weareallgoingtodie.com

Way back in the dark ages, during the heady days of the Internet bubble, I had an phone interview, with The Motley Fool.  The guy interviewing me asked me the hexidecimal value for red to test whether I know HTML, WTFF0000?!?  I answered, correctly and I was on a terrible cell phone and the call was dropped.  He called me back and said in a weird jokey voice, something like “I knew you hadn’t hung up on me on purpose, that would have been a huge mistake. Haha”.  That was the tip-off that all this bullshit about being a “fool” and how it was supposed to be ironic, was actually true.  These people were retards.  Just to confirm my suspicions the interviewer continued on a path where he seemed compelled to tell me about how this was the best company in the world, and that it was a lifestyle and in Old Town and blah blah blah. But I kept thinking, I don’t like this guy, and don’t want him to be my boss. I wound up saying exactly that.

And here we are 12 years later and the company …. still sucks.

Haha!

Here is the proof.  I am shorting BIDU today, and there was a headline next to the stock that read: The One Stock You Must Buy. Now I knew this was bullshit, but I like to click on bullshit links.

Here is  quote from the article, I’ll put the text in red, to prove that I can:

Here, however, is a litmus test to gauge every stock tip you come across. Simply ask: Does this company bear any resemblance at all to Apple, Amazon, eBay, or Baidu before they were big names?

Uh, that’s stupid.

The article continues to put this list, not once, but twice in the article:

1. Small.
2. Led by a dedicated founder(s).
3. Fiscally conservative.
4. Profiting from a wide market opportunity.

So where is “The One Stock You Must Buy”?

If you’d like to take a look at the companies we’ve found that meet the four criteria mentioned, click here to join Hidden Gems free for 30 days.

Right…..

That is not only stupid, that is fucking stupid.
It is exactly the same type of bait-and-switch bullshit that I look for in my financial advice.
Give us your credit card number and I’ll tell you the secret to getting rich.

I stand by my decision to tell the hiring guy from The Fool to “Fuck off”. I think time has proven who made the right choice. From an ethical standpoint, I am happy to not work for a company that cons people into subscription services for crappy returns.

The wikipedia article on them is pretty interesting, the Motley Fool has become a electronic boiler room touting overpriced stocks for subpar returns.