WEBVTT - Episode 3: Mr. Goldman, Mr. Sex 0:00:15.516 --> 0:00:23.156 Pushkin. Not every episode in this series will contain explicit 0:00:23.196 --> 0:00:26.836 sex talk. This one doesn't. This one is about the 0:00:26.916 --> 0:00:32.596 kinky finance. Last time on Hot Money, a guy named 0:00:32.596 --> 0:00:35.796 Fabian Tilman borrowed hundreds of millions of dollars from Wall 0:00:35.836 --> 0:00:38.876 Street bankers to buy up porn sites around the world. 0:00:39.396 --> 0:00:43.196 He called his global porn empire Man Win. That's all 0:00:43.236 --> 0:00:52.076 you need to remember for today's show. This episode begins 0:00:52.076 --> 0:00:55.476 in December twenty twelve. Think of a rainy day in Brussels, 0:00:55.676 --> 0:00:59.276 which is about any day in Brussels. Fabian Tillman is 0:00:59.276 --> 0:01:01.756 about to walk out of his mansion in a leafy suburb. 0:01:02.156 --> 0:01:04.556 A lear jette is waiting to take him to London, 0:01:04.916 --> 0:01:07.516 where he's meeting some bankers, the kind of people who 0:01:07.556 --> 0:01:10.676 helped him become the under disputed king of world pawn. 0:01:11.396 --> 0:01:14.436 But just as Fabian is about to leave, he gets 0:01:14.436 --> 0:01:18.036 a visit, one that pretty much ends his porn career. 0:01:18.836 --> 0:01:25.316 The police knock on his store. Fabian never mixed London. Instead, 0:01:26.036 --> 0:01:29.836 he's arrested for suspected tax evasion and taken into custody. 0:01:31.076 --> 0:01:33.716 How long we are in the prisons block eighteen days? 0:01:33.756 --> 0:01:39.396 I think eighteen days before charge yeah. See, years before 0:01:39.516 --> 0:01:44.036 charge they didn't have anything. They didn't charge me. German 0:01:44.076 --> 0:01:48.036 authorities had raided Fabian's company, Man Win, but at this 0:01:48.116 --> 0:01:51.756 point the investigators leading the case they didn't have enough 0:01:51.836 --> 0:01:56.076 evidence to charge Fabian. They just held him. But still, 0:01:56.436 --> 0:02:01.396 my letness were very confused. You bet. Fabian's Wall Street 0:02:01.396 --> 0:02:04.476 backers had poured hundreds of millions of dollars into his 0:02:04.636 --> 0:02:07.676 roll up of Pawn. They believed Fabian was a tech 0:02:07.756 --> 0:02:11.836 wonder kind sitting on steady cash flow, not some scandal 0:02:11.876 --> 0:02:16.236 prone pornographer behind bars. The man who convinced Wall Street 0:02:16.276 --> 0:02:19.156 that Pawn was a safe bet started to look like 0:02:19.196 --> 0:02:25.836 a liability, and fabian superpower raising money became the weakness 0:02:25.876 --> 0:02:30.156 that brought him down. The money man turned against him. 0:02:31.276 --> 0:02:34.796 His slanders didn't pull out, but they told Fabian, when 0:02:34.836 --> 0:02:38.676 these lands expire, you won't get more, not even at 0:02:38.716 --> 0:02:42.156 twenty percent interest. They just openly told me, listen, this 0:02:42.276 --> 0:02:45.636 is going to be very difficult with you there to 0:02:45.716 --> 0:02:50.116 do this, It could get very expensive. Fabian really only 0:02:50.156 --> 0:02:53.596 had one option. He had to let go abandon the 0:02:53.636 --> 0:02:59.236 empire he had built. An sell man one, don't feel 0:02:59.276 --> 0:03:02.356 too sorry for Fabian. He made a tidy sum. He's 0:03:02.396 --> 0:03:05.796 never said exactly how much, but for a company this size, 0:03:05.956 --> 0:03:09.356 it would be in the hundreds of millions. Report at 0:03:09.356 --> 0:03:13.556 the time suggested Fabian sold the company to a consortium 0:03:13.676 --> 0:03:17.956 led by management two senior executives who still run the company. 