Paul Griffiths Profile picture
Feb 8, 2022 23 tweets 8 min read Read on X
Heather Morgan & Ilya Lichtenstein were arrested by DOJ today for embezzling 120,000 Bitcoins, or $3.6B in BTC/USD

Forget the crypto heist, I want to talk abt Heather's rap ego Razzlekhan, & video “Versace Bedouin”

This video is epically terrible. Let's go 👇
Per YouTube description:
We wanted this video to give people a taste of what it’s like to have synesthesia, so it kind of feels like an LSD acid trip, and has a bit of the “burning man vibe.”

We open on Heather, on the mean streets of NYC
The idea is that she's the "Versace Bedouin" since she claims to be Turkish

Her rap flow is somewhere between a super drunk Iggy Azalea and Old Dirty Bastard

She raps in 11/12th time:
"mf'ing crocodile of wall street,
silver on my fingers &
boots on my feet"
She's literally at the gate of Wall Street, as a "bad ass crocodile" moneymaker and pirate "gator."

She's really deep into these large reptile themes, & while I admire the commitment, I can't determine why

Cut to, the Shining hotel with her on a kids bike
Cut back to Wall Street, where she is joined by friends who are obviously not professional dancers but girls from the lunch club lured by the vague promise of "come downtown, we'll eat after" & who are now going to see themselves pictured in court docs here, mid-dance break:
The chorus is buttoned with "leave your email at the beep," so the beep signifies we're on verse 2 which starts:

"I'm the grandmother you want to bang"

Heather Morgan, 31, sitting in a tub of glitter, talking about her GILF game*

* do not google this
The lyrical hits keep coming, with the bars:

"I'm a rapper, an economist,
a journalist, a writer and CEO,
and a dirty, dirty, dirty dirty ho"

The woman in the shower behind Heather proves, Heather's dirtiness despite the directorial choice to shoot this in a bathroom
Oh, I caught the chorus now, I missed it was so confusing it's her name x song title
something something crocodile of wall street
something silver, something boots
leave your message at the beep
beep
beep
beep

as an outro, & we're done -
a kendall roy-level cringefest
EXCEPT WE ARE ONLY HALFWAY
THERE'S ANOTHER 1:48 SECONDS
WHY HEATHER?
WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?
THIS WOULD MAKE IT AS A CLUB MIX
Verse 3, begins again "Razzlekahn, the Versace Bedouin" and honestly, she even sound bored saying it at this point

But see, Heather is a futurist. We're not at the seats of traditional power like Wall St, no we're at her home where one of her friends is

WHAT THE HELL
SERIOUSLY WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?

Is it suppose to look like VR or something cool?

Because it's some rando wearing AN EMPTY VISOR and a pretend HAGAR THE HORRIBLE HORN HAT
At this point, I can't even understand her mumble rapping - something about everyone is jealous of her nose, her riches, her t*ts -

because there's a full grown woman wearing a BEDAZZLED CHILDREN'S BIKE HELMET inside
The verse mercifully ends with a tag where Heather frankly gives up any pretense of lipsynching and just laughs, captured in the closed caption below

Oh the tag?

"I don't f with bros unless they're gay, that doesn't count... [giggle]... Gays are exempt."

*SIGH*
At 2:50, ngl, I am questioning my life choices

Also, verse 4 begins -- VERSE FOUR

At this point, they're just so lazy, they don't even change scenes

(The director is just like "sure, sure, whatever, I got to get uptown later")

Are they supposed to be having *fun* here?
2 seconds later, even Razzlekahn looks confused

She looks at the crocodile (wink, wink) with a profoundly forlorn sadness

Aren't we all capable of moments of deep self-reflection, that can strike anywhere, even in a musica video, when feel the abyss & wonder about our lives?
NOT TODAY LOSERS

cut to: Razzlekahn using a jade face roller in the tub to keep her crocodile grandma game TIGHT
I've not said a lot about the lyrics, mostly because they are whack as hell, like
"I work the edge cases / with my tools"

She mentions she's Turkish, I mean I can't rap in a second language

Then again, I didn't write
"ISIS can't handle the Kurdish"

(Note CC gave up, [MUSIC])
Ok, verse 4 (or 5?) is just more stuff she likes: Vietnam over France, taxidermy class over Jane Austin novels...

