GameStop, Reddit and the Fleecing of Small Investors

This episode of Reputations In Crisis with Mike Paul, The Rep Doc, we interview Wall Street Journal’s Heard On The Street columnist Spencer Jakab, the author of the book, The Revolution That Wasn’t - GameStop, Reddit, and the Fleecing of Small Investors. According to the book, the narrative that Redditors forced Wall Street to its knees in early 2021 has its appeal, but accuracy isn’t among them, contends the author. Jakab tells the story of the attempts by users of the /wallstreetbets subreddit to use “brokerage accounts as a tool of class warfare” by short selling stocks. Fueled by fury at the wealthy, Reddit users who saw themselves as “exacting revenge on the hedge fund architects of a rigged system” began buying up Gamestop stock, often using Robinhood, an app that allowed individual investors to buy in small amounts. Shares rose, then Robin ...