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Wired on Gizmondo

Anyone that knows me well knows my simple tagline:
Life is a collection of stories.

Well, the folks at Wired Magazine, in the October 2006 issue, have written a great story about the demise of Gizmondo and the rampant corruption surrounding the players. It's hard to believe that the tale is real. Gizmondo plowed through some $382.5M of sustained net losses while trying to build a handheld gaming device to knock off Sony and Nintendo. They were completely unsuccessful, but that's not the story. The story is behind the scenes, in the past, present, and future of some of the key players in the company.

Am I reading fiction or non-fiction here? It's so well written, and so unbelievable, that it's hard to tell. I love it. A great read.


Randall Sullivan does an excellent job telling the long, sordid tale, and unwinds the story all the way back to the Uppsala (Sweden) Mafia, a wrecked Ferrari Enzo traveling 194-mph on a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway just north of Malibu, guns, self-proclaimed anti-terrorist units, multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, majority ownership in a modeling agency to ensure plenty of beautiful young women at their parties, mansions, yachts, and it goes on and on. Very entertaining.

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  1. Gizmondo & Ferrari Destroyer Does (Little) Time at Brian Berliner’s BrainNovember 16, 2006 at 5:47 AM

    [...] I previously covered the excellent Wired story about Bo Stefan Eriksson and the crazy happenings over at Gizmondo. The court results are in. Stefan is doing 3.5 years for embezzlement and drunk driving. Seems pretty lenient, if you ask me. You would think the DUI alone would result in more jail time - it certainly would if it happened in his home country of Sweden. Oh yeah. He was fined $5,000. Deputy District Attorney Tamara Hall says that “justice has prevailed”. [...]

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gizmondo & Ferrari Destroyer Does (Little) Time « Brian Berliner's BrainFebruary 24, 2010 at 7:57 AM

    [...] previously covered the excellent Wired story about Bo Stefan Eriksson and the crazy happenings over at Gizmondo. The [...]

    ReplyDelete

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