I have tried hard to treat you and your ideas with respect, and have no complaints when you disagree with my opinions. In fact, it’s OK if you criticize me personally as well, as my presence in the media probably makes me enough of a public figure to invite personal criticism.
It struck me as odd that you chose to challenge my use of the word “secular”. One of the meanings is as you suggest—not connected with religion. Another of the word’s meanings is “occurring only once in an age or century”, and this meaning is precisely what I endeavored to say when I talked about the state of persistent secular decline for packaged goods. Industries rendered obsolete by technology (think buggy whips, typewriters, or transistor radios) are subject to secular declines, meaning that they are going away. It’s exactly the right word to describe what I was talking about, is not political in the least, and your challenge of its use was just plain wrong.
You can say whatever you wish about my ideas, and I won’t challenge you as being wrong. In this case, you’re not only wrong, but you come across as petty and arrogant.
-Michael Pachter
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As Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens would say, “Wilt thou whip thy faults into other men?”
This is an unsolicited email. Every now and then, Pachter sends me an email and seems surprised that I do not treat his words as mana from heaven. I am someone who cannot be manipulated. He’s tried flattery. He’s tried humor. Now he’s calling me ‘petty and arrogant’. This is all very funny to me.
Instead of leaving the email in my spam folder, I am sharing it with you, the wonderful reader, to illustrate how Pachter speaks with a lawyer’s tongue and behaves like one.
I have tried hard to treat you and your ideas with respect, and have no complaints when you disagree with my opinions.
The ideas of Blue Ocean Strategy and disruption are not my ideas. They are not Nintendo’s ideas. They are from the Harvard Business School. Reggie Fils-Aime said they were the key to understanding Nintendo’s business perspective in 2005, half a decade ago. Has any analyst, even Pachter who loves to grandstand on soapboxes, mentioned these in regards to their analysis of Nintendo or the gaming market? No. They have said things completely contrary. They are well aware of Nintendo’s true perspective. Their public statements are calculated to publicly distort what is going on in the market.
This was said five years ago. Since then, Nintendo has gone on to a success beyond anything seen in video game history and perhaps even entertainment history. All we can do now is just mock these analysts as they appear clueless as to what is going on in the market.
But here’s the rub, I do not think they are clueless. People say Pachter is stupid. I do not think he is stupid. I think he is extremely intelligent. It is tempting for someone to look at Pachter saying absurdly wrong things and conclude: “What a stupid analyst” because it makes ourselves feel smart.
If you look at Michael Pachter’s educational history, you will find that he graduated from The Anderson School of Management, from Levin College of Law, and from Pepperdine University School of Law. This is clearly not a dumb person.
But if you note that his formal education is extremely law heavy. I have gone through a similar education, and I can assure you that the process of a Law education forges a certain personality. In a similar way, medical schools forges a type of personality (the doctor will always think he is right. Beware trying to work in a doctor’s office or being married to a doctor). Sure, these are general things I am saying, but the fact of the matter is that lawyers and politicians come out of law schools, not financial analysts. I imagine that Pachter realized that law and being a politician did not necessarily pay well.
One thing many people do not realize is that America’s political realm is hip to hip connected to the financial services industry. What jobs do the daughters of presidents end up getting? You find them a part of some financial service group like managing hedge funds. “Maybe those girls really like finances and are good at it. Perhaps they didn’t get that job through the fact their daddy was President of the United States.” Oh, you are a funny one, reader! Most politicians, when they retire, end up lobbyists or they work in the financial services somewhere.
Now, I am not faulting Pachter for wanting a career change earlier in life. We all go through this. My question is only whether Michael Pachter’s behavior matches that of the financial analyst or that of the political operative? Does Pachter’s behavior seem as if he is trying to control the business news cycle for video games? It does to me.
I don’t think Pachter’s mission is to give an honest analysis of the markets. It is clearly to shape and manipulate the business news cycle of gaming for some other reason.