0:03:18.636 --> 0:03:27.756 Thing is, that wasn't the full truth. We found out 0:03:27.796 --> 0:03:31.116 that Fabian sold his empire to a different man, a 0:03:31.196 --> 0:03:35.036 man who'd learned his trade at Goldman Sachs. Not a 0:03:35.116 --> 0:03:39.556 techie like Fabian, but a true financier, someone who could 0:03:39.636 --> 0:03:43.396 keep the lenders sweet. A man who somehow managed to 0:03:43.476 --> 0:03:46.476 keep this identity at secret for close to a decade 0:03:47.396 --> 0:03:51.236 until that is, Patricia came along and rumbled his game. 0:03:52.076 --> 0:03:56.276 I'm Patrice Nelson and I'm Alex Barker from Pushkin Industries 0:03:56.316 --> 0:04:29.756 and the Financial Times. This is hot money, Act one. 0:04:30.356 --> 0:04:38.076 The buyer who didn't exist. If Fabian was an old 0:04:38.076 --> 0:04:41.356 school pornographer, the fallout from his troubles with German tax 0:04:41.396 --> 0:04:45.196 authorities might have been different. He was eventually hit with 0:04:45.236 --> 0:04:48.356 a bill for millions in back taxes and a penalty, 0:04:48.836 --> 0:04:50.836 and he might have got away with just paying that 0:04:51.076 --> 0:04:54.716 and keeping his company. Fabian ended up the subject of 0:04:54.836 --> 0:04:58.756 scandalous headlines all over the world. But the mystery buyer 0:04:58.916 --> 0:05:03.716 who took over Fabian's pawn empire would not why because 0:05:04.116 --> 0:05:07.516 he left no trace. Even by the secretive standards of 0:05:07.556 --> 0:05:10.476 the pawn world. The an who wanted to buy the 0:05:10.476 --> 0:05:14.916 world's biggest pawn company was like a ghost. When I 0:05:15.036 --> 0:05:20.596 saw the company, my bank said, this person's thick. You're 0:05:20.636 --> 0:05:23.596 not selling this is all thick. This person's exist. Who 0:05:23.676 --> 0:05:26.196 was paying this money? This is the person that's paying 0:05:26.196 --> 0:05:28.956 the money doesn't exist. What I mean, doesn't exist. Yeah, 0:05:28.956 --> 0:05:31.036 he's thick. We kind of find anything on him. It 0:05:31.076 --> 0:05:36.436 is impossible that we cannot find anything on him. I'm 0:05:36.476 --> 0:05:38.756 going to step away from Fabian for a moment to 0:05:38.796 --> 0:05:40.996 tell you how I first came across the spuyer who 0:05:41.036 --> 0:05:45.836 didn't exist, the new owner of Fabian's company. I remember 0:05:45.836 --> 0:05:48.676 when I first heard his name. I was perched on 0:05:48.676 --> 0:05:51.316 the window sill of my bedroom talking on the phone 0:05:51.316 --> 0:05:54.676 with a source about the company. By this time it 0:05:54.676 --> 0:05:58.076 had been renamed from man Win to Mine Geek. Just 0:05:58.116 --> 0:06:01.796 remember the m and this source said something that every 0:06:01.876 --> 0:06:05.196 journalist dreams of hearing. Let me tell you something that 0:06:05.236 --> 0:06:09.916 no one knows. Mine Geek has a secret owner and 0:06:10.036 --> 0:06:14.356 his name is Bernard Bergomar. I typed a name into 0:06:14.396 --> 0:06:18.556 Google while still on the phone. Nothing. I asked my sores, 0:06:18.836 --> 0:06:22.676 can you spell it again? Nothing, but he was adamant, 0:06:22.756 --> 0:06:26.036 that's your guy. I got off the phone and kept searching, 0:06:26.036 --> 0:06:30.076 and then I found one hit for Bernard Bergomar, a 0:06:30.156 --> 0:06:33.636 court case from about a decade ago. It named him 0:06:33.636 --> 0:06:36.636 as a director of porn cite called red Tube. We'll 0:06:36.676 --> 0:06:38.556 be hearing a lot more about red Tube later in 0:06:38.596 --> 0:06:42.716 this episode. But that was it. I mean, it didn't 0:06:42.716 --> 0:06:46.836 make sense. If this guy really owned the world's biggest 0:06:46.836 --> 0:06:50.276 porn company, how could there be nothing on him except 0:06:50.316 --> 0:06:54.116 for this one court record. So I asked a ton 0:06:54.156 --> 0:06:57.916 of people in the industry, even other journalists, have you 0:06:57.916 --> 0:07:00.676 ever heard of this guy? Have you ever thought that 0:07:00.756 --> 0:07:03.156 maybe wasn't true that Fabians sold the company to his 0:07:03.276 --> 0:07:08.356 management team, as the official story goes. No. They all 0:07:08.356 --> 0:07:11.036 told me that some was pulling my leg I started 0:07:11.036 --> 0:07:17.476 to feel a bit crazy. But then a few weeks later, Jackpot, 0:07:18.596 --> 0:07:21.356 I found a guy who