RIGHT BEFORE LABOR DAY weekend, Gustavo Arnal, the chief financial officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, jumped to his death from the "Jenga Building," Tribeca's tallest skyscraper. Arnal reportedly did not leave a note, but his plunge came a day after he closed a $500 million deal to shore up the ailing retailer. Bed Bath & Beyond, teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, had announced just days before that it would cut 20 percent of its staff and close 150 stores. There was one other wrinkle to the mystery of Arnal's death: a perfectly timed $1.4 million stock sale at the peak of a surge in Bed Bath & Beyond's stock in August, a frenzy initiated by a 37-year-old Florida man named Ryan Cohen-which had instigated a class-action lawsuit alleging that Arnal and Cohen had conspired to pump and dump shares of the company.
They made an odd couple. Arnal was a Fortune 500 veteran who had spent most of his career at the multinational Procter & Gamble; colleagues reportedly remembered him as a straitlaced professional and workaholic. Cohen, by contrast, has emerged in recent years as Wall Street’s meme-stock king, posting and trolling his way—one poop emoji at a time—to becoming the Reddit version of a populist hero. It’s not clear what relationship Arnal and Cohen had, if any (there is reportedly no record of private communications between them), but it was hard to dismiss as mere coincidence the fact that both men had profited from Cohen’s stockfluencer brand of yolo investing.
The tragic consequences of Bed Bath & Beyond’s whiplashing fortunes have cast an even darker cloud over Cohen’s reputation. But in all likelihood the meme-stock phenomenon is here to stay—even if Cohen and his ilk are profiting off the backs of the “apes” who support them.
Denne historien er fra September 12 - 26, 2022-utgaven av New York magazine.
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Denne historien er fra September 12 - 26, 2022-utgaven av New York magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Drowning in Slop - A thriving underground economy is clogging the internet with AI garbage-and it's only going to get worse.
SLOP started seeping into Neil Clarke's life in late 2022. Something strange was happening at Clarkesworld, the magazine. Clarke had founded in 2006 and built into a pillar of the world of speculative fiction. Submissions were increasing rapidly, but “there was something off about them,” he told me recently. He summarized a typical example: “Usually, it begins with the phrase ‘In the year 2250-something’ and then it goes on to say the Earth’s environment is in collapse and there are only three scientists who can save us. Then it describes them in great detail, each one with its own paragraph. And then—they’ve solved it! You know, it skips a major plot element, and the final scene is a celebration out of the ending of Star Wars.” Clarke said he had received “dozens of this story in various incarnations.”
The City Politic- The Other Eric Adams Scandal The NYPD shot a fare evader, a cop, and two bystanders. He defends it.
On Sunday, September 15, Derell Mickles hopped a turnstile, got asked to leave by cops, then entered the subway again ten minutes later through an emergency exit. This was at the Sutter Avenue L station, out by his mother's house, five stops from the end of the line. Police said they noticed he was holding a folded knife. They followed him up the stairs to the elevated train, asking him 38 times to drop the weapon.
Can the Media Survive?
BIG TECH, Feckless Owners, CORD-CUTTERS, RESTIVE STAFF, Smaller Audiences ... and the Return of PRINT?
Status Update
Hannah Gadsby's fascinatingly untidy tour through life after fame and death.
A Matter of Perspective
A Matter of Perspective Steve McQueen's worst film is still a solid WWII drama.
Creator, Destroyer
A retrospective reveals an architect's vision, optimism, and supreme arrogance.
In Praise of Bad Readers
In a time of war, there is a danger in surveying the world as if it were a novel.
Trust the Kieran Culkin Process
First, he nearly dropped out of Oscar hopeful A Real Pain. Then he convinced Jesse Eisenberg to change the way he directs.
The Funniest Vampires on TV
What We Do in the Shadows is coming to an end. Its idiosyncratic brand of comedy may be too.
The Water-Tower Penthouse
Gigi Loizzo and Angel Molina's apartment on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx looks out on Yankee Stadium.
