dateline: power
Asian studies and mathematical logic): “Samuel Johnson said, ‘When you tell a man he’s going to be hanged in a fortnight, it tends to focus his mind.’ My mind is focused.”
Overstock’s Peace Coliseum
Patrick’s Peace Out The decision to build a new Overstock.com headquarters in Midvale in the shape of a peace sign and call it the Peace Coliseum might be baffling if you didn’t know Patrick Byrne’s vision and the perverse humor that guides his worldview. “It was kismet,” Byrne says of the design that connects Overstock’s divisions of a central dining and communal hall that will provide healthy meals. But Peace Coliseum? “It’s a bit of dichotomy and mayhem,” Byrne says. “We’re a company and we’re here to make money—that’s the coliseum side,” Byrne explains. “We are foreboding and aggressive and we’re out there in the hot, dry winds of capitalism, wheeling and dealing. “But we’re ultimately about peace and love—creating a platform with which people can engage and make each other’s lives better.”
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It soon becomes apparent we are dealing with a reconstructed Patrick Byrne, reprieved just days before from a death sentence. “This is the first time since I was 31 that I’m not dealing with some terminal illness,” says Byrne, who took off four months of work to be successfully treated for Stage 4 Hepatitis C. Throughout his life, Byrne has faced reoccurring bouts with cancer and cardiac conditions. “When I was 22 years old, I was diagnosed with cancer. I spent three years of my life in hospitals and was recovering for many years—always expecting the cancer to come back.” Clearly, life is now fresh and exhilarating for Byrne. “For the first time, I actually feel healthy,” he says. “I’m closing on the first house I’ve ever owned! I’m putting down roots. I’m ready to commit and seriously engage.” For Byrne’s employees and Wall Street foes, it will come as a shock that the
towering, ruggedly handsome, hard-driving and often-infuriating entrepreneur has not been fully engaged for the past three decades. Obviously, his return from the edge of the abyss has colored everything for Patrick Byrne.
On Overstock’s future:
Anyone who speculated that after Byrne’s near-death experience he would pull back from his full-throated, forward-leaning involvement in Overstock’s day-to-day operations will be disappointed. “For the four months away, I lay on the beach in a lot of places and did a lot of yoga. I learned that this is paradise,” he says. “I want to roll up my sleeves and dive in and really get to work. As corny as this sounds, I’ve never been married, never had a family of my own— that’s the feeling I have for my 2,000 colleagues.” One thing hasn’t changed—Byrne’s trademark erudite literary quotes (he has degrees in philosophy,
The jury is still out on whether so-called naked short selling, vilified by Bryne, really hurts the stock market, but Byrne sees the 2008 recession as his vindication. He’s got a new strategy to eliminate unscrupulous market practices he says hurt companies like Overstock, destabilized the financial system and imperiled the investments of ordinary Americans. He’s betting big on the digitaltransaction system known as Bitcoin, which unlike world currencies is transparent and not controlled by political entities. Overstock even has an ATM-looking box in the lobby that converts employees’ cash into Bitcoin. It’s part of a larger effort he calls “block chain” that will secure Bitcoin from tampering. “Block chain is the solution,” he says. “I don’t have to bash down doors anymore; we’ve invented a better mousetrap. It will prevent a bunch of that [Wall Street] mischief from happening in the first place.”
On storing gold and food:
Byrne was widely mocked when Overstock stockpiled
PHOTO COURTESY OVERSTOCK
On his campaign against Wall Street: