Time to attempt to defend Shkreli again because while I find him to definitely be of questionable moral character, I get even more sore at the unhinged Shkreli-bashing by everyone I know which seems to be based almost entirely on mood affiliation and tribalism.
The reasons for him being the "most hated man in America" mentioned at the end of the article are:
>increasing the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000%, holding an anticipated Wu-Tang album hostage, harassing women on Twitter, and for his smug court appearances.
Does it seem odd that those are all lumped together in people's minds? Only the first one should have any bearing on the question of whether he's actually loathsome.
* Holding the Wu-Tang album hostage is a totally reasonable thing to do, he did pay an exorbitant price for the right of exclusivity after all. Most people in the hip hop community seem to hold the whole incident more against RZA than against Shkreli in any case.
* The claim of harassing women appears to be false, based on the evidence they linked to. I followed their link and it appears his harassment consists of inviting women to go to the presidential inauguration with him. When they turned him down (in the most insulting terms they could personally think of, apparently) he didn't say any more. So that's harassment now?
* >his smug court appearances. Not exactly a federal offense.
The serious allegation is about raising the price of a life-saving drug, and on this point I totally understand hating him. I can't bring myself to hate him based on that though.
Personally I don't see how it's much different to take a ridiculously underpriced drug and raise the price to what the market will bear vs. being CEO of a company and keeping your drugs' prices at its historically high point. I know everyone hates CEO's of pharmaceutical companies anyways but my point is how is he any worse than the lot of them? Purely because of emotion.
The reasons for him being the "most hated man in America" mentioned at the end of the article are:
>increasing the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000%, holding an anticipated Wu-Tang album hostage, harassing women on Twitter, and for his smug court appearances.
Does it seem odd that those are all lumped together in people's minds? Only the first one should have any bearing on the question of whether he's actually loathsome.
* Holding the Wu-Tang album hostage is a totally reasonable thing to do, he did pay an exorbitant price for the right of exclusivity after all. Most people in the hip hop community seem to hold the whole incident more against RZA than against Shkreli in any case.
* The claim of harassing women appears to be false, based on the evidence they linked to. I followed their link and it appears his harassment consists of inviting women to go to the presidential inauguration with him. When they turned him down (in the most insulting terms they could personally think of, apparently) he didn't say any more. So that's harassment now?
* >his smug court appearances. Not exactly a federal offense.
The serious allegation is about raising the price of a life-saving drug, and on this point I totally understand hating him. I can't bring myself to hate him based on that though.
Personally I don't see how it's much different to take a ridiculously underpriced drug and raise the price to what the market will bear vs. being CEO of a company and keeping your drugs' prices at its historically high point. I know everyone hates CEO's of pharmaceutical companies anyways but my point is how is he any worse than the lot of them? Purely because of emotion.