4% to $1.8 billion in 2018) the company's profits have been declining, slowly at first but quite precipitously now. It reported a $206 million net loss in 2018, an increase on a $110 million loss in 2017.
Dig a bit into its filings and the reasons become clear. Overstock is funneling huge quantities of cash into Medici Ventures, totaling an eye-watering $210 million since its inception. Medici itself posted an operating loss of $60 million in 2018 and management expects no improvement in 2019. And despite the big investment, Medici has annual revenue of just $20 million. Like a parasite, the unit is bleeding its parent dry. Overstock's share price has tanked. Its cash levels are low and getting lower as its operations burn through cash.
At this point I thought this piece was close to its conclusion. A short sketch of a sensible and healthy company being destroyed by a weirdo's pet project.
Then I started to pull on the Patrick Byrne thread and things got strange, fast.
*
There's a lot to say about Patrick Byrne, Overstock's founder and ex-CEO. First of all, he's gigantic, sources say between 6'5" and 6'8" – and very blonde (picture Rutger Hauer and you're close). He was a good friend of an NBA player called Bison Dele (also known as Brian Williams), who died in suspicious circumstances in July 2002, and played a key role in the investigation into his death. Now in his mid-fifties, Byrne has survived cancer a couple of times. And he's passionate about Overstock and cryptocurrency. In fact, Overstock was the first major retailer to accept bitcoin.
Byrne stepped down after 20 years as CEO of Overstock in August this year and published two SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission, the US regulatory body) filings explaining why. They referred obliquely to his involvement in an investigation into Hillary Clinton, his participation in the "Deep State", some "Men in Black", the murder of Brian Williams, political espionage, and someone he calls the "Omaha Rabbi".
Byrne's statements caught the attention of the press and he was invited on Fox News to explain further. He made several long, confusing, and incoherent interviews on the channel, including one in which he sported a red Make America Grateful Again hat. Byrne claimed political espionage was conducted against Hillary Clinton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump in the run-up to the 2016 US Presidential Elections, but that the "apparatus of Washington will grind [him] into dust" if he came forward about it, and that he had to resign to protect Overstock. Insurers would not touch Overstock while he was in charge, he said. Byrne's sentences are rambling and often circular and he has trouble following a thought through to the end.
His composure then deteriorated, and on the brink of tears he confessed that, as an actor in the Deep State, he felt partially responsible for the wave of mass shootings sweeping the States. He claimed to have received guidance from his "rabbi" -- "a guy in Omaha" he says, (implying Warren Buffett, aka "the Oracle of Omaha") -- and took pains to downplay the involvement of the FBI, saying the investigation was hijacked from the top by the "men in black". He namechecks Peter Strzok, former head of the FBI's counterespionage unit, having concluded that Strzok was behind the orders he can't discuss by watching his congressional hearing.
It goes on.
Byrne then turned to his relationship with a woman called Maria Butina. Butina is a Russian national currently serving an 18-month jail term in the US for working on the Russian government's behalf without registering with the DoJ; in common parlance that's known as "spying". The pair met at a libertarian conference Byrne was speaking at (although he claims only partial allegiance to libertarianism but was the third largest political donator in Utah in 2000-2003). Butina was there advocating pro-gun causes and, according to the trial, creating backchannels to the Russian government that could be exploited at a later date. Butina said there were agents in Russia who wanted to talk to him. The pair began dating, broke up after about six months, and then, says Byrne, some time later he received instruction from the "Men in Black" to rekindle the romantic relationship.
Those are more or less the key themes. There's a lot to process. Is any of it true? Does it have anything to do with Medici and Overstock? Is Patrick Byrne OK?
From here, all I can do is speculate wildly. So that's what I'm going to do.
Byrne created Medici as a result of the onset of paranoid schizophrenia caused by the death of his father.
1) He has a fear of government. He outlines his politics in one of the Fox News videos as "small 'L' libertarian and a small 'R' republican", libertarians being anti-government; he refers repeatedly to the "deep state" and "men in black" conspiracy theories; makes other inferences to some kind of shadowy nexus of power within existing structures; and has claimed he "knows enough to fry to Deep State to ashes".
2) Medici's purpose seems to be escaping the reach of government and circumventing the before-mentioned "monolithic trust institutions", such as "big banks, insurance companies, and other trust institutions". Byrne has fanciful notions about Medici's (and blockchain's) potential, viewing them as revolutionary and causing him to recklessly abuse his main asset and life's work, risking its collapse. He has undoubtedly not pursued growth in Medici in a rational way.
3) His identification of former FBI man Peter Strzok as central to the espionage against Clinton, Rubio, Cruz, and Trump taps directly into the right-wing Spygate conspiracy theory. He concluded Strzok was the man giving the order was by watching his testimony and picking up on certain clues. It's easy to imagine Byrne watching a dull testimony, seeing and hearing certain familiar phrases and expressions, and using them to validate his delusion.
4) Medici was founded in 2014. Byrne's father died in 2013. Byrne's father was in insurance, a sector Byrne seems to have a particular gripe with.
What do you think?
Researching this story has been a wild ride. Who'd have guessed that a boring online discounter would lead to a deep state conspiracy, sexy Russian agents, the Quixotic pursuit of a dream, paranoia, and a dead father?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5J-1rs1LJo
https://www.si.com/longform/bison-dele/index.html
https://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/overstock-ceo-patrick-m-byrne-
resigns
https://investors.overstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/overstockcom-ceo-comments-deep-state-withholds-further-comment
https://saraacarter.com/overstock-ceo-turned-over-docs-to-doj-on-fbis-russian-and-hillary-clinton-probes/
https://newrepublic.com/article/153036/maria-butina-profile-wasnt-russian-spy
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