

A quiet investor becomes a media powerhouse everyone and nobody knows  - robg
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/28/business/media/28vivi.html?partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

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neilk
What a strange story. It seems like it has to be a hoax, but there's a lot of
news mentions about the guy after 2007 or so.

The guy seems like a James Bond villain -- doesn't every briefing by M start
with "nobody knows how he makes his money, but he's taken the world of $X by
storm"?. He even looks like a movie star, is engaged to a movie star, and
dresses in mostly in black.

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crocus
Has anyone considered the possibility that he was funded by the Israeli
government? This would be one of the smartest ways to influence the US media,
to finance a genuinely charismatic investor in media companies.

~~~
Create
old-new story. I guess the same ending.
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_2514000/2514649.stm)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Death>

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byrneseyeview
Wow. Whenever Israel comes up, it's always "Never attribute to your own
ignorance what can be explained by the involvement of Mossad."

In Maxwell's case, he was working with too many different countries to be
totally loyal to one in particular. He was semi-famous for publishing
translations of awful hagiographies of communist dictators in the 80's (and of
censoring other books as a favor to friends).

~~~
Create
.ro, .il, .cn ...usa???

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beaudeal
did anyone else think that a "modest inheritance" was going to be a bit
smaller than 10 million dollars? with that much money, its [relatively] easy
to make more money -- granted to turn it into billions you have to be
extremely savvy (and probably a little lucky) but when i started reading i
thought this was more of a rags to riches story, not a really rich to absurdly
wealthy story haha.

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menloparkbum
This was a tough one. I wanted to pull out the "how is this hacker news?"
hammer, but then decided I want to be this guy, and probably wouldn't have
heard about him unless someone posted here.

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rokhayakebe
"The loudest one in the room is usually the weakest". Noone is hearing Nevo.
There are very well connected players, like Nevo, who do not like to be in the
public eye. Nevo shows that social skills matter even more than we think (to
bad for an introvert like me).

EDIT: Read "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by D. Carnegie. (Pick an
old-less-edited version from your local library).

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jimbokun
Sounds like he has a Y-combinator style of investing in media companies.
Relatively "small" investments (1MM in his case), but outsize influence in his
ability to make personal connections between people who can complement each
other.

