Patrick Michael Byrne (born November 29, 1962) is an American businessman, promoter of conspiracy theories, and libertarian noted for his views on public education and blockchain.
In 1999, Byrne launched Overstock.com (currently Beyond, Inc.) after leading two smaller companies. Byrne led Overstock as chief executive officer for two decades, from 1999 to 2019. In 2002, Byrne took Overstock public using the Dutch auction method, which was then novel.
Early in his Overstock tenure, Byrne attracted public attention for a long-running legal battle against naked short selling. Later, he resigned as CEO in August 2019, following revelations that he had been in an intimate relationship with Russian agent (and later politician) Maria Butina.
Since then Byrne has emerged as a leading figure in promoting conspiracy theories, including the "Deep State" conspiracy theory. In 2020 and 2021, he repeatedly promoted false claims that Donald Trump had lost the 2020 U.S. presidential election due to "election fraud." He has also toured the United States in order to provide anti-vaccination stump speeches for COVID-19 conspiracy theorists. He became notable for distributing and selling misinformation on various subject matters via websites, social media, books, and film. He has suffered legal consequences for his misinformation activities.
Early life and education Byrne was born on November 29, 1962, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He grew up in Woodstock, Vermont and Hanover, New Hampshire. He is the son of John J. Byrne, former chairman of Berkshire Hathaway's GEICO insurance subsidiary and White Mountains Insurance Group.
Byrne graduated from Dartmouth College with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy and Asian studies. He then won a Marshall Scholarship to pursue graduate studies in England at the University of Cambridge, where he earned a master's degree from King's College, Cambridge. In 1996, he earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University. His doctoral dissertation, completed under the philosopher of science John Dupré, was titled, "Jealousy and confidence: An essay on the limits of authority".
Business career Early business career While Byrne was a teaching fellow at Stanford University from 1989 to 1991, he was manager of Blackhawk Investment Co. and Elissar, Inc. He was chairman, CEO, president of Centricut, LLC, a manufacturer of industrial torches from 1994 to 1997. From 1997 to 1998, he held the same three positions at Fechheimer Brothers, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway company that manufactured uniforms for the police, firefighters, and the military. His father was a friend of Warren Buffett, the leader of Berkshire Hathaway.
Overstock.com Career and tenure as CEO In 1999, after leading two smaller companies, including operating a set of Berkshire Hathaway's domestic companies, Byrne was approached by the founder of D2-Discounts Direct with a request for operating capital. The company had generated slightly more than $500,000 in revenue the previous year by liquidating excess furniture inventory online, but was out of capital and shutting its doors. Byrne found the idea of online closeouts intriguing, and in the spring of 1999 invested $7 million for a 60 percent equity stake in the company. In September the same year he took over as CEO, and the following month the company was renamed Overstock.com.The Renaissance Man of E-Commerce Patrick Byrne has done more in his 37 years than most do in a lifetime. Will that make his company, Overstock.com, a success? by Nicholas Stein, February 7, 2000, Fortune
Byrne initiated an IPO of Overstock.com in 2002,Lauren Debter, The Exclusive Inside Story Of The Fall Of Overstock's Mad King, Patrick Byrne, Forbes (August 22, 2019). becoming one of the first companies to go public under the "Dutch auction" method, a system advanced by WR Hambrecht + Co to retain a greater share of capital within the company rather than going to the investment bank underwriters used in conventional public offerings. Byrne has said that competing banks reacted against this, attempting to obstruct the success of the offering through negative reports and by shorting the company's stock. When Google later in 2004 went public via a Dutch auction IPO, Byrne commented that Wall Street firms similarly pushed negative stories, but did not keep it from going forward successfully. Four years after the OpenIPO, one official of Hambrecht, its now former co-CEO Clay Corbus was added to Overstock's board of directors. As a part of his role, Byrne advocated for the use of blockchain technology, including cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
Some Overstock employees, as well as Byrne's father, initially believed that Byrne's long-running campaign against short sellers, which began in 2005, distracted him from Overstock's core business. The company had losses in some years, and modest profits in others. Byrne's tenure was marked by a series of initiatives that were rolled out with much enthusiasm, but that were later abandoned or had disappointing outcomes. In 2004, Overstock spent several million dollars to establish an online auction platform to compete with eBay, but the project was not successful and shut down in 2011. The company also launched, and then later closed, projects in real estate, travel booking, and auto sales. He took an indefinite leave of absence from Overstock.com in April 2016 because of Hepatitis C complications, and he returned in July 2016 as CEO after his recovery. The company increasingly lost ground to other e-commerce retailers, especially Amazon and Wayfair; by the time of his resignation in 2019, Byrne had largely given up trying to compete with these larger rivals; he led, beginning in 2017, unsuccessful attempts to find a buyer for Overstock's retail business. In the late 2010s, Overstock built a new $100 million headquarters at the base of Utah's Wasatch Mountains, although several rounds of layoffs had left part of the complex empty.
In 2013, Byrne began to invest in cryptocurrency and blockchain, and Overstock became the first major retailer to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. Byrne shifted some of Overstock's balance sheet to support Tzero, a new digital stock exchange billed as a "blockchain version of Nasdaq; Tzero's initial coin offering in 2018. In 2022, Intercontinental Exchange acquired a minority stake in tZERO.
As Byrne's focus on the technology intensified in 2017 and 2018, Overstock incurred significant losses—$316 million over two years, more than twice the profits ever made by the company.
Campaign against naked shorting and analysts In a conference call with analysts in August 2005, Byrne said that "there's been a plan since we were in our teens to destroy our stock, drive it down to $6–$10 ... and even a plan for how the company would then get whacked up." He said that the conspirators were part of a "Miscreants Ball," headed by a "Sith Lord," whom he identified only as "he's one of the master criminals from the 1980s." (but identified in an interview two weeks later as Steve Cohen). Byrne said the conspiracy included hedge funds, journalists, investigators, trial lawyers, the SEC, and Eliot Spitzer.
In 2005, Overstock.com sued hedge fund Rocker Partners and the equities research firm Gradient Analytics (formerly Camelback Research Alliance) in California, alleging they illegally colluded in short-selling the company while paying for negative reports to drive down share prices. Gradient countersued Overstock for libel. A portion of this suit was settled out of court in 2008; Overstock and Gradient dropped their claims against each other after Gradient retracted allegations that Overstock's reporting methods did not comply with rules established by the FASB, stated they believed Overstock.com complied with GAAP standards, and that three directors were independent, and apologized. In December 2009, the suit against Rocker, whose name had since been changed to Copper River Partners, was settled by Copper River paying $5 million.
In 2007, Overstock filed a second lawsuit against a number of large investment banks, alleging that the brokers engaged in illegal naked short selling. The long-running litigation ended in 2016. Overstock's claims against Goldman Sachs were dismissed, but the other brokers, such as Merrill Lynch, settled for $20 million.
Fortune writer Bethany McLean said that Byrne had become a "hero to those who believe that short-sellers are the operators of Wall Street's ultimate black box, predators who destroy companies through innuendo, bullying, political connections—and sometimes through an illegal practice known as 'naked shorting.'" Byrne financed and wrote a full-page advertisement in The Washington Post which said "Naked short selling ... is literally stealing money from the widows, retirees, and other small investors." In a letter to The Wall Street Journal in April 2006, Byrne contended that "blackguards have practiced 'failure to deliver'" of securities, were "destroying businesses and (probably) destabilizing our capital markets." March 6, 2006 Between 2005 and 2007, Overstock filed two lawsuits relating to the matters under Byrne's direction. March 28, 2007 After her article appeared in 2005, McLean was attacked by Byrne with such vehemence that she ceased covering him.
Byrne's campaign against naked short selling and others who he feels targeted him and his company attracted both controversy and praise.Steven Oberbeck, Wall Street war: A win for Utahn: Byrne's battle helps bring curbs on naked short-selling practices, Salt Lake Tribune (August 2, 2008). In addition to criticizing broker-dealers and hedge funds as corrupt, Byrne also criticized the press as corrupt and unable to understand the financial and dot.com industries, and complained that the mainstream media had "demonized" him.
Deep Capture In part to publicize his thoughts on naked short selling, Byrne founded the website "Deep Capture". In October 2011, Vancouver businessman Altaf Nazerali sued Byrne for libel and defamation in the Supreme Court of British Columbia for articles published on the website. The articles described Nazerali as being involved with "Osama Bin Laden's favorite financier," and that he worked with criminal syndicates including the Colombian drug cartel, the Russian mafia, and various "jihadi terrorist groups" including al Qaeda's Golden Chain. Deep Capture also accused Nazerali of "delivering weapons to war zones in Africa and to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan," of orchestrating "small-time 'pump and dump' scams… [and] bust-outs, death spiral finance and naked short selling," and of carrying out dirty work for "a Pakistani ISI asset" who "works for the Iranian regime." In May 2016, the Court found that the allegations in the Deep Capture articles were libelous and defamatory; Nazerali was awarded $1.2 million in damages, including $500,000 in aggravated damages, $250,000 in punitive damages and $55,000 in special damages. Byrne was permanently banned from publishing these accusations. The Court found Byrne, his employee Mark Mitchell, and Deep Capture "engaged in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on Mr. Nazerali's reputation as they could achieve." The 102-page decision said "It is clear on the evidence that their intention was to conduct a vendetta in which the truth about Mr. Nazerali himself was of no consequence."
The judgment was upheld on appeal in Canada in August 2018.
Relationship with Maria Butina and resignation as CEO