had worked at Read two 0:07:21.476 --> 0:07:27.436 years ago, and he he had worked for Bernard. Bernard 0:07:27.916 --> 0:07:32.276 was real. This is the point my curiosity really kicked in. 0:07:33.236 --> 0:07:36.876 Before I knew it. I was rooting around Luxembourgish company 0:07:36.916 --> 0:07:40.196 records trying to make sense of it all. How could 0:07:40.196 --> 0:07:44.276 the owner managed to stay hidden for so long? We 0:07:44.356 --> 0:07:48.436 looked at mine Geek's corporate structure and it was totally 0:07:48.516 --> 0:07:54.076 Byzantine and Patricia's reporting that provided the clue that unlocked 0:07:54.076 --> 0:07:57.556 its secrets. What we realized was that there was a 0:07:57.556 --> 0:08:01.316 single golden chair at the heart of it all. It 0:08:01.396 --> 0:08:05.156 effectively gave Bernard control and the lion's share of profit, 0:08:05.796 --> 0:08:09.116 but most important of all, it allowed him to stay hidden. 0:08:10.276 --> 0:08:13.196 We published a story and it was a pretty big hit. 0:08:13.876 --> 0:08:18.476 Turns out that people love reading about Paul and Patricia. 0:08:18.716 --> 0:08:23.276 She had the scoop of her career. A couple of 0:08:23.356 --> 0:08:26.756 days go by, a colleague of ours on the FT's 0:08:26.796 --> 0:08:31.516 investigative team tells me she's heard something that will probably 0:08:31.596 --> 0:08:35.716 interest me. A source who read our story called her 0:08:35.796 --> 0:08:40.196 up and said, not only did he know Bernard, but 0:08:40.356 --> 0:08:46.236 he knew his biggest secret. Bernard Bergomar is a cover name, 0:08:47.116 --> 0:08:49.596 a persona that he uses for his dealings in the 0:08:49.636 --> 0:08:56.596 porn industry. His real name is Burnt Burned Burgmier. Somehow 0:08:56.796 --> 0:08:58.956 he had managed to use a fake name in court, 0:08:59.876 --> 0:09:07.476 so to recap fake name Bernard Bergomar, real name Burned Bergmyer. 0:09:08.276 --> 0:09:10.756 This may or may not be just about the worst 0:09:10.796 --> 0:09:13.916 poor name and the whole history of porn. We just 0:09:13.956 --> 0:09:17.596 started calling him BB and nicknamed. That covers all basis. 0:09:19.036 --> 0:09:23.076 But the key thing here was that while Bernard Bergemar 0:09:23.556 --> 0:09:25.876 had gone to great length to make sure that there 0:09:25.956 --> 0:09:33.356 was no trace of him, Burnt Bergmire hadn't. Fabian, by 0:09:33.396 --> 0:09:37.436 the way, knew of BB even before he snatched his 0:09:37.476 --> 0:09:42.316 empire away. They had history years earlier. Fabian and BB 0:09:42.556 --> 0:09:46.476 went after the same company, the owner of porn Hub 0:09:47.276 --> 0:09:52.996 Fabian one, and BB lost. When Fabian was arrested, the 0:09:53.076 --> 0:09:56.916 pawn gods smiled on BB and gave him the chance 0:09:57.436 --> 0:10:00.516 to get his own back. We kind of sat around 0:10:01.116 --> 0:10:05.956 Biden this time, opus a newspaper You're in prison, and 0:10:06.036 --> 0:10:12.356 he's like, oh, yes, yeah, lucky him. B B understood 0:10:12.556 --> 0:10:14.876 that Fabians lenders would be on the lookout for someone 0:10:14.876 --> 0:10:17.516 else to take over the business. He went straight to 0:10:17.636 --> 0:10:21.756 them and they liked the look of him. He was 0:10:21.796 --> 0:10:25.716 one of their own. BB had worked at Goldman like 0:10:25.836 --> 0:10:29.356 the guys who had packaged Fabians deal, and this ex 0:10:29.476 --> 0:10:33.956 banker turned pornographer, came with a neat financial plan. He 0:10:33.996 --> 0:10:37.596 would merge his own porn company, this cycled red tube, 0:10:38.036 --> 0:10:41.276 with Fabian's empire, and raise enough money to buy him out. 0:10:42.116 --> 0:10:46.036 Fabians lenders handed him five hundred million dollars in total 0:10:46.556 --> 0:10:55.076 and the crown of porn Land. So do you remember 0:10:55.876 --> 0:11:00.076 and we found this picture? Yeah, I do some obscure 0:11:00.996 --> 0:11:05.516 Chicago booth, business school alumni magazine and a get together 0:11:05.556 --> 0:11:07.956 in Vienna. Yeah, from two thousand and two. And at 0:11:07.956 --> 0:11:10.116 first we couldn't work out who is but here he 0:11:10.276 --> 0:11:15.356 is wearing a short sleeved blue shirt, big smile, looks 0:11:15.436 --> 0:11:18.276 kind of shy, hands class in front of him. I 0:11:18.316 --> 0:11:21.516 mean this was literally one of the first things we 0:11:21.676 --> 0:11:27.636 found once we got that call from the ft investigations team. Yeah, 0:11:27.756 --> 0:11:30.756 what his real name was, right? Yeah? Suddenly we have 0:11:31.036 --> 0:11:33.516 email addressed to him. We have an address to his 0:11:33.956 --> 0:11:37.116 penthouse suite, and some luxury hotel in Hong Kong. But 0:11:37.716 --> 0:11:39.836 the most amazing thing there was a phone number. And 0:11:40.236 --> 0:11:42.596 I decided to call the phone number, and I remember 0:11:42.636 --> 0:11:44.516 it was it was ringing. It was a Hong Kong 0:11:44.556 --> 0:11:47.436 phone number and was so old. I just didn't think 0:11:47.436 --> 0:11:50.476 anyone would pick up. But there's this voice of a 0:11:50.556 --> 0:11:53.876 man and he just says hello, and I say, oh Hi, 0:11:54.436 --> 0:11:59.836 my name is Patricia's this burnt and he hangs up. Yeah, 0:11:59.996 --> 0:12:03.796 you could find quite a lot about his life. We 0:12:03.836 --> 0:12:06.036 could work out. You know, he came from this kind 0:12:06.036 --> 0:12:09.676 of little town in Upper Austria, that he must have 0:12:09.756 --> 0:12:13.356 been precocious enough to make it to a big business 0:12:13.356 --> 0:12:16.596 school in the state to get to Goldman Sachs. And 0:12:16.636 --> 0:12:20.556 then there was that massive gap, which was how did 0:12:20.556 --> 0:12:23.676 he get into Paul? I mean, how did mister Goldman 0:12:24.116 --> 0:12:27.436 become mister Sex. We hadn't met lots of people in 0:12:27.476 --> 0:12:30.276 the porn industry who knew him, worked with him, or 0:12:30.876 --> 0:12:34.316 had seen him much. At that point. The only thing 0:12:34.316 --> 0:12:37.236 we knew was that he had been associated with Red Tube, 0:12:37.436 --> 0:12:41.036 his first porn site. Yeah, and even Fabian, a man 0:12:41.076 --> 0:12:44.316 who had to convince the bank that BP actually existed, 0:12:44.956 --> 0:12:49.396 still doesn't really know what made him switch from Goldman 0:12:49.836 --> 0:12:55.236 to Pawn. He was always much more secretive than I am. 0:12:55.356 --> 0:12:58.556 He never wanted to talk about this stuff ever. He's 0:12:58.556 --> 0:13:02.076 a very private person. The only time I met him 0:13:02.316 --> 0:13:07.356 ever was in Las Vegas, and I saw him two times. 0:13:07.596 --> 0:13:10.236 He didn't go to the shore. He went thought ashore 0:13:10.276 --> 0:13:13.276 with us once. He didn't want anyone to All years like, 0:13:13.356 --> 0:13:15.676 we didn't tell people. We were the only ones that 0:13:15.796 --> 0:13:19.596 know who this guy is. Do you think he disliked 0:13:19.596 --> 0:13:21.956 the idea that he was actually in the pawn industry. No, 0:13:22.036 --> 0:13:25.836 I don't think he cares. BB's distance from the world 0:13:25.836 --> 0:13:29.476 of pawn would have pretty profound consequences. He took a 0:13:29.556 --> 0:13:32.676 hands off approach and that would matter not just for 0:13:32.796 --> 0:13:35.836 mine geek, but for how pawn was delivered to the world. 0:13:36.356 --> 0:13:39.236 You could say it set the tone for an industry 0:13:39.516 --> 0:13:43.276 where pawn platforms were passive hosts of videos more than 0:13:43.356 --> 0:13:48.116 active moderators. I wish I could give you his view, 0:13:48.676 --> 0:13:52.156 but he's never explained his choices, let alone be held 0:13:52.196 --> 0:13:56.196 to account. We've constructed a portrait of BB by talking 0:13:56.196 --> 0:13:59.276 with people who worked with him at key moments in 0:13:59.316 --> 0:14:02.396 his pawn career, but we did not speak to the 0:14:02.396 --> 0:14:06.916 man himself. Like lots of other secretive millionaires, BB has 0:14:06.916 --> 0:14:10.596 a place in London. A patricious story ran in the 0:14:10.636 --> 0:14:15.196 FT A news site called Tortoise Media confronted him outside 0:14:15.196 --> 0:14:19.476 his mansion, but he refused to talk. He's never given 0:14:19.516 --> 0:14:23.316 a single interview. You've outlined to us, you know, your 0:14:23.396 --> 0:14:25.596 mission while you were doing it, what you were trying 0:14:25.636 --> 0:14:28.916 to do. How is Bernar different? His mission is make money. 0:14:29.596 --> 0:14:33.516 That's his mission. That's the only mission he has really. 0:14:33.636 --> 0:14:35.516 That is literally, in my opinion, the only mission he 0:14:35.516 --> 0:14:38.996 has is make money. It only doesn't care, absolutely not. 0:14:39.196 --> 0:14:42.196 He's just he's making money. He's not active in this 0:14:42.236 --> 0:14:47.196 company in any shape or form. BB the small town 0:14:47.276 --> 0:14:52.356 Oustian boy turned Goldman banker, ultimately became a passive porn baron. 0:14:53.316 --> 0:14:57.156 He reaped the rewards of ownership without worrying about day 0:14:57.196 --> 0:15:01.196 to day troubles. But that's not how it was at 0:15:01.196 --> 0:15:04.436 the beginning of his life and porn. Back then, he 0:15:04.476 --> 0:15:08.516 was running things and he had absolutely no clue what 0:15:08.556 --> 0:15:14.556 he was doing. Neither Chicago business school or a Goldman 0:15:14.596 --> 0:15:17.556 Sachs had taught him how to make money of free porn. 0:15:18.636 --> 0:15:21.036 So this powerful banker had to turn to a couple 0:15:21.036 --> 0:15:27.996 of guys half his age. Act to the invisible man. 0:15:30.836 --> 0:15:33.916 It's a millennium, the Internet is just coming to life. 0:15:34.316 --> 0:15:37.196 And Clem pk is at high school with his identical 0:15:37.236 --> 0:15:40.956 twin brother Toma, a school just outside Paris. We had 0:15:40.996 --> 0:15:43.956 a computer in his bedroom. We're saying one computer and 0:15:43.996 --> 0:15:46.956 there was just sake. We're taking turns at couding it 0:15:47.036 --> 0:15:50.636 that making it. You've got mail. So they're messing around 0:15:50.676 --> 0:15:54.116 with computers, setting up Star Wars websites, normal geek stuff. 0:15:54.516 --> 0:15:58.996 Then comes another teen fixation sex. Their first websites were 0:15:59.236 --> 0:16:03.356 celebrity pictures. They watch girls Demi Moore, Jerry Halliwell and 0:16:03.436 --> 0:16:05.516 the Spice Girls, the kind of thing that fills the 0:16:05.556 --> 0:16:10.356 mind of a horny teen, and it took off before long. 0:16:10.716 --> 0:16:13.956 Their website was definitely more than just a bedroom hobby, 0:16:14.316 --> 0:16:16.796 and so you were running one of the top ten 0:16:16.876 --> 0:16:23.236 most popular adult websites from your school exactly if from 0:16:23.236 --> 0:16:26.356 a high school for like eighteen back then, god school 0:16:26.436 --> 0:16:29.076 was ending at five where to take the metro, go home, 0:16:29.156 --> 0:16:31.676 open the door for employees work from like five PM 0:16:31.756 --> 0:16:34.796 to one or tween in the morning, going to bed 0:16:35.116 --> 0:16:37.196 up at seven. I tried to do homework in the 0:16:37.316 --> 0:16:41.116 metro on the way to school. One there o Mom 0:16:41.156 --> 0:16:43.516 comes over and she's like, Hey, what's that you know, 0:16:43.876 --> 0:16:46.676 seventy thousand dollars check you know, from the mall that's 0:16:46.676 --> 0:16:50.876 like addressed to you. I'm like, well, you know, it's 0:16:50.956 --> 0:16:54.636 better you sit down. Clems mom got used to it. 0:16:55.316 --> 0:16:57.276 She even had to sign him into his first porn 0:16:57.356 --> 0:16:59.876 conference in Las Vegas because he was under the age 0:16:59.916 --> 0:17:03.636 of twenty one. By the mid two thousands, tub sides 0:17:03.636 --> 0:17:08.156 were exploding online. Clem saw the transformation. It was a 0:17:08.196 --> 0:17:11.516 threat to his business, which charge people to view videos. 