YouSaid · the spoken record

Billy McFarland

lines on the record: 142
first: 2022-12-08
most recent: 2022-12-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Found a stumbling block or a roadblock earlier on, it would have stopped the whole thing. But it was like this weird combination of smart, crazy people all kind of coming together for this wild idea and solving things we should never been able to solve until we couldn't.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely, and I think that part of the curse and part of the gift at the time was Of their reasons that were being given to me by things weren't possible were all solved with these short-term miracles. And of course, everybody said, hey, the end goal is impossible. You're more on like you don't understand what this takes. And then they would give three or four reasons about smaller problems, right? And then I would go and create magic and solve these three or four problems and be like, look, we've proved that. Like we can handle the bigger stuff too. And I think it just took so many random like roles of the dice to go our way to be able to create a failure so large because if”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So stupid so bad I think of my 25th birthday, we launched the trailer for the Fire Festival. And I still don't think it was real at that time. Like, we had these. We launch a trailer, and I remember waking up like, you know, quasi-hung over five or six hours later, and we'd sold like a half a million dollars of tickets.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the fire. Fire Festival app didn't raise much money prior to like the festival announcement. We came up with a festival idea in September of 2016, shot and released that promotional video that I think a lot of people saw in December of 2016 and announced an April of 2017 like launch date. So the period was super, super short. So somewhere in like the weeks leading up to that December promotional video, I started lying and that was lying to fire apps investors lying to fire festivals investors lying about Magnesus' numbers. It all kind of hit when Oh shit, Fire Festival is real. We're announcing a festival. We have X number of months to build a city in the middle of nowhere. How the fuck are we going to do this? Nature just like set me off down that path.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of AI have ever met in my life, and he's going to go on to, I think, change your world in very many ways. But he's like, listen, I fly for fun. I have a bunch of friends do the same thing. We should take a few planes and do a trip to the Ader Islands of the Bahamas for your magnesium members. So we've been running these trips for years. And I found these outer islands to essentially be, it's like welcoming playground where there might be 10 people who live on the island who are just like so amazing and kind-hearted and warm. And once you bring eighteen, twenty, twenty four people there from New York, everybody kind of drops their pretense. And if you connect them around these almost like life-defying experiences and adventures, they really, really come together. So it was running these trips for a number of years when I literally brought like one of these childhood friends that I mentioned. And Fire App had just launched, he said, hey man, you should totally do a music festival here for all Magnesis' members. So that was a real person who came up with the idea.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we had a townhouse space basically this clubhouse, if you will, for Magnesis members. And one of the people working at the front desk I lived a handful of blocks away calls me one night and says, there's this guy here who is building some crazy things at Google, but he says he flies planes and wants to fly you. I think he's telling me the truth. You have to come and meet him. So I ran over the townhouse and met this guy in like absolute genius, like one of the best.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so the Fire app in the Fire Festival really all come together at the same time. Crazy to think back how quick I went down a bad path, but how quick everything happened as well during that time period. This is all 2016. The Fire app was launched some point mid 2016 and the Fire Festival was conceived in September, October of 2016. So it was all kind of around the same time.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was a complete genesis, was like booking a lot of these rappers through Magnesis, realizing that almost every single time we were going through middlemen who weren't really the manager of the agent, and then realizing, okay, I now have this network of 20 artists and their real managers. So I can give access to other people through technology.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“During one of these magnesius member events, and the thing that really struck me at the time was how hard it was to book him. And when he finally received the offer, he said yes, and like almost like instantly, right? And the problem was this web of quasi-agents and middleman and managers who all kind of claimed represent or know the talent. But in reality, they knew someone who knew a sister, who knew a brother, who knew a cousin. And it's like this terrible, really like opaque, nasty world and coming from like a technology background, it made no sense to me. I knew there were other kids like me, right, who would, you know, pay something reasonable to get access to this kind of like music talent. So we started talking about building an app, which ended up becoming the fire app to provide a window into entertainers' pockets for anybody to give them offers directly.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so started basically like once again, Magnetus is all about one, fulfilling my fantasies of places I wanted to go and can get to. And then once I was there, having all of my friends come to. And I just loved hip-hop as a kid. So throughout Magnesis, we booked probably close to a dozen and a half or even like 20 rappers to come perform these small concerts for Magnesis. And that's what started the whole ball rolling towards the fire app and that concept.