Also CC woke up to capture this gold
Then suddenly, mercifully, it's over - no final chorus, no outro, no button, except for a stupid guffaw in the end

The camera turns on its side and upside down to show OUR RIDE HERE IS DONE

PLEASE STEP OUT OF THE CAR AND COLLECT YOUR BELONGINGS
Like food poisoning, the video has run its course

It wasn't fun, you couldn't dance to it, and I hope to never watch it again

Proof that $3.6B cannot buy talent
Thank you @matthewesp for the tip & @EamonJavers for the excellent reporting

I need a detox juice cleanse now
"This song represents who I am: a badass CEO and female rapper, who's ready to take on Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and any other place that oppresses individual uniqueness and self expression."
Oh man the video got taken down so all we have is our stills everyone

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More from @paul_griffiths

Dec 1, 2022
SBF, gives cringe worthy interviews that will get replayed for the jury when he goes to prison

Kayne: hold my beer

Or here, where he interrupts Alex Jones to correct him on how not all Nazis were bad
Cannot understate how dangerous Ye’s hanging out with literal neo-nazis is - platforming the worst vile
Read 4 tweets
Nov 17, 2022
My advice for students considering a career in startups, venture capital or private equity/investment banking:

notes from a recent talk, now a 🧵
MY (BACK) STORY
· Ran a startup for 18 years
· Took Private Equity $ after bootstrapping for a decade
· Started a private family office investing in VC firms
· Helped a company raise pre-seed round in '22
Startups vs. VC vs. Private Equity

Each business plays a different sport, with different rules. Your satisfaction is largely going to be derived by how well you play that sport.

College students often have no idea on what "sport" they are good in, hence this talk. /1
Read 10 tweets
Nov 8, 2022
Massive implications here - FTX has liquidity issues with its native token; Binance is a massive shareholder in the token

Binance withdrawls, given their position, would have created/worsened liquidity issues

Alameda, the trading company, owns $14B, $8B of which are in FTT ...
FTX invented a coin, sold it to Alameda, & Alameda held it as assets on its balance sheet

This kind of alt-coin sleight of hand often leads to rug-pulls (okay, nearly always)

The FTX exchange gives discounts, etc. to FTT holders; Binance has analogous offers for BNB holders /2
But Binance has a lot more liquidity since so much of the altcoin market runs on their underlying BNB coin

Alameda had $5B of FTT, which is nearly 2x the market

That's a lot of potential deflation (like worst examples of fiat) /3
Read 6 tweets
Oct 25, 2022
Adidas to End Kanye West Ye Partnership👟

For Adidas, was “one of the most successful collaborations in our industry’s history.”

Given they had no morality clause, this may be a leak to test Ye’s legal response over wkd, but 👏it had to be done. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
$1.5B of his $1.8B net worth is from the Adidas partnership & it ran until 2026. Assume a break up settlement worth $$$ so Ye may short term gain unless Adidas believes he’s so erratic/unlikeable they roll the dice. (West had previously said he’d drop Adidas to go it alone.)
Yeezy accounted for up to 8% of Adidas sales. For comparison, Air Jordan’s are about 13% of Nike’s sales.

This will have major implications for future creator-led contracts.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 25, 2022
🔮Predictions for Series A funding criteria come 2023: if you’re thinking of raising next year, this 🧵 is for you

In talking to a number of founders & VCs this month, I am seeing three themes emerge about what it will take to get a successful Series A raise done next year…
1/ BACKGROUND

Venture capital funding ground to a halt in May when the public stock of VC darlings dropped 80-90%.

This especially impacted Series A deals where valuation is often driven by comparable valuations of public co’s but the biz is still cash flow negative.
2/ THEMES

There is optimism that deals will start flowing again but the glut of companies means VCs can be very choosy of who they want to fund. This will be a buyers’ market in the way it has been a sellers’ market for the last few years.

Here’s what I hear it will take:
Read 12 tweets
Aug 25, 2022
Furious about the student loan double talk here

College as a ticket to the middle class has been a bipartisan pitch for 50 years, a 🧵

What most every hot take is getting wrong abt student loan debt:
1/ The dept of education *owns* these loans b/c the private market was too inefficient to provide them.

In 1972, Sallie Mae was created as a way for the fed gov't to make loans via banks, who in theory knew the business side better. Banks made $$, US taxpayer took the risk.
2/ Under Reagan/Bush, the US needed to reskill blue collar workers to compete with *Japan & Germany* & the bipartisan solution was to subsidize college through loans. Reagan says you gotta pay your own way.

But raise rates bc the banks & college profit from this feedback loop.
Read 15 tweets

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