From someone who has been through those law school corridors, Pachter’s words sound extremely ‘parsed’ and deliberately tactical. For example, he starts off the email saying that he is trying very hard to ‘respect my ideas’ (what ideas are these? He does not say) and does not agree when I disagree with his opinions. Now, I am not disagreeing with his opinions at all. I am saying those ‘opinions’ are tactical maneuvers to shape the business news cycle. For example, when Wii sales broke all records in December 2009, Pachter said to Bloomberg news that it was due to a Wal-Mart special and then Pachter went on popular gaming forum of NeoGAF (which the gaming press reads) to start a thread asking how can third party companies sell on the Wii. It was a deliberate and calculated shift to change the business news cycle to instead of being about Wii sales breaking all records (and why this could be), to shift discussion to why (some) third party companies cannot sell on the Wii and that Wii sold hardware because of a price drop at Wal-Mart (even though the console would sell out in all stores). A few months earlier, analysts were in agreement that Wii’s best selling days were over but then it broke all records. No question as to why. You would think there would be some mention from an analyst, anywhere, about how a 2d game on a home console can sell so much when it was decided by the Industry that no one wanted 2d platformers anymore on home consoles.
Until analysts like Pachter begin assigning Blue Ocean Strategy and disruption to explain Nintendo’s rise and Sony and Microsoft’s fall (instead of making up BS terms like ‘casual gamers’), everyone is going to keep laughing at them.
My disagreement with Pachter has nothing to do with his opinion but everything to do about his professional conduct. Pachter trying to spin this as a disagreement and lack of respect of people’s opinions is, itself, a distortion of what is going on. And it is deliberate on his part.
In fact, it’s OK if you criticize me personally as well, as my presence in the media probably makes me enough of a public figure to invite personal criticism.
More deliberate distortion. I am not personally criticizing Pachter at all. A personal criticism would be making fun of his hair. I am criticizing his behavior as an analyst. Why? Because his behavior far better fits the political operative obsessed over shaping the news cycle.
Talking to the press, going on TV shows, even having his own personal web-TV show, none of this is his job. So why waste all this time doing that? Wouldn’t it be better spent doing additional research (with Pachter’s track record, he definitely needs it)?
Most people do not realize that you cannot sue someone for libel if that person is considered a ‘public figure’. A financial analyst would likely not know this. But a lawyer and politician would. Note how Pachter mentions what is known mostly only to lawyers so casually.
It struck me as odd that you chose to challenge my use of the word “secular”. One of the meanings is as you suggest—not connected with religion. Another of the word’s meanings is “occurring only once in an age or century”, and this meaning is precisely what I endeavored to say when I talked about the state of persistent secular decline for packaged goods. Industries rendered obsolete by technology (think buggy whips, typewriters, or transistor radios) are subject to secular declines, meaning that they are going away. It’s exactly the right word to describe what I was talking about, is not political in the least, and your challenge of its use was just plain wrong.
This is a deliberate attempt to sidetrack me away from discussing Pachter’s behavior and get me talking about how he used a word. If I start arguing pages over a word, I appear to Pachter’s investors the way he wants me to appear: petty and arrogant.
No speaker of the English language uses the word ‘secular’ as Pachter did, and it appears that his political side jumped out and used an inappropriate word not geared toward financial analysis (secular decline is often used in the political realm to describe a nation’s spiritual decline). The reason why he sounds like a lawyer in defending it is because he is a lawyer. I would not be surprised if Pachter is very much involved in political activism.
You can say whatever you wish about my ideas, and I won’t challenge you as being wrong. In this case, you’re not only wrong, but you come across as petty and arrogant.
Who the hell is Pachter to say what someone can or cannot say about his public behavior? Who the hell is Pachter to say what can or cannot be written on someone’s own personal website?
I’m sure everyone knows Malstrom is so petty that he emails, unsolicited, anyone who uses the word ‘secular’ incorrectly.
I’m sure everyone knows Malstrom is so arrogant that he insists no one question his public behavior.
I’m sure everyone knows Malstrom is so arrogant that he has his own TV show on the web, and loves putting his face on TV, as well as being quoted in as many publications as possible.
I’m sure Malstrom is so petty and arrogant that he tells people what they may or may not write on their own personal webpage.
We all know that Malstrom is so arrogant, he publicly declares he has five Porsches, and that he uses his public appearances to boost his own personal financial gain.
That Malstrom! How dare he be so petty and arrogant!
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