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And there were certain members or cardholders who were meeting other members and kind of giving them value. I think the first concept of magnesis is one I wanted the black card for sure. Now it was like the fun novelty more of the marketing aspect of it. But two is I wanted like a vehicle to share and really invite my friends to all these like entertainment properties where I was starting to experience and explore because they didn't believe me. So it was almost like show them what I was telling them was actually happening and have an excuse to bring people along through this club or community built around Magnesis.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what I started at when I was like 19 or 20, whatever the time was. And then it ended up growing. And the real benefit.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so Magnesis was a network that was seeking to give young people living in major cities access to better benefits, events, and networking, then their credit card would give them. So literally, this is 2012. I started doing the Magnesis card before it launched. I went to Alibaba, which was like 10 years ago before Alibaba is Alibaba, bought this like blank black sheet of metal and a credit card copier and literally went and copied my early crappy debit card with $20 onto it, onto this black metal card and just like went to the pizza parlor across the street and the guy just made a total scene when he went to pay and went and showed the card off around Wework and started selling cards to like interesting entrepreneurs.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I basically said, fuck that, I'm going to do magnesis, but still keeps playing going. So that was like my biggest mistake. So Spling kept operating for a few years with, let's say, 10 to 15 hours of a week of attention Whereas, like, you know, the vast majority of my time was focused on magnesis. I think one of the reoccurring themes is just not seeing things through. And it happened again with magnesis into fire, but like jumping ship when spring would not have been as big as magnesis or fire could have been, but it still could have, it still was okay. And like I could have had a successful exit for people who were involved and just like not seeing that through was just wrong.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So Spling was going, and I just got super distracted by these entertainment companies that I was going to. And I kept trying to tell back to like these childhood friends. I kept trying to explain to them what was happening. They didn't really believe me. And that was really the genesis of Magnesis was that I wanted to take like the 19-year-old me who wasn't working at Spling and give him access to this world of entertainment and fashion and like media that I was like finding myself stumbling into in New York.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The social networking aspect displaying never really took off and ended up making software and started to sell it to like these record labels and TV networks. And I was like the suburban kid who was already weird for programming. And now I'm the suburban kid who's weird for programming, crazy for dropping out of school, and now I'm sitting in the office with the heads of these massive media companies that we've all heard of that I didn't even know really existed to go meet with like the boss at Def Jam or Hearst or like Discovery or Disney all these companies that were just like a logo on TV for me as a young kid I was now like tangibly there and they were like paying for something I was building just took a while experience to go from you know being in a dorm room in the middle of nowhere to in the midst of the entertainment world in New York”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so moved to New York actually in the second ever WeWorkspace in New York, this is 2011, I think. Yeah, so second ever we workspace in New York. And Splink started as a social network. And I was kind of like parlaying off of what I had built in middle school and high school and had those really small websites that ended up selling, which is great.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All the friends, all your family members. Not all. I think the majority. And I think that the big thing with my friends at that age who, especially the ones who did better in school and probably a little bit smarter. It's just really as much as like they can't admit it, and I know I do this to other people too, so I think I see it as much as they can't do it. They don't want to see someone, and obviously we're super young at that age, but succeed beyond them. And it's like, hey, I'm studying 70 hours a week. I know I'm smarter than he is, and I'm working just as hard or harder than him. You know, why can he go and do this and I can't? So I think that's kind of like. Mantra that I've noticed a lot amongst close friends. And obviously, I see that same behavior in myself. So, yeah, I think that part just sucks.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think the biggest thing there was having someone so much smarter and older and more successful than me actually believe in me and back it up. The idea to like any friends in any family that I'm taking time off school or dropping out of school was totally not okay. But the fact that I can point to a small group of these early investors who were clearly established and amazing, almost like icons in their own fields. That was when I was like, look, I have this real group who is supporting me beyond their words and I need to show not just them, I need to show the world that these people are right and everybody else who is saying like what I'm doing is wrong is incorrect.