Big Technology Podcast - Fyre Festival's Billy McFarland Dishes On Social Media Marketing, VC, and Prison

Episode Date: August 21, 2024

Billy McFarland is the founder of Fyre Festival. He joins Big Technology Podcast to discuss what he learned about social media, investing, and prison during his ordeal at the helm at the world's most infamous music festival. Tune in for McFarland's clear-headed insights on what he did wrong, how social media sells a version of the world that is not there, how inflating his numbers changed investors' approach to his business, and what ten months on solitary confinement does to a man. Tune in for a fascinating, deep discussion covering the making and downfall of an internet phenomenon. ---- --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Want a discount for Big Technology on Substack? Here’s 40% off for the first year: https://tinyurl.com/bigtechnology Questions? Feedback? Write to: [e-mail]

Billy McFarland, the Man Behind the Fire Festival, joins us to discuss what he learned about the power of social media, his time in prison, and whether there's going to be a fire festival too. That's coming up right after this. Hey, everyone, let me tell you about The Hustle Daily Show, a podcast filled with business, tech news, and original stories to keep you in the loop on what's trending. More than 2 million professionals read The Hustle's daily email

for its irreverent and informative takes on business and tech news. Now, they have a daily podcast called The Hustle. Hustle Daily show where their team of writers break down the biggest business headlines in 15 minutes or less and explain why you should care about them. So search for the Hustled Daily show and your favorite podcast app like the one you're using right now. Welcome to Big Technology podcast, a show for cool-headed, nuanced conversation of the tech world and beyond. We're midsummer and we have a very fun show for you today because Billy McFarland is here. He's the man behind the fire festival. And I don't think there are many people in the world with as much experience

generating social media interests, speaking with investors, and really being in the public eye in the way that Billy has been. So, Billy, it's great to see you. Welcome to the show. Alex, thank you so much. Great to be here. Very excited chat tonight. Okay, me too.

Let's start for those who don't know about it, talking about what the fire festival was. I basically wrote down that it was a event that generated a tremendous amount of interest, was supposed to be a lavish festival on a private island. and fell apart, was canceled basically before it got a chance to get going and caused you a lot of trouble. Is that sort of an accurate description of what happened? Yeah, so the trouble is obviously the result, but I think let's start with the vision. So Fire Festival was supposed to be three days where you would escape reality and connect with people from different industries on a remote island.

The idea was this would be the three days that you would talk about for the rest of your lives. I think we succeeded in creating three days. People spoke about for the rest of their lives, but just did it the exact opposite way. But fire is all about the idea is the magic, the companies, the bonds that happen when people who don't ordinarily get to meet during their day-to-day professional lives

all come together at an exotic location and embark on this weekend of adventure and coming together. And now, you know, I was thinking a lot about the event and trying to put myself back into sort of like the I guess the mindset or sort of that moment and you know I sort of expected to go back and like I guess the perception I expected was like oh billy did this thing and it really screwed over a lot of people and and that's why it resonated with folks but actually it like came away with like a different picture when I started reading and watching some of the things

that had happened and why it captivated people the way that it had and my perception is that the reason why it drew so much interest was there was a feeling of like people were enjoying the suffering of the elites. And I'm curious if you could sort of reflect on that and let me know if you think that that's accurate. So fire came in in like early 2017 and like most of the marketing was done in late 2016. And I think this era was important because it started to really kick off this shift of celebrity being a select number of people to what it is now, where there are millions of micro-influencers across all these social channels. And I think we kind of hit it at the exact time where the general public had gotten an inside glimpse

due to social media into the lives of like the 0.01% of fame, of wealth, of access. And it created this sense of entitlement where you became so used to waking up and seeing what Kim Kardashian was doing every day, that you thought you deserved that too. So it created this weird surge of one, ticket buyers who thought they deserved to live this life. But then two, when everything kind of failed, almost a reassurance amongst the public where like, yes, I am as good as this person who I wake up and like in common on every day. And they have mistakes also. And obviously, I wasn't that person, but the guests or some of the expected guests were. And so I think it kind of created the sense of comfort and reassurance amongst, you know, social media users.

to find complacency where they stand in life. Right. And so then, I mean, basically, what you're, it's interesting because it's a failure in many ways. Obviously, you've paid the price for it. But it also, you led for this kind of a moment of catharsis. Like your biggest failing was a moment of catharsis for so many people. How did that make you feel? Kind of weird, right?

I think it's still hard to look at it that way. And it's like very difficult to look past all of their wrong. And ultimately, they were employed. there were families, there were investors who suffered due to the mistakes and the decisions that I made. So it's hard to look past that and like see the larger change that happened because of fire, you know, until those mistakes are really fixed. Yeah. So are, so let's just talk about that for a moment. I mean, are you still intending to fix that? You owe a lot of money, I think, to people who help put the festival on. Yeah, absolutely. So there's like something called restitution, which

is essentially a court-ordered payment back to the victims. And the victims in this case are considered to be the investors. So there certainly is this huge number, and they're like this financial component of restitution. But I really think restitution is deeper than that, and it's probably more about trust than it is about money. There certainly are people who are suffering due to losing money, but I think most of my investors are more of the venture types.