0:17:12.636 --> 0:17:15.316 How could he compete against sites that were ripping porn 0:17:15.396 --> 0:17:19.476 DVDs and effectively giving them away for free. Did you 0:17:19.516 --> 0:17:22.716 ever think of starting a tube site yourself or to us? 0:17:22.756 --> 0:17:25.036 There was just like too much risk because we were 0:17:25.036 --> 0:17:28.236 working with the studios that we're buying content from, so 0:17:28.316 --> 0:17:30.636 we just didn't want to take the risk of losing 0:17:30.636 --> 0:17:33.716 their relationship and losing everything and also getting sued. I 0:17:33.756 --> 0:17:35.636 think they could have goot on us in a lot 0:17:35.676 --> 0:17:39.796 of trouble. Clem was once offered the chance to buy 0:17:39.836 --> 0:17:42.316 a tube site. We're going to tell you about it 0:17:42.396 --> 0:17:46.836 because this deal turned out to be BB's gateway to pawn. 0:17:47.556 --> 0:17:50.436 The year was two thousand and eight. Clem was by 0:17:50.476 --> 0:17:53.796 now in his twenties doing well in the business, and 0:17:53.836 --> 0:17:55.996 he was chatting to the founder of one of the 0:17:56.036 --> 0:17:59.396 top pawn tube sites when they he just told me 0:17:59.436 --> 0:18:01.876 that I think he thinks he's done. I think he 0:18:01.956 --> 0:18:05.116 wanted to do something else. And he asked me, if 0:18:05.476 --> 0:18:07.836 you know I was interested in buying a retribe dot com, 0:18:07.876 --> 0:18:10.356 which am I gonna for the price that he wanted? 0:18:10.396 --> 0:18:13.356 I mean, it was a very attractive purchase. It was 0:18:13.396 --> 0:18:16.156 called red Tube and it was one of the world's 0:18:16.196 --> 0:18:20.356 most visited tube sites for porn. Red Tube was founded 0:18:20.356 --> 0:18:23.636 by a couple of Austrian guys who were now looking 0:18:23.716 --> 0:18:27.916 for a change of career. One of them found God 0:18:28.116 --> 0:18:29.836 and wanted to get out of porn so he could 0:18:29.836 --> 0:18:32.796 set up at Christian social media site. How much was 0:18:32.836 --> 0:18:35.676 he looking for at that point, I think he wanted 0:18:35.676 --> 0:18:39.036 around like five million dollars. It was an attractive deal. 0:18:39.556 --> 0:18:42.396 But Clem didn't want to take the legal risk of 0:18:42.556 --> 0:18:46.436 messing with user generated content, so the owners of red 0:18:46.476 --> 0:18:50.436 Tube sold to a fellow Austrian, a former banker who 0:18:50.476 --> 0:18:56.436 called himself Bernard, BB's cover name. Clem started buying red 0:18:56.476 --> 0:19:00.036 shube bads from BB later that year. So we met 0:19:00.076 --> 0:19:02.716 at a hotel in Beverly Hills and you know, just 0:19:02.836 --> 0:19:05.716 had a lunch together, and you know, I was surprised. 0:19:05.716 --> 0:19:09.196 He was like a lovely, very well mannered, gentleman and 0:19:09.356 --> 0:19:11.596 like very deper very well dressed. He was a you know, 0:19:11.716 --> 0:19:15.436 very nice gentleman. Did he seem like the other kind 0:19:15.476 --> 0:19:18.636 of businessman you'd meet in the adult industry? No, No, 0:19:18.676 --> 0:19:20.996 not at all, because most of the other one person 0:19:21.036 --> 0:19:23.956 that I was dealing with, they were mostly take one 0:19:24.036 --> 0:19:26.876 master in adults. I mean to me, he was a 0:19:26.916 --> 0:19:31.956 financial manager that he wasn't technical whatsoever. Bernard was now 0:19:31.996 --> 0:19:34.476 in charge of one of the most highly trafficked porn 0:19:34.516 --> 0:19:37.956 sites in the world, but at that lunch in Beverly Hills, 0:19:38.436 --> 0:19:42.796 he asked Clem for basic tips on managing a platform. 0:19:42.996 --> 0:19:45.996 Turns out he didn't really know the nitty gritty of 0:19:46.156 --> 0:19:49.436 running a porn site. Surprise me, because I'm like, why 0:19:49.436 --> 0:19:52.156 did you even by this in the first pass issue? 