Blodget v. Spitzer: Disgraced Rich White Men Sit Down For a Chat
Henry Blodget was a famous Merrill Lynch analyst who got rich by hyping internet stocks in the 1990s until Eliot Spitzer caught him lying. Then Eliot Spitzer got caught choking hookers, and now they're hanging out on the internet together.
Blodget, whose career as an analyst ended in 2003 with a $4 million SEC fine and a lifetime ban from the securities trade after then-Attorney General Spitzer publicized e-mails showing that he knew the stocks he was promoting for Merrill were worthless, asked Spitzer to sit down for an online Q-and-A to talk about Wall Street, redemption, and old times.
The two men got back on their feet by doing almost precisely the same thing: Writing for Slate and leveraging the honesty that only people who have nothing left to lose can afford.
It's a fascinating and good-natured conversation between two guys whose public humiliations have reduced their egos to manageable proportions (for now, at least). A smiling Spitzer tells Blodget: "It was never personal for me."
The video is chopped up into segments for Yahoo!'s TechTicker site. Start here.