Business An engineer for General Electric has been arrested for stealing wind turbine technology from GE and using it to start a company in China...with the help of Chinese government

I started playing Runescape in 2004. I was seven years old. A kid named Cory was playing it and I asked him about the game because it looked cool. I decided I wanted to try it out.

My first account's name was Chrispoopoo1. I ended up making six accounts starting from 1 all the way to Chrispoopoo6. Why did I make six accounts?

I kept getting lost near Lumbridge, so instead of trying to figure it out how to do anything, I decided I should just keep making new accounts. I didn't know about Runehq or any guides at the time, and even if I did, my attention span was so short I would never have been able to read them.

I ended up making an account called Yourule40. I don't remember how I came up with this name, but it stuck. I have reports against my account from as early as 2006, for attempting to impersonate a Jagex mod (I didn't expect anyone to believe me, I was just trying to be funny) or saying really stupid things that nine year olds say online.

I wasn't originally allowed to talk to other people online, so I did anyway. When I was eight, I felt really bad that I was doing it behind my parents' back, so I told on myself. From then on I only attempted to communicate with other players via emotes (which did absolutely nothing).

I remember when I made my first 10k, I gave it away to some random person in Draynor. I meant to do it as a joke but I accidentally clicked accept twice. He started walking away and I just kept following him, using every emote I could that would suggest I made a mistake (since I didn't want to go behind my parents' back once more). I didn't get the 10k back.

I played the game on and off for years and I finally made my first 100k in 2007 from mining pure essence (lol). I got very excited as I always just assumed I'd always be broke. It was the first time I had really grinded to make some GP, and I felt rich.

Over the years I began learning more and more ways to make money in Runescape. In 2011 I noticed that people were doing doubling scams. For those that don't know what this means, you would go to a popular area such as the Grand Exchange, and just say "Doubling gp" or "Doubling 100k" etc. The idea is that you "trust" them to give the 100k (or whatever amount), you accept it, then they trade you again with double the money you gave.

When I first saw it, I thought it was hilariously stupid. Then I saw someone doing a doubling scam, and people around him started saying "Oh this guy is legit!" I immediately knew they were lying to help the "doubler" look legit. I decided I'd try it out for myself because I had become tired of grinding to earn money.

I went to the GE and put on my best gear, I started saying "Doubling 100k+" where I then had two friends come and pretend to trade me. They started saying I was legit. All of a sudden 2–3 people would come and trade me 100k or more. I ended up making two million GP in 30 minutes. I freaked out because I'd never made this much money so quickly. After sharing the profits with my friends, we'd do the same thing over and over.

Some of the people I scammed would eventually become my friends (who helped me continue the doubling scam). I eventually had enough GP where if someone gave 100k, I would legitimately double it for 3–4 people, where a lot of people would start saying I was legit. The most I ever got from one doubling scam was $5m.

Over time, the doubling scam began to work less and less and I eventually stopped doing it (this was in 2011). This taught me about how establishing a sense of legitimacy works (which obviously can be used for good or bad). It also helped me understand why the testimonials I saw on TV seemed so fake.

I had a friend on RS who had full dragon armor. One day he messaged me and asked me to vote for his clan. He said to search for a Youtube video. I found the video and it was a montage of a clan fighting, and my "friend" was offering me $1m to vote. I clicked the link in the description so that I could "vote."

I immediately grew suspicious as I realized that the website looked just like Runescape, except the URL was not the same. The "friend" then began threatening me saying that he had my IP and knew where I lived. I got scared because I was really confused as to what had just happened.

I never entered my info on that website (thankfully), because, as you already know, it was a phishing site. The "friend" of mine had been hacked and they were using his account to phish other friends. I never knew this person outside of RS which is why I hadn't noticed that he was hacked.

This event inspired me to then follow this person's footsteps. There's many other "finesses" I've done that I will always be proud of, but not this one of them. I made a clan video by taking pictures of large groups of RS players from Google images. I then found a free web host (I was absolutely broke when I was 14). I found a site that had the phishing files and I set up the website.