0:19:52.396 --> 0:19:54.156 Didn't really know what to do with it though I 0:19:54.156 --> 0:19:56.156 had to run it. I mean, to have basically just 0:19:56.236 --> 0:19:58.716 taken on a site like that, probably one of the 0:19:58.756 --> 0:20:02.276 top fifty in the world at that stage. Yeah, I 0:20:02.316 --> 0:20:04.556 definitely think it was like top fifty for sure. And 0:20:04.636 --> 0:20:07.356 not to have run a site like this before in 0:20:07.436 --> 0:20:10.316 any way, that's a big ample to take, right, That's 0:20:10.356 --> 0:20:12.356 a big game ball. I mean, it's a it's not 0:20:12.476 --> 0:20:14.236 something that you you know, you pick on like in 0:20:14.276 --> 0:20:15.556 a couple of days, I was like, oh, I can 0:20:15.676 --> 0:20:18.996 run this noment, you know. No, Biggie Clem kept watching 0:20:19.036 --> 0:20:21.756 BB and he saw that he did manage to keep 0:20:21.796 --> 0:20:24.876 it going and start to make decent money. That might 0:20:24.916 --> 0:20:26.756 be why he put it in the first place, because 0:20:26.756 --> 0:20:28.436 he saw that he could make his money back in 0:20:28.476 --> 0:20:30.796 like a year and anything after this is just going 0:20:30.836 --> 0:20:32.516 to be gravy. But I think on the top of it, 0:20:32.636 --> 0:20:35.476 he kept on growing. Yeah, it's it's pretty impressive play, 0:20:35.556 --> 0:20:38.676 right to go from having never been in this industry, 0:20:38.876 --> 0:20:42.036 having never run my website, within five years he was 0:20:42.116 --> 0:20:46.316 running the world but poor company. Yeah, I think he's 0:20:46.316 --> 0:20:48.316 a good investor when it comes down, especially after what 0:20:48.396 --> 0:20:50.076 happened with Red Too. But I think he knows what 0:20:50.156 --> 0:20:57.236 a good opportunity looks like. I mean, Clem helped us 0:20:57.316 --> 0:21:00.476 understand that when BB bought Read Too, that was his 0:21:00.676 --> 0:21:02.836 first movement to porn and he, you know, he had 0:21:02.916 --> 0:21:08.356 no idea what he was doing, and that obviously raises 0:21:08.396 --> 0:21:12.196 the question of why how did this former Goldms sax 0:21:12.276 --> 0:21:17.356 banker find himself running one of the world's biggest porn sites. Yeah, 0:21:17.636 --> 0:21:20.276 it took us a while to even piece together an 0:21:20.276 --> 0:21:23.436 explanation for how he got into this by talking to 0:21:24.596 --> 0:21:27.756 old friends of his from his life before porn who 0:21:27.876 --> 0:21:31.076 told us about his early days at Goldman Sachs whereas 0:21:31.116 --> 0:21:34.276 in Frankfurt and doing reasonably well. You know, he had 0:21:34.276 --> 0:21:38.196 a fast car and a big apartment. But curiously in 0:21:38.196 --> 0:21:40.796 this big apartment was would sleep on a mattress on 0:21:40.836 --> 0:21:44.196 the floor and one person we spoke to said he 0:21:44.276 --> 0:21:48.156 didn't quite fit with the kind of rigors of Goldman 0:21:48.636 --> 0:21:51.876 at that time, and after a couple of years he 0:21:51.956 --> 0:21:57.516 ended up leaving and finding love and returning to Austria 0:21:57.796 --> 0:22:02.516 where his family was the farming family, and he started 0:22:02.516 --> 0:22:06.116 working as a bit of a freelance financial adviser for 0:22:06.236 --> 0:22:10.156 a wealthy Austrian family, kind of advising on deals and 0:22:10.596 --> 0:22:14.916 money in general. And that's what brought him to these 0:22:14.956 --> 0:22:19.236 two Austrian gentlemen who were desperate to sell a pawn 0:22:19.236 --> 0:22:22.796 site so one of them could go and launch a 0:22:23.116 --> 0:22:27.596 social media platform for Christians. And bb was brought on 0:22:27.796 --> 0:22:30.876 to advise on the sale to find a buyer, and 0:22:30.996 --> 0:22:35.156 he clearly looked at it, and ever the dealmaker saw 0:22:35.396 --> 0:22:39.796 a bargain and decided to buy himself. Yeah, and we 0:22:39.876 --> 0:22:43.596 know that Bbe was quite hands on in the early 0:22:43.676 --> 0:22:46.636 days of read tube, but even though he was using 0:22:46.636 --> 0:22:50.356 his porn name, he kind of wanted to remain in 0:22:50.436 --> 0:22:52.356 the shadows. I mean, he definitely didn't want to be 0:22:52.436 --> 0:22:56.396 the face of the company, and so he needed to 0:22:56.396 --> 0:22:59.636 find someone else who could do that for him represent 0:22:59.876 --> 0:23:04.876 Red Tube at various conferences, etc. And we managed to 0:23:04.916 --> 0:23:07.116 find one of the people who did this for him. 0:23:07.916 --> 0:23:17.516 That's after the break act three BB's show. So just 0:23:17.596 --> 0:23:21.516 to recap, it's two thousand and eight. BB has bought 0:23:21.556 --> 0:23:24.916 red Tube, one of the world's biggest pawn tube sites. 