Hacker Cinema
Betting on Zero
2016 · Film · documentary · 104 min
Directed by Ted Braun
Controversial hedge fund titan Bill Ackman is on a crusade to expose global nutritional giant Herbalife as the largest pyramid scheme in history while Herbalife execs claim Ackman is a market manipulator out to bankrupt them and make a killing off his billion dollar short.
9 positive1 mixed1 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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12 comments on Hacker News
I love documentaries, and these are my favourites. All very worth a watch.
- The Crash Reel
- McConkey
- Buck
- Apollo 11
- Carts of Darkness
- The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia
- Samsara
- Baraka
- Brooklyn Castle
- Spellbound
- Drew: The Man Behind the Poster
- Crumb
- The Jinx
- The Art of Flight
- King of Kong
- Indie Game: The Movie
- Capturing the Friedmans
- OJ: Made in America
- The Barkley Marathons
- The Seven Five
- Murderball
- Unbranded
- Gringo: The Dangerous Life of John McAfee
- Big River Man
- Hoop Dreams
- Word Wars
- Free Solo
- Long Shot
- Meru
- Being Elmo
- All This Mayhem
- Jiro Dreams of Sushi
- The Cove
- Project Nim
- Alone in the Wilderness
- Behind the Curve
- The Dawn Wall
- Grizzly Man
- 13th
- Winnebago Man
- Man vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler
- Get Me Roger Stone
- Icarus
- 13th
- Koyaanisqatsi
- The Thin Blue Line
- An Inconvenient Truth
- Oklahoma City
- Virunga
- The Staircase
- Evil Genius
- Undefeated
- Betting on zero
Jealousy. Nothing more. Obviously we've seen the same with day traders, the normal stock market, the housing market. Anyone can invest, but they all want the high end stories of 100 fold increases with no losses.
Not that I've seen it come up in this context but short sellers are incentivized to destroy companies.
See 'Betting on Zero' - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762912/ It doesn't matter if he's right or wrong, if he succeeds he also makes a stack of money.
For a good reference into what a major MLM scheme looks like, check out the documentary “Betting on Zero.” They are remarkably resilient operations
Watch 'Betting on Zero' - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762912/
There is no value without the 'When'
Agreed. You may find the documentary Betting on Zero, and how Herbalife gets into communities.
Betting on Zero is a great documentary. If you want a competing view point, you should read the blog posts by John Hempton, an Australian hedge fund manager.
http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2015/06/herbalife-very-long-post.html
There's nothing wrong, at least conceptually, with Herbalife's products, protein shakes.
However, Herbalife's success comes from their incredibly shady and destructive pyramid scheme that preys on individuals and tricks them into acquiring debt in exchange for becoming "distributors" of Herbalife products. According to the FTC [1], "it's virtually impossible to make money selling Herbalife products".
I recommend the documentary Betting on Zero [2] for more insight into Herbalife, as well as the fascinating story of Bill Ackman's failed attempt at shorting their stock at a huge scale.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/blogs/business-blog/2016/07/its-no-longer-business-usual-herbalife-inside-look-200
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betting_on_Zero
Thanks!!
- Betting on Zero (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762912/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1):
Ha, I can't believe that Herbalife not only still exists but that if I look at its share price it even flourished, got into sponsoring, etc... - I know about the company because looong time back it did a push as well here in Switzerland, but as at that time I tagged it as "scam" I supposed that it would soon or later disappear... . Very interesting to be reminded about how "multi-level marketing"/"pyramid selling" works and very nice that by showing what that Ackman guy did I now understand as well e.g. all these recent discussions related to "short sellers" vs Tesla (I wasn't fully aware that "short selling" could be done in such an active way - I thought that some regulator would start targeting you...).
- The China Hustle (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7215388/?ref_=nv_sr_1)
Very interesting. I never heard about "reverse merges". Additionally I tended to think that e.g. the SEC and/or other regulators not only establish rules and react when they're not followed but actively check the truthfulness of the statements/informations beforehand, but it does not seem to be working that way (I can understand the reasons, but on the other hand this kind of defeats the reason of having such rules...). Btw a few weeks ago I stumbled upon some videos of this guy (e.g. "Why I refuse to buy property in China" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lAoTBVTTO8 ), which explain a bit how chinese people think and some of them are related to what is mentioned briefly in the documentary about the chinese housing bubble.
- Dirty Money (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7889220/?ref_=nv_sr_1): pending... .
A few favorites that come to mind.
- Betting on Zero. A documentary on the billion dollar short on Herbalife and whether or not Herbalife is a pyramid scheme. It is definitely biased towards making Bill Ackman look good (the guy who made it is friends with Ackman) but nonetheless is very interesting and if you are anti-MLM it will fit your view.
- Dirty Money. I wouldn't say it is straight finance but shows a variety of business stories that are very interesting. I thought the one on the payday loan guy was the most interesting. It is produced by Alex Gibney (who did the Enron doc) so if you liked that one then this will be up your alley too.
- The China Hustle. Highlights some difficult in investing in Chinese companies and how they differ in terms of standards and reporting.
For anyone interested, the documentary Betting On Zero is very good (on Netflix). I'd be curious to hear how the film came together and got financed. It certainly has an agenda and Bill Ackman comes out looking pretty good vs Herbalife.
That said, Ackman looks a lot less good in episode 3 of "Dirty Money" regarding Valeant (also on Netflix).
Obligitory "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" quote.
EDIT: Just noticed Herbalife owns bettingonzero.com. They put up a "FAQ" saying Ackman secretly funded the doc and they're promoting the link with ads on Google.
Felt the same way. The documentary Betting On Zero was eye-opening, and I was surprised that he stuck to this bet for so long.
I suppose it isn't really a pyramid scheme in the sense of being unstable. It is perfectly stable at fleecing people who don't know any better.
If you're in the mood for a documentary 'Betting on Zero' is pretty good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3762912/