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No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

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Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#131

Post by loeg »

Balgair wrote: post #111
creaghpatr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although, it did, I assume, trigger the divorce which will cost him a couple billion dollars

Then all the more kudos to Jeff for doing this. Taken from the point of view of the divorce court, this is a LOT more ammo for his soon-to-be-ex-wife and her side. These photos are very soon to hit the greater web/papers and WILL be used against him in the proceedings. You are correct, this decision by him to speak out is likely to cost him Billions .

Why should his wife get more or less than half of their common property (Washington is a community property state) regardless of who had an affair with who? They're both multi-billionaires and will live comfortably for the rest of their lives.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#132

Post by jnbiche »

matt4077 wrote: post #72
api wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is worse than Gawker outing Thiel as gay. In this case they're attempting blackmail ahead of time, which may be a crime.

It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal. See, for example, the many civil settlements where rich people stop the people they raped from going to the police. And I’m unsure what the status is on publishing salacious private photos. Sure, there is a copyright issue. But that’s a civil matter, not criminal. If it were a crime, it really wouldn’t be much of a threat bec…

> It’s generally not blackmail to threaten someone with some action that, by itself, is legal.

That's entirely untrue. The downvotes are rolling in because your assertion about blackmail is simply wrong. There are a myriad of local, state, and federal laws on blackmail that cover situations like this.

Blackmail can involve any threats to coerce using private materials, not just for financial objectives.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#134

Post by buboard »

lapnitnelav wrote: post #98
stupidcar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have with most super rich people is that they consider genuine risk far less important than potential embarrassment. E.g. they won't dare taking a stand politically because of the chance that someone will go public with some scandalous nonsense. Bezos on the other hand seems willing to calculate differently. I have to say, this has changed my opinion of him a lot in his favour. On the very remote chance…

All the money in the world can't buy your pride / dignity back, especially if some "embarrassing" evidence get out there. It's something in the way people would look at you, talk about you, etc ... If you combine that with the Streisand effect, there's no way a public figure can take this kind of hit and walk away unphased. It's very much human nature, and that's why Jeff's move is bold.

> All the money in the world can't buy your pride / dignity back, especially if some "embarrassing" evidence get out there.

AFAIK we are talking about a naked pic. If that was really so dangerous, people would never take naked selfies in the first place. I think it's hyperbole, even by american's puritan standards

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#135

Post by jupp0r »

ergothus wrote: post #71
beachy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and he makes a great point - if he can't fight back against this sort of thing, then who the heck ever could?

Exactly - I'm trying to imagine being in his place and being open about all of this...and it's HARD. It's easy for me to want HIM to do it, but as much as I think being disgustingly wealthy would be great...I'm sure I'd still be really nervous about pressing that button. And it's easy for us to say "Well I wouldn't be in that place to begin with", but as I much as I not be in this EXACT place, most of us have made mi…

> most of us have made mistakes that we deeply regret and fear getting out

Agreed, probably Jeff Bezos has made those mistakes as well. However I fail to see any mistakes of his threatened to be revealed.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#137

Post by fisherjeff »

notatoad wrote: post #49

Apparently AMI and David Pecker's non-prosecution agreement for the Michael Cohen stuff is contingent on them not continuing to do crime. So i guess that's out the window now. https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1093654471157170177

Depends on the analysis I suppose. This one makes it sound unlikely that the agreement will be voided:

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/10936583665834229...

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#138

Post by loeg »

woodruffw wrote: post #11
minimaxir wrote: post #2

Important note: This is written by Jeff Bezos himself . Normally, the Bezos affair story would be gossipy, but this alleges extortion , extraordinarily. (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.)

> (Also, why is Jeff Bezos using Medium? He owns a newspaper.) Using his stake in the WaPo to boost a personal rebuttal would be a tremendous ethical lapse.

Could just publish it as a letter to the editor, no? Papers public random screeds all the time.

Re: No Thank You, Mr. Pecker

#139

Post by loeg »

basil-rash wrote: post #88

Slightly off topic, but does anyone know why this is so low on HN? It has more votes and is more recent than anything except the "How I didn't make a billion dollar company" post, but is at rank 11. https://imgur.com/a/bifDABu

HN penalizes high discussion posts for being gossipy.
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