0:23:25.716 --> 0:23:29.436 He's not making pawn but hosting it, and he's basically 0:23:29.796 --> 0:23:33.236 learning on the job. He does what any banker out 0:23:33.236 --> 0:23:37.516 of his depth would do. He hires people codas tech 0:23:37.596 --> 0:23:42.516 people specialists in video streaming. But he also needed a frontman, 0:23:43.556 --> 0:23:50.476 so Red Shube hired Alan Lake. I had no idea 0:23:50.636 --> 0:23:52.836 what I was doing. I had no idea what I 0:23:52.876 --> 0:23:55.996 was doing. I got employed because they liked the content 0:23:56.036 --> 0:23:59.636 I was doing on the radio. Alan was a freelance 0:23:59.716 --> 0:24:02.796 radio presenter. You worked for a bunch of local stations 0:24:02.796 --> 0:24:05.516 in the UK, it's actually hard to find one. He 0:24:05.556 --> 0:24:10.836 hasn't been on. Hello everybody, welcome to the show. Are 0:24:10.876 --> 0:24:14.596 you feeling good? Feeling fine? How are you feeling empowered? 0:24:16.796 --> 0:24:18.876 Alan had just got a boot from one station and 0:24:18.996 --> 0:24:23.396 he was well struggling to get work. Red Tube contacted 0:24:23.476 --> 0:24:26.556 him to make videos and ride a blog. The money 0:24:26.636 --> 0:24:29.876 was good, so he went for it. It was a 0:24:29.996 --> 0:24:35.436 very strange place to work. It felt shady. Everybody used 0:24:35.436 --> 0:24:39.396 their first names. It was really really secretive, which was 0:24:39.436 --> 0:24:43.636 really intriguing. He got a big title head of Marketing 0:24:43.636 --> 0:24:46.756 and Communications. My bosses are going to cream in their pants, 0:24:46.796 --> 0:24:48.636 as would say in the UK, because I had bree 0:24:48.716 --> 0:24:51.836 us in here. Oh you're pissing me? Do you want 0:24:51.836 --> 0:24:54.356 me to piss in you with? This is when the 0:24:54.396 --> 0:24:57.156 biggest starts. You are gonna find here at the AVIA. 0:24:57.236 --> 0:24:59.116 That's what you guys say, though, don't you like you're 0:24:59.116 --> 0:25:02.116 taking a piss on me? But this wasn't an average company. 0:25:02.396 --> 0:25:04.996 It wasn't even an average porn company. Do you know 0:25:05.036 --> 0:25:07.996 where these people were based? I mean, did you get 0:25:07.996 --> 0:25:10.596 to a point where you were basically meeting your colleagues? 0:25:11.156 --> 0:25:15.716 I didn't meet anyone for a year, but then One day, 0:25:16.356 --> 0:25:18.916 Red Tube decided to host a company get together and 0:25:18.996 --> 0:25:23.276 crete Alan was finally invited to meet his colleagues in person, 0:25:24.476 --> 0:25:27.396 and it was there on the shores of the Aegean 0:25:28.196 --> 0:25:32.116 that he encountered bb for the first time. Bernard was 0:25:32.116 --> 0:25:34.836 a mystery to me, but I definitely knew absolutely nothing 0:25:34.876 --> 0:25:38.036 about Bernard. He showed up and I remember walking down 0:25:38.036 --> 0:25:40.356 the beach with him. He was asking me what I 0:25:40.436 --> 0:25:43.236 want in life. I just want to make really good 0:25:43.236 --> 0:25:45.996 content and be known for that. And then he started 0:25:46.036 --> 0:25:48.836 to explain to me how really good content was great 0:25:49.196 --> 0:25:52.156 and all that, but we had to make sure everything 0:25:52.276 --> 0:25:55.316 within the business made money. He was telling me, basically, 0:25:55.356 --> 0:25:57.956 if my content doesn't make money, you'll walk on the beach. 0:25:58.316 --> 0:26:01.236