His email account was blocked, and he was called into an administrator’s office. This week, Endless Thread brings you two such stories of rule breakers.įirst, co-host Ben Brock Johnson tells the story of Daniel Opdahl, a college senior who decided to spam his entire school at Luther College in Iowa last year. Yet sometimes you have to do things the wrong way to make things right. Rules exist for a reason - not always, but often, a good one. The story appears in podcast feeds under the title, “ Don’t Do That.” 'I'm a big fan of taking baths, I guess.One of the Dania Beach vervet monkeys hangs out in the parking-lot mangroves near the Fort Lauderdale Airport. 'I do like the baths at Bed Bath & Beyond,' he said. Still, he expressed his love for one of the retailer's namesake products. He saw lots of valuable inventory, but too many niche items, including a $300, 'very gimmicky' foot warmer. They may feel vindicated now, given his hasty sale of the stock.įinally, Freeman recalled a visit to his local Bed Bath & Beyond store. Moreover, he acknowledged they were skeptical of his intentions as an investor. He looked forward to exploring some of their theories in his future academic research, he continued. He emphasized that his financial backers understood the risk of parking $25 million in a single meme stock, and he had specifically raised the money for that purpose.įreeman also celebrated Bed Bath & Beyond's passionate retail following, and their willingness to openly criticize his plan. He believed the correct change to the company's capital structure would lessen that danger and unlock significant upside.

He framed his proposal as a way for company executives to raise some vital cash, as well as secure time to fix their business - which could avoid a firesale of the Buy Buy Baby division.īed Bath & Beyond and Freeman didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.ĭuring the Twitter conversation, Freeman revealed that he bought the stock because it appeared to be priced for bankruptcy. He said Bed Bath & Beyond had serious liquidity issues, its vendors were upset, and bankruptcy was a real possibility if its bosses failed to act.

Moreover, he described his purchase as a 'watershed moment' for Bed Bath & Beyond, and said he hoped it could capitalize on its elevated stock price to clean up its finances and stay in business for a long time.įreeman also discussed his massive wager, and shed some light on his personal life, in a Twitter Spaces conversation with Wook Capital on Aug. He explained a sharp rise in the retailer's stock price, and the fact he was leaving for school the next day, spurred his decision to cash out. He suggested the company could address its financial woes by offering stock warrants and convertible notes to bondholders, in return for cutting the company's debts.įreeman reflected on his short-lived bet in a Reddit post titled 'An Ode to BBBY' on Wednesday. The college senior leveraged his knowledge of math and finance in a letter to Bed Bath & Beyond's directors this summer. He made his first investment of $500 at the age of 13 with his uncle's help, he copublished an academic paper about hedging bonds with default swaps at 16, and he ran for US president at 18, the newspaper said. News of his sale, coupled with GameStop chairman and meme-stock champion Ryan Cohen's disposal of his roughly 12% stake in Bed Bath & Beyond, drove the stock down from a high of $30 on August 17 to $11 by Friday's close.įreeman has shown big ambitions and a prodigious intellect from an early age, the Financial Times reported this week.

You failed the vibe check meme