My friends and I all began attempting to get people to vote for our "clan." We'd split the profits and overall focus on getting as many players from different worlds. I never actually made that much from it overall, maybe around 350m. Regardless, I felt bad because I screwed over a lot of players who had likely spent a lot of time getting the money they earned.

I realized that I could make more GP than I ever dreamed of. This also helped me realize that if I could do it in a multiplayer video game, I could become rich in real life. Although keep in mind, there is a big difference between becoming rich and becoming successful. There are many rich people who are unsuccessful because they profit from deceit (which no matter who you are, it doesn't help you sleep at night).

I began caring less about Runescape itself and only about the money. Beyond the money, there was a massive thrill of seeing a correct password appear after a player tried to sign in (this thrill eventually got old). Two of the "friends" in my group eventually lured me into a battle (I forgot where, it wasn't the Wildy) with a Halloween mask and I instantly died. They set themselves up where they were on my team, but they were actually working with the team against me that killed me. Before I went in the portal where I died, I told my two "friends" that if I die, they'd have to compensate me for the helmet. I already had a suspicion it was a setup, but I had more money in the bank so I didn't really care — "Money that is easily earned is easily spent."

They partially compensated me for the Halloween mask, but my one friend was upset that I told my friend he needed to compensate me. I thought it was strange because I had specifically told them that if I lost it, they'd have to pay me back.

2012 came around and I stopped caring about money even more. I asked one of the people from my group to mine on my account because I didn't want to risk getting banned for botting. I had a high mining level so the idea was that he'd share the profits with me. One day in the summer of 2012, he asked for my bank pin because of some reason I don't remember (it wasn't a good reason). I gave it to him as a test to see if he'd steal the money from my account (a true friend test). He ended up stealing it, around 200m.

I didn't care about the money at all because it came to me very easily, it just upset me that I was betrayed. The thing is, it wasn't a person that I'd known for a few weeks or months, I'd known him for about a year and a half. We had played many other games together besides Runescape. I just felt somewhat sad that he decided to do that. It ruined what I thought was a good friendship.

With that being said, there were definitely signs before the money was taken that led me to believe something fishy was going on. But as I said, I didn't care about the 200m, I wanted to test him to see if he'd do it. I knew I could always make the money back. I ended up quitting soon after as the Runescape community began falling apart more and more (with many new crappy features that now plague RS3).

Six years later, I've since forgiven the person that stole my GP. It was a massive life lesson. I also recently made a new account on OSRS and have been playing with the same username, yourule40.

It helped me develop a mindset of doing whatever I can to be the good person in any situation. There's many times that I've lied in order to get to the "next level", and I don't regret those lies because without them, I wouldn't have been able to be in the position to change the world like I am now. I considered them necessary sacrifices in order to help the world in a way that no one else would be able to see. Not to mention, this really helped teach me to put myself in other people's shoes before I do something that could hurt them. I now follow a path of complete honesty (with the exception of occasional white lies).

When I say white lies, an example would be that I was getting laser hair removal done, and I had recently tanned the day before. The person doing the laser hair removal said I was very tan and that she wouldn't be able to do the laser hair removal (and I would've had to pay a $75 cancellation fee). I knew that my body could handle it, so I told her I tanned three weeks ago on the beach, and they continued with finishing the laser hair removal. This is an example where I didn't want to lie, but I knew that my body would be able to handle the hair removal process and the person was just following protocol (not to mention the waste of time getting there + the $75 cancellation fee).

Despite being honest and a good person, it does not mean I will be nice to those that don't deserve it. I will never stop calling people out that need to be called out, even if it "offends" them. This is because there are a lot of people in this world who act like the way I did when I was 14, except they are playing with real money and lives instead of Runescape GP. That is why I now approach everything from the understanding that we need to stop trying to throw others under the bus. It will only hurt you the most in the long run.

