Michael Wolff was a well-known shyster in Manhattan's late-90's "Silicon Alley" scene. He had a failed startup called Wolff New Media where he encouraged his employees to agree to a deferred salary. When the company went belly-up he managed to collect his own salary back while his employees got fucked (according to a Village Voice article.) He ended up cashing-in with his account of the whole fiasco in the form of a book called "Burn Rate."
Here are some quotes from reviews of Burn Rate on Amazon:
"I can't believe that Wolff would acknowledge so much about himself in a book. Burn Rate reveals Wolff's petulant nature, and documents his downward spiral into a money-grubbing loss of integrity. His tale tries to drag everyone he met during his push for IPO down with him, making this a pathetic and depressing read."
"I felt like the entire purpose of this book was to make others look worse than the writer, and thereby raise himself up in the process. It didn't work."
"I have to admit that I was entertained by the clever caricatures of everyone Wolff lied to, swindled, and stepped on in his fruitless quest for a quick buck. But if you want to learn something useful about business or entrepreneurship, read books written by the investors and entrepreneurs who succeeded."
An article in Politico says "Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Manhattan’s power elite, has faced accusations in the past of playing loose with facts in his columns and books, and of not honoring ground rules with sources." Even the New York Times says Wolff, "has a history of being casual with his facts."
Wolff was actually pretty good on CNN's Brian Stelter's outrageously named show "Reliable Sources" when he told baby-face Brian he was becoming “quite a ridiculous figure.”
In an excerpt published in New York Magazine entitled, "Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President-- the plan to lose, and the administration’s shocked first days," Wolff makes the case that Trump and his team were purposely trying to lose the race. This leads one to wonder, if Trump and his team were all trying to lose why were they also colluding with the Russians? Can the mainstream media have it both ways? Or maybe Trump was colluding with the Russians to LOSE the election.
Prediction: In one week this book will be largely forgotten. Trump and Bannon have obviously pretended to have a "feud" like they do in professional wrestling. In one week Bannon and Trump will make-up and discredit the book. The Trump-haters will once again be disappointed at one more scandal that didn't stick and go even more crazy. All the Trump supporters know Trump is already unstable so they won't care. Trump will make even more insane tweets and everyone will move on.
Besides, 90% of Americans don't read.