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's just like the mental. I've had friends even who didn't work with me, but who were super close and around for a lot of the buildup of the events, whether it's from their family or their friends or their employers, like how could you not know? How could you have been with him? And people are looking for, I think the public looks for someone to blame. And if I wasn't there to receive that blame or wasn't responding to that blame, they just look for other targets and like, I think that's what crushed me the most is on this limited contact with friends or family or whatever from jail, like hearing The sadness and abuse they were taking, and being able to do absolutely nothing about it. Just like totally powerless.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think the emotional trauma, and people are looking to blame someone and to throw shade and hate and deservedly say on someone. And if I'm not there to be able to take that hate because I'm physically locked away somewhere, people need a target for it. And unfortunately, I think for a lot of people who, and I learned this in jail too, a lot of people in jail, the ones that take it the hardest are the friends and family, they're not the reason why you're there, but they suffer almost the most from it. It's just, it's not fair.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“After so long of like being the target, just because I'm not there to be the target, they start to, you know, form different opinions and their minds start to wander. And then I think when I've seen people for the first time, like since jail, and then I can kind of see like a switch flip in their head after like four or five minutes, like, oh, okay, he's the old Billy that I used to know. And they start like acting normal again, which is like really crazy to me that when I was in jail, I just didn't really understand or appreciate the terrible shit basically that close people to me had to go through just because I wasn't like available to be at the receiving end of everything that's happened.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been like Close family is different because obviously we're in touch and you know everybody family is your family and I think for like childhood friends who I was probably closer with like on an emotional level it's been a little weird when I essentially was on the sideline in a way for four years or whatever the timeframe was and then during that time I'm kind of sheltered from like the media and the comments and everything like I don't necessarily hear or even see everything that's happening and so like the bulk of that is directed towards other people like whether it's family or friends”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think Tried to find the way to apologize, and it's been to everybody. It's been to close friends who I think were hurt emotionally as well, other family members, other supporters. And it's just been trying to explain to them, like, why and finding the real words to apologize. Which is so crazy as I've had all this time to obviously reflect about it how Thought I was trying to make people happy, but I was really just like burning down these relationships and hurting them along the way and just how messed up that pursuit and path really was.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Agree. And I think it's more about where I can find fulfillment and making people happy because they've made money or invest in a success. Probably is most likely the wrong formula in a lot of different situations. And I think especially prison has made me very, very relationship focused. And I feel a stronger need to be trusted by someone more than to make them happy. And I think that's the furthest area that I've improved in over the past five years.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know And as I said, I've been asked so many times by people obviously not as smart as you, but I've been asked by a lot of people, and I don't think I've given a good enough answer, and that's probably something that. Need to think about.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have, and It comes down to, I think you nailed it super early on, just this desire and I think more than a desire, probably a need to prove myself and fast forward many, many years later with like fire in the fire festival, that need was to these investors who basically took a chance at me when I first dropped out of school and had been backing me for five, six, seven years before the fire festival came to be. My life, I felt, and it sounds so silly to me now, but my life I felt to me at that time was making them happy and making them money. And obviously the initial investors, if fire didn't work and didn't work honestly, they probably would have been okay and they would have been far more understanding than the fact that I ended up lying at the end to get their support. But it's like need to prove that I could do it. And the ones who did believe in me, the need to prove that they were right to believe in me just really led me down this terrible, terrible path of however long.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think entrepreneurial quick in terms of quick minds are sharp, they're smart, and honest, I think integrity is the big thing. They're very honest, good people. And that's been part of the hardest part to me is them, and not just them, it's like other family members and friends trying to understand how they could go down this path where I was just lying and, you know, lying to investors and partners and employees and whatever it may have been just like understanding how I got there from the path I had taken.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think they really cared as long as I followed the traditional path of super studying hard in school, doing well, going to a good college, having a good college experience. I think beyond that, didn't really care too much. I went to school to study computer engineering. Didn't last very long. So it didn't really study computer engineering, but that was the intent.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It made me feel like I thought I was creating something of value, but I felt like what I viewed as value wasn't agreed upon by everybody else that almost created this like reinforcement. We're like, no, I know this is tangible. I know this is real. And I know people are enjoying something I made. And I felt it was just so cool to have at the time it was hundreds of people, whatever. But having hundreds or a couple thousand people using something I made as a 12-year-old was just really, really interesting to me. And I think it kind of created this deeper gazelle shell and like desire to prove whether it was to those teachers or to the friends who like weren't supportive that there is a different way than the way that we're all taught.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so it's like I had started a social network a couple of years later when I was 12 years old. And this is early days of my space before Facebook had really gone outside of Harvard and the initial Ivy League schools. I created a private social network for my middle school. And like out of nowhere, the site blew up. And it was like the talk in middle school for a few days. And the teachers basically called me in and said, like, the internet is not safe. You have to stop this right now. You have to get rid of the website.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even when I was younger, yeah. I think teachers were always concerned that why is he starting a business and not focusing on his math test? So it was a problem since a young age.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think so, but they were also, you know. I don't like the word like realistic. I think they're very realistic and structured hopes. And my path was certainly frowned upon by teachers, you know, friends, et cetera, throughout the years.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember back to getting an alpha smart early grammar school. And I was so desperate to hack the teacher's admin password for the Alpha Smart to change the settings on it. And just wanted to show, or I think it was really proving to myself that I could do something different. And I never really did well in terms of a structured learning environment. I was always either super disinterested or very, very passionate about something, whether it's technology or computers of the internet and just like wanting to dive in and just like almost testing against myself what was possible and what wasn't possible.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally I think there has always been this desire to prove that I was different. And I don't think I really understood what different meant. I don't think it meant trying to be like the smartest or the most interesting. It was like trying to prove that I could create my own path. And I think that's always. The desire”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think I just like really weird in this desire to make my own path and to really test what was possible. And so I was always kind of looking for journeys to start businesses and really like test the bounds of reality and of the constraints placed on me at various times in life. And obviously like the constraints of a 10 year old are much different than they were when I was 24 in the midst of the fire festival and much different at 27 in solitary confinement. But I think the reoccurring theme was trying to find ways to test those restraints. And that took me to the very best times, but also the very worst times in doing four years in prison and, you know, owing the world, whether that's time, money, friendship, and apology. So yeah, it's been quite the journey.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're great, yeah, super loving, super supportive, and I think been asked this question so many times, but whether it's like the jail therapists or the formation department and I think it's interesting that there isn't like a defining moment, I think, that kind of set me down, like the entrepreneurial journey.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I grew up in a pretty normal suburban American household. And I think the defining moment was when I was 10 years old where I got a cable internet line into my house. And this was the really early days of the internet. And it was pretty much like the wild, wild west era where a lot of like the framework and regulation and mature social platforms that we have now just didn't exist then. We were in the infancy of like HTML and CSS and the practicality and accessibility of some 10-year-old putting a website online. And I really found the internet to be this outlet where I could push the boundaries of everything that I thought was possible as this young suburban child and really as a way to start getting in trouble and seeing what it was like to get in trouble and see where I could go.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been crazy. A little less than three and a half months since my sentence ended. And really just been a whirlwind of Finding the right people, finding the right opportunities. Really, just dealing with this overhang of probation and the constant fear that there's someone out there who could send me back at any time by taking a wrong turn Trying to avoid paying people back in every sense of that word and emotion while dealing with this fear, that I can wake up one morning to a phone call saying, ha, like joke's over, you're going back.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did two since solitary, the seven month stint was because I tried to do a podcast over the pay phone. They put the paperwork in to send me to a terrorist facility. When you're rendered useless and powerless, that just kind of kills your humanity. That's fucking scary. That keeps me up in the night.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I just didn't have the ability to, okay, what's actually happening? How can we prevent this? And almost like as if on cue. Stormrolls”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We were at the point where the timeline I had come up with was just so off. I'd wake up some days and it's like, we need $4 million by 2 p.m.”
2022-12-08 · The Diary of a CEO · (EXCLUSIVE) Billy McFarland: The Man Behind The Infamous Fyre Festival Disaster · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT