Kim Dotcom's MegaUpload Saga
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A story about Kim Dotcom, a controversial internet entrepreneur who created Mega Upload and faced legal troubles.
"This guy Kim Dotcom started in Germany as a hacker in the 90s. He claimed he hacked into a famous bank and took $40 million and donated it to Greenpeace, though Greenpeace says that's not true.
He was trying to send a file to his friend and the email said he exceeded the limit, so he creates Mega Upload. He launches it in 2005, and by 2010 he's paying himself $42 million in personal income. After about 8 years, Hollywood and the government sue him, claiming he made close to $200 million in personal profit.
During all this, he was doing other crazy stuff. Out of 50 million Modern Warfare players, he was ranked number one in the world at Call of Duty in 2012. He finished first in the Gumball 3000 car race across Europe. He released an album called 'Good Times' with other artists, and created the Internet Party in New Zealand.
When they finally arrested him, they raided his compound and found 40 of the nicest cars - Mercedes AMGs, Bugattis - plus all this art, and $175 million in cash just sitting in a room in his house.
To give context on how big Mega Upload was - it had 50 million visits a day, was the 7th most popular website in the world at one point, accounted for 4% of total traffic in America, had 180 million users, and people were transferring 800 files per second. It was run like a proper company with 155 employees - engineers, customer service, admin, all that stuff."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.