pyramid schemes

Jane Marie is an expert in American bullshit. Her podcast The Dream explores life coaching, wellness, marketing, and other fraudulent industries and exposes their exploitative practices. Her book, Selling the Dream, takes an even closer look at multilevel marketing schemes like Amway and Herbalife and gives historical context to this multibillion-dollar — and distinctly American — enterprise.  Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: Jane Marie. Her podcast is The Dream and her book is Selling the Dream. Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Be the first to hear new episodes of The Gray Area by following us in your favorite podcast app. Links here: https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by:  Producer: Jon Ehrens  Engineer: Patrick Boyd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episode 500: Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) talks to Jason Yanowitz (https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz) founder of Blockworks, which covers crypto news, information and analytics. Jason shares the revenue numbers behind Blockworks, the secret to hosting profitable events, and why he would put 100% of his portfolio in crypto.  Want to see more MFM? Subscribe to our YouTube channel here. Want MFM Merch? Check out our store here. Want to see the best clips from MFM? Subscribe to our clips channel here. — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com/ Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (1:45) Blockworks revenue and profitability (4:00) How to crush it with a conference (10:00) Conferences are really 3-day marketplaces (15:00) Jason's accidental MLM success story (23:00) The difference between MLMs and pyramid schemes (27:00) How Sam Ovens inspired Blockworks (30:00) The fallacy of founder origin stories (35:00) How Sam is optimizing his life (42:00) Business Idea: Beehiiv for Conferences (45:00) Business Idea: Hair transplants for the masses (48:00) Blockworks Research (55:00) Where is Jason putting his money? (1:00:00) How Sam thinks about crypto — Links: • Blockworks - https://blockworks.co/ • Blockworks Research - https://www.blockworksresearch.com/ • Blockworks Twitter - https://twitter.com/blockworks_ • Jason’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/JasonYanowitz • Sam Ovens Consulting company - https://www.consulting.com/ • Peter Turchin - https://peterturchin.com/ • beehiiv - https://www.beehiiv.com/ • Eventbrite - https://www.eventbrite.com/ • Splash - https://splashthat.com/ • Hopin acquisition - https://tinyurl.com/2zn2kk3p • ‘Elon Musk,’ by Walter Isaacson - https://tinyurl.com/bde53vpr • Jeff Bezo’s Regret Minimization Framework - https://tinyurl.com/m34hmyfk Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

Multi-Level-Marketing (MLM) companies are big businesses around the world and they have rightfully attracted much criticism for questionable business practice. Many have called them illegal pyramid schemes, but today these companies continue to operate in most developed countries around the world and rake in billions of dollars in profit in any given year all with the blessing of local trade authorities. So, what are these businesses? Let's park personal opinions on how annoying it is to be roped into one of these MLM meetings for the moment and assess the fundamental economics behind this business model.