For those that know about my Cazza story and think that I just have trouble learning how to trust the right people, the reason I lost my money in that case was for a different reason. In the Cazza situation, I had been fasting for 18 days in India, and I didn't use my phone during the entire time. My ex-business partner wired the money out of the account during this time. When I finished fasting and realized what had happened, I actually didn't care very much. This is because I knew that if he was going to screw me over, he'd lose a lot more in the long run. I've known for a few years now that I am about to become one of the richest people in the world (actually the richest), so I don't care about losing $800k. It's just unfortunate that my ex-business partner was so filled with insecurity and jealousy that he did what he did. One of the biggest lessons I've learned in life is that I'd rather be the person attacked than the attacker.

Why?

I can handle the attacks better than 99.99% of the population.
The guilt from being the attacker is far worse than anything I'd ever want to go through.
I can recover from any "attack" someone wants to throw at me, whether verbal or physical.

You might be wondering why most of what I've just said is more related to life lessons than business. The thing is, I've learned that the most important business lessons are actually life lessons. When you follow a path that is true to yourself, you will always reach a point of true success — where you are honest not just to yourself, but everyone around you. Now my goal is to help the entire world reach this mindset. No matter how much money you make, if you are lying to yourself and others, you will never feel successful. I've met millionaires and billionaires who have lower self-esteems than homeless people.

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The perplexing motivation behind the NBA's ban on medical marijuana

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 04:21 PM PDT

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Comedy related business ideas?

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 01:59 PM PDT

I would like to start a business but involving comedy, not comedy clubs but something else (that's the issue I'm having) can't think of other ways to make money off my humor/Comedy writing skills.

Any suggestions?

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Need Advice: I have a solid business idea. What should I do next?

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 07:30 PM PDT

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FedEx to not charge extra for most peak-season home deliveries

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 07:32 AM PDT

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The 3 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Helios and Matheson Analytics Inc have a median target of 3,000.00, with a high estimate of 3,000.00 and a low estimate of 1,250.00. The median estimate represents a +4,285,614.29% increase from the last price of 0.07.

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 05:26 PM PDT

submitted by /u/gazoogle
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New accountant at a distressed small business and I need some guidance!

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 05:59 AM PDT

I've just been brought on as a "full time bookkeeper" at a small temporary staffing company which generates about $2m in revenue each year. The owner has no prior business ops experience, but was a staffer by trade for a long time and has been doing a great job at what they do. Getting people to work.

The problem is that this company has become bloated. The owner hired people to help full time, and didn't give them exact sets of tasks, budgets, time frames, etc. They hired a dispatcher (who's performance at dispatching has hurt sales) who also enters in the raw data for payroll each week among other odd jobs, but he isn't sure what his other responsibilities are and sometimes important things will fall through the cracks. They hired a "clerk" type assistant to process the banking, deposit checks, notarize things, etc. Random work, and not as a 1099. Full time. I asked the assistant what exactly they do here and they weren't exactly sure.

There are 4 company vehicles, and only two of them are used for business. The other two are a "spare" car (!) and the owner's vehicle. The company's headquarters is too big and expensive for what we do.

All things considered, this company can be turned around. The problem is that we currently return $(2,000) monthly on revenue of ~$150,000.

Yes, a temp agency will have a high COGS. But our opex is ridiculous for what we have in the budget. There is a $400,000 LOC that is drawn out to $390,000.

Does this sub have any resources for turnaround work? How do I explain to the owner that we need to downsize to stay in business, while not freaking them out?

I have the numbers and action plan all ready, but I need to present it tactfully and without making anyone upset. Any recommendations/insights are greatly appreciated.

Action plan

- fire the assistant, I can do what she does in half the time

- sell the company vehicles we don't need

- find a more affordable space

- develop an organizational structure where each task is assigned to a team member and each team member has a person to answer to weekly

- do our best to generate more revenue

What do you think?

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GOLDMAN SACHS: Bitcoin is never coming back

Posted: 03 Aug 2018 10:17 AM PDT

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Recognizing Businesses Doing Good Things :)