Wired Magazine: The Inside Story of MtGox

[okashira]

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/

A Quote:

Ver and Powell were set to work through the weekend, but when they arrived at the company’s tiny office that Saturday, there was a surprise. Mark Karpeles had decided to take the weekend off. The two volunteers were flabbergasted. “I thought that was completely insane and demoralizing for the rest of the team,” Powell remembers. On Monday, Powell says, Karpeles did return to work, but he spent part of the day stuffing envelopes. “I was like: ‘Dude why are you doing this? You can do this anytime. The site is offline. You need to get the site online.’”

Finally, some actual journalism.

Cliffs: Mark is narcissistic, incompetent and lazy.

I suspect that in the US, with such gross negligence, his personal assets, which I am sure are substantial and exceed his company's "debts," would not be protected in a bankruptcy case. All that needs to be shown is that he intermingled finances.

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[okashira]

From a distance, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange looked like a towering example of renegade entrepreneurism.

Only if you are deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid.

Victim blaming benefits no-one.

"From a distance," the exchange was one of the tops in bitcoin. The proof is in the pudding: the media thought so.
For members of this forum, Mtgox was an obvious disaster, however, we are the minority.

[BittBurger]

Great article.  Great insight into Mark Karpeles personality and strange behaviors...

-B-

[h3rlihy]

"From a distance," the exchange was one of the tops in bitcoin. The proof is in the pudding: the media thought so.
For members of this forum, Mtgox was an obvious disaster, however, we are the minority.

This. It was so obviously going downhill when there was such a huge gap between the price at gox and the price at other exchanges. But the majority clearly did not think their sh*t through at the end of the day.

[repentance]

Great article.  Great insight into Mark Karpeles personality and strange behaviors...

-B-

What's frightening is that it's not uncommon. Operating a successful business involves doing a hell of a lot of tedious shit, more and more of it as the business gets bigger.  You can't just ignore that shit and you can only delegate so much of it to other people but the more you play the "successful entrepreneur" game the less likely it is that people will call you on your bullshit - or the more likely it is that you'll dismiss any criticism because you think you're smarter than everyone else.

A lot of people get hooked on "being a CEO" and all the trappings, which isn't the same thing as being a successful business person.

[BittBurger]

Great article.  Great insight into Mark Karpeles personality and strange behaviors...

-B-

What's frightening is that it's not uncommon. Operating a successful business involves doing a hell of a lot of tedious shit, more and more of it as the business gets bigger.  You can't just ignore that shit and you can only delegate so much of it to other people but the more you play the "successful entrepreneur" game the less likely it is that people will call you on your bullshit - or the more likely it is that you'll dismiss any criticism because you think you're smarter than everyone else.

A lot of people get hooked on "being a CEO" and all the trappings, which isn't the same thing as being a successful business person.

I feel bad saying this but all signs point to him being a Sociopath.

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html

Plain and simple.

-B-

[crazy_rabbit]

So, basically exactly as we all knew and suspected, deep down. He's a geek that has no business, running a business. What a disaster.

[tokeweed]

Great article.  Great insight into Mark Karpeles personality and strange behaviors...

-B-

drinking 3 star bucks frappoccinos a day tends to have this effect.

[dreamspark]

Good read.

Its scary to think about how everyone gave this guy so much money yet all he wanted to do was lock himself away and write some php.

The thing I don't get is he clearly wasn't enjoying being the ceo so why didn't he pay someone to do all those day to day duties. Still own the business and get paid, sit about and code. Its mad that he didnt do that. From the article he sounds completely disinterested. He had/has so much money why would he just let it run itself into the ground.

[Lauda]

From a distance, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange looked like a towering example of renegade entrepreneurism.

Only if you are deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid.

Most of the customers who lost their funds, were.

[nmtrader100]

"$27.4 million missing from its bank accounts"

He is going to jail.  This is criminal.  No different than what Bernie Madoff did. 

[cryptoanarchist]

I've learned over the years that "Wired" isn't a credible news source.

Its the perfect read when you want to see the what meme the government is trying to push, but has nothing to do with the truth.

[Pangia]

Karpeles is a sociopath.

[Pangia]

I've learned over the years that "Wired" isn't a credible news source.

Its the perfect read when you want to see the what meme the government is trying to push, but has nothing to do with the truth.

Yes, you're right. The whole MTGOX thing is just a misunderstanding.

[bitvestor]

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/

A Quote:

Ver and Powell were set to work through the weekend, but when they arrived at the company’s tiny office that Saturday, there was a surprise. Mark Karpeles had decided to take the weekend off. The two volunteers were flabbergasted. “I thought that was completely insane and demoralizing for the rest of the team,” Powell remembers. On Monday, Powell says, Karpeles did return to work, but he spent part of the day stuffing envelopes. “I was like: ‘Dude why are you doing this? You can do this anytime. The site is offline. You need to get the site online.’”

Finally, some actual journalism.

Cliffs: Mark is narcissistic, incompetent and lazy.

I suspect that in the US, with such gross negligence, his personal assets, which I am sure are substantial and exceed his company's "debts," would not be protected in a bankruptcy case. All that needs to be shown is that he intermingled finances.

Well, he was the boss.. Oh yea he was then!!

[cryptoanarchist]

I've learned over the years that "Wired" isn't a credible news source.

Its the perfect read when you want to see the what meme the government is trying to push, but has nothing to do with the truth.

Yes, you're right. The whole MTGOX thing is just a misunderstanding.

That's not what I said. I think the mtgox thing has more to do with government and fiat bankers than it does with Mark Karpeles. He's just the patsy at this point.

[freebit13]

Hey, let's jump on every Gox thread and harp on about how stupid their customers are and how clever we are... give it a break guys, everyone got the message and most of them aren't even on these forums! I wasn't even a customer and I'm getting tired of the self-praising posts that abound on every thread... how are those post counts going eh?

Enough! Please?

[TheFootMan]

Interestingly nobody seems to mention the fact that the insiders who experienced MtGox's handling of the 2011 hack seemed to be bothered to notify the customer base about this.

Particularily, when there was such a crisis and Mark took the weekend off, and then came in the next monday and started to stuff envelopes, this was a very red flag, that the insiders in question should've relayed to the larger community.

Said insiders are today heavily involved in bitcoin. How can we trust them to tell us when there's a problem with any of their services that we should know about?

If they wanted to stay 'loyal', they could've even leaked the information anonymously.

We must realize that for many people, monetary interests trumps everything, and that they will do anything to accomplish their goals and tweak things to their benefit.

The sign of small things not looking well, more often than not indicates that the larger picture is not good as well.

[medUSA]

This is such a great article! Surprised to see so few have left a comment...
It explains why Gox PR is non-existent, cos Mark K chose to shut himself off in a crisis:

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2014/03/bitcoin-exchange/

[Phinnaeus Gage]

Good read.

Its scary to think about how everyone gave this guy so much money yet all he wanted to do was lock himself away and write some php.

The thing I don't get is he clearly wasn't enjoying being the ceo so why didn't he pay someone to do all those day to day duties. Still own the business and get paid, sit about and code. Its mad that he didnt do that. From the article he sounds completely disinterested. He had/has so much money why would he just let it run itself into the ground.

He was either put in place as the fall guy, or to control the flow of bitcoins, something he wouldn't have been able to do if a real CEO were in place. I'm hard-pressed to think of another scenario.