When Amazon Prime dropped the LuLaRich documentary in 2021, it was one of the first times the population at large got to peek behind the curtain at one of the largest multilevel marketing companies in the world—and boy, did it take internet voyeurs by storm. The timing of (and snark generated by) such an explosive exposé was especially interesting, given the other pyramid scheme-y thing playing out in 2022: NFTs, shitcoins, and meme stocks. It feels like we should’ve learned our collective lesson by now—but are the get-rich-quick schemes that plague our DMs and Twitter feeds evolving faster than we are? What’s a Boss Babe to do? Learn more about our sponsor, Vin Social: https://www.vinsocial.vip Learn more about our sponsor, Droplette: https://droplette.io/. Use promo code MONEYWITHKATIE for 50% off. Learn more about our sponsor, Fidelity: https://fidelity.com/stocksbytheslice Transcripts can be found at podcast.moneywithkatie.com. — Mentioned in the Episode Amanda Montell's Cultish: https://bookshop.org/a/90396/9780062993151 LuLaRich: https://www.amazon.com/LuLaRich-Season-1/dp/B09CFXPNSX LuLaRich trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIkcrQzTr8w&ab_channel=AmazonPrimeVideoUK How LuLaRoe worked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4411N0nAELY&ab_channel=AmazonPrimeVideoUK The Sam Dee on YouTube, sharing their experience as a LuLaRoe retailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-TO2-d10S0&ab_channel=TheSamDee The Dream podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s1-e1-wanna-swim-in-cash/id1435743296?i=1000420324159 The Airplane Game from the 1980s: https://apnews.com/article/7894d03521da555b7ea45e6f78323fbb "Blessing Loom" scam alert: https://www.bbb.org/article/news-releases/22255-bbb-scam-alert-easy-money-blessing-loom-nope-pyramid-scheme Benjamin M. Friedman's Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: https://bookshop.org/a/90396/9780593311097 Protestant ethic, per the Encyclopedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Protestant-ethic James Jani on YouTube, sharing about the prosperity gospel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfKpAWkgJY&t=771s&ab_channel=JamesJani — Follow Along at Money with Katie: https://moneywithkatie.com/ Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MoneywithKatie Follow Money with Katie! - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moneywithkatie/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/moneywithkatie   Subscribe to The Money with Katie Newsletter - Sign up for free today: https://www.morningbrew.com/money-with-katie/subscribe/2 Follow the Brew! - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/morningbrew/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/MorningBrew - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@morningbrew Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether you love MLMs or just love to hate ’em, none of us are immune to getting a “Hey, hun!” in our DMs. But have all the boss babes really been conned? Join Rachel and George as they take a closer look to find out if MLMs are an entrepreneur’s paradise . . . or just another scam.   In This Episode:   ·     The fine line between a pyramid scheme and an MLM ·     George’s and Rachel’s personal experiences with MLM products ·     Solved: the mystery of the free luxury car   Helpful Resources:   ·     Be entered to win a $100 Visa gift card when you take our listener survey! Click here to let us know what you think.    ·     Do you have a Guilty As Charged question for Rachel and George? Send a DM to @rachelcruze or @georgekamel on Instagram! Be sure to type “GUILTY?” at the top of your message so we don’t miss it.   ·     Get your finances organized, make a plan, build up your confidence, and kick money stress out of your life for good with the EveryDollar budgeting app. Go to everydollar.com/smart to get started today! ·     Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices ·     Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy   This Week’s Happy Hour Special:  The Aviation ·     2 ounces gin ·     1/4 ounce Luxardo maraschino liqueur ·     1/4 ounce ​crème de violette liqueur ·     1/2 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice   Grab your trusty cocktail shaker and fill it with ice. Add gin, maraschino liqueur, crème de violette and lemon juice to the shaker. Shake that thing and strain into a glass. For an elevated experience, garnish with a lemon twist! 🛫

Robert is joined by Jack O'Brien to discuss Amway.

FOOTNOTES:

1. https://jacobinmag.com/2018/09/richard-devos-amway-multi-level-marketing-conservatism
2. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/1996/09/she-did-it-amway/
3. https://www.nytimes.com/1977/09/17/archives/amways-direct-sales-foster-zeal-success-and-criticism-amways-direct.html?_r=0
4. https://archive.org/stream/MerchantsOfDeception/MerchantsOfDeception_djvu.txt
5. https://www.michigandaily.com/uncategorized/dems-devos-owned-troubled-nursing-home/
6. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Amway/AUS/directly.htm
7. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1984/01/22/rearranging-amway-event-for-reagan/b3e74482-5ce0-4d20-9f98-ebdc9b4d4918/
8. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/15/opinion/joe-nocera-the-pyramid-scheme-problem.html
9. https://time.com/5877434/first-ponzi-scheme/
10. https://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/ponzi.htm
11. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/dreams-incorporated#anchor1
12. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/default/news/2017/01/23/296947/the-devos-dynasty-a-family-of-extremists/
13. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/30/rich-richard-devos-obituary-amway-politics-2018-223306/
14. https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/you-dont-know-dick/Content?oid=2185621

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Have you ever heard of a guy named Keith Raniere? You may have heard of his cult, 'NXIVM' which has been in the news a lot lately. In Episode 8, Robert is joined by writer/comedian  Anna Salinas (badcomixbyanna, John Baxte) and they discuss Keith Raniere who describes himself as the 'conceptual founder of NXIVM, a group that focuses on the overarching philosophy of companies focusing on increasing joy and ethics in the world.' BUT we now know that is complete crap and   NXIVM is actually a creepy sex cult that forced women to brand each other.

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They say you can't con an honest man, and that's key to thwarting cons; if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Learn how to avoid everything from small-time scams to the Nigerian money transfer in this captivating episode with Chuck and Josh.

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