Supply Chain Fraud and Commodity Recirculation in Legal and Illegal Markets

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Large, professionalized industries can still have significant rates of crime associated with them. Despite heavy regulation, supply chain fraud in maple syrup is higher than expected due to less regimented chain of custody for smaller buyers. Similarly, the well-known detergent, Tide, is used as a currency in criminal and semi-criminal markets. It is resold to corner bodegas as a way to recycle stolen or acquired goods into the legitimate economy, blurring the lines of legitimacy.

Few can measure the impact of a blog post they wrote, in the millions of dollars a year, but Patrick McKenzie has the receipts. His 2012 post on salary negotiation is read hundreds of thousands of times each year, and he has a Gmail folder brimming with success stories. This achievement is just of his many contributions, which include starting several businesses, advising Stripe and other software companies, and spearheading the launch of VaccinateCA. Lately he's been writing Bits about Money, a biweekly newsletter on the intersection of tech and finance.

Tyler sat down with Patrick to discuss signature fields on the back of credit cards, whether bank tellers or waitstaff are more trustworthy, the gremlins behind spurious credit card declines, how debt collection and maple syrup heists should change your model of the world, Twitter’s continued success as the message bus for government and civil society, crypto vs traditional money transfers, the intended desolation of bank parking lots, why he moved to Japan and how it affected his ambition, why Tether hasn't collapsed, the internet as a Great Work, how he's experiencing reverse culture shock after returning to the US, what he'll learn about next, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded October 26th, 2023.

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