Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins

What Hacker News said

Strong rec freediver · 2022-10 · on “Fake Books”

The 'book factory business oppportunity' trend spotted in the article is explored in depth in this excellent Dan Olson video: [this video] It is a great and informative watch.

Strong rec latexr · 2025-01 · on “Using coding skills to make passive income”

> This is what I call meta advice. That’s what I call a grift. Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy—where you make money by selling the idea that anyone can make passive income by doing something the seller doesn’t themselves do (anymore)—using the Mikkelsen Twins as the example. In Dan’s words (emphasis mine), the Mikkelsen Twins aren’t special, grifters like them are a dime a dozen. He chose them as the example “because they are of a type. They are a representative sample of a category of grift. And also because they’re kind of incompetent and that makes them entertaining ”. He’s not wrong. [this video]

Strong rec pas · 2026-04 · on “The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs”

a very entertaining, highly-recommended, and intense gonzo video essay on the topic of the courses scams [this video]

Recommends TaylorAlexander · 2022-12 · on “Kindle novelists are using ChatGPT”

Relevant high quality and interesting video that dives in to the world of get rich quick book dumping schemes: [this video]

Recommends asddubs · 2023-02 · on “Hustle bros are jumping on the AI bandwagon”

Reminds me of the excellent folding ideas video on these sort of scams: [this video] In the video he talks about a course (which is a scam) selling a different scam of getting a ghostwriter to write a crappy book, getting someone else to record it, and then publishing it to audible to make money. which seemingly did work for a short period of time but no longer does. I guess this is the same sort of thing, except cutting out the ghostwriter.

Recommends fattless · 2023-02 · on “ChatGPT launches boom in AI-written e-books on Amazon”

Somewhat related, and might give insight. This seems like the next step of the "hustle culture" this video explores, definetly worth a watch: [this video] People looking to get rich quick write (or pay sweatshops to write) very low effort, poorly researched books about obscure topics. They put them on amazon, maybe make some money, then repeat. The video explores one of those buyable programs to get you involved in all of that. Seems like chatGPT is being used as the next tool in this process

Recommends fxtentacle · 2023-02 · on “You’re Not a Girlboss – You’re Just Trapped in an MLM Scheme (2020)”

Apparently, you've never watched those start-up tutorials sold on YouTube. Half the course is spent on arguing that by paying $2000 to learn how to make your own iOS apps, you're "investing in yourself". And of course the people that run the course make most of their money from running the course and not from actually releasing iOS apps... I recommend "Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins" by "Folding Ideas" [this video]

Recommends bizzletk · 2023-09 · on “Amazon Limits Authors to 3 Books a Day to Combat AI-Generated Material”

Folding Ideas on youtube has an excellent explanation of the business model behind the rise of EBook Spam. The Mikkelson Twins are running a massive MLM scheme but instead of steak knives or scented candles, it's "training and support for creating your own EBook Passive Income Stream" which leads to what we see on Amazon ebook listings. The video also goes into the darker side of the incentives that lead people to commission ghostwriters, AI editors and the crushing labour demands of the people employed to write these books: [this video]