It take a lot of bets, and I think where I hurt them more was abusing and really taking advantage of their trust. Most of my larger investors had backed me for a number of years before fire, and they had spent five or six years with me, their intimate moments with their families, et cetera, and I took advantage of that. So I feel like repaying the trust

is probably a harder task than repaying any kind of like ordered, you know, financial settlement. Isn't it a little messed up that the financial system or the legal system says restitution should go to the investors? And I don't know if does it, cover also the folks working in the Bahamas, for instance, that talked about not getting paid? It's tough, right? Because, yeah, ultimately, I think there have been many times during this process where I felt like the wrong people were either getting punished or benefiting from it.

There was a bankruptcy proceeding for Fire Festival, and the bankruptcy estate was going after various, like, talent who, in my opinion, successfully completed their contracts, right? they promoted the event, they did what they were supposed to do. The influencers, right? And like, ultimately, I feel like the wrong people were targeted and we probably are ignoring the people who were actually owed funds. So it is a tough part of the process. But ultimately, you know, I am subject to the justice system and kind of have to go through with all that. Right. And how much do you owe? The restitution numbers in the mid-20 millions, 26 or 27 million. And how are you going to pay that back? So it's fairly simple. It sounds crazy because a number is so massive, but it's just a percentage

of income. So and like not just. It's very onerous and it certainly, you know, impacts my ability to live and to earn and, you know, and to build a family. But, uh, if I make a dollar, if I make a million dollars, right, a percentage of that goes back to restitution. And I think the only way to approach it is to look at it in isolation like that and be like, okay, this month I made, you know, $10,000 to making this up. So like, I'm giving a check back for X. And are you able to share like what percentage? Uh, I don't think so. I mean, maybe I could. I just don't want to cause any attention to that. But it is a percentage, and it also varies.

Like, for example, if I have to travel to earn, the percentage can be higher than if I earn it from my computer in New York. So there are different factors that can make the number fluctuate. Yeah. And then just going back to this moment, you know, it's so interesting. Like you shouted out the year in the very beginning, 2016 was this moment where, like, okay, a lot of people started to become micro-influencers. And, you know, we obviously had this uptake in social media.

It was also a moment of anti-elite. fever in the United States at least, and that was sort of, I would say, probably punctuated by the Trump victory in November. Okay, so that being said, you're working with Trump now? We're going to get back to the festival, but it also is interesting that you're like, you know, some, in some ways, like, looked at as the person who stuck it to the elites, but now you're working with the man who's sort of rose to power campaigning against them. I think there, there's a rumor going around that I'm working for the Trump campaign. I'm not working for the Trump campaign. I still work in music and entertainment. So I have helped artists connect, you know,

with various Trump-related events. I've brought them out to certain rallies. I've worked on some media projects with the artists. I think my goal right now, and I really started thinking about this in jail, is how can I give more exposure to the communities that a lot of my friends in prison were from? And that came to be by working with a number of music artists from across the country. Yeah, very passionate about working music and entertainment and very passionate about bringing different people who just wouldn't meet together and seeing what comes of that. So how did you, okay, was it the music artist that asked you to get them in front of Trump or Trump that asked you to get the music artists? Like, what's that relationship like? It really started one day in jail when I was walking around the track with this former Harvard hedge fund guy, you know, kind of had it all in life and, you know, had way more than me.

but like me, made some similarly terrible decisions. And he said to me one day, like, look at all these idiots. And I look at him, and I'm like, no, we're the idiots, right? We're the ones that had the opportunities in life. You know, we had jobs. We had careers. We had friends, family, positive role models. And a lot of my friends who was meeting in prison, they didn't know anybody who had a job.

They didn't know anybody who, you know, was a successful role model. And this became so obvious that it was like the lack of exposure that I think contributed to a lot of my close friends now in prison coming to prison. So I was always intrigued by like how can we give my friends a mouthpiece, right? How can we give their communities in mouthpiece, their families in mouthpiece? How can we give their situations and their circumstances, like exposure to the world? So that's kind of where the genesis came from. And to have the opportunity to connect them with a former president, like I think that's like the ultimate goal, right? Like there is no better way to give exposure to my friends and their communities. Right. And so then how did Trump pick up the

phone like did you know somebody within the campaign or yeah i think it's like having various friends you know throughout the years from living in new york and being in music and entertainment's fairly fairly small world okay so thanks for clearing that up by the way yeah yeah no problem let's talk about social media right so you mentioned that the fire festival was a moment where people started to see into each other's lives with social media and you obviously learn how to wield a tremendous amount of influence through social media so i'm just curious to hear your perspective on like what did you learn about the power of social media through this whole experience so i think the landscape certainly has changed in the past you know seven or eight years but i think once

again 2016 was a interesting time where people had been consumers of the lives of celebrities for a couple of years and it became this point where they're like we can have this too and i think that's why fire without really understanding what nerve we were striking really hit at the right time where it, for the first time, kind of gave access or gave three days or gave an escape to be the people that you had followed for so long. And the shift was there where why are we watching when we can also be doing?

And I think we've seen that take permanent shape and this micro-influencer shift, right? And like TikTok and everything that's come in the past seven or eight years. But, you know, fire was almost like the catalyst there. We were turning people from being voyeurs into actual adventurers and doers themselves. Mm-hmm. And do you think there's like a deeper lesson there that they were basically chasing something that wasn't all that fulfilling?

Interesting. I think for sure. I think people, I think people were starting to realize the lives they were watching had flaws that were either equal to or greater than their own lives. and I think kind of created this maybe this intrigue or this like yearn to maybe experience what it was like to have different sets of problems. So I think fire allowed, fire allowed it to happen, right? Like we can go and be this person for three days and see the good and bad and bad that comes with it. And to me it was like social media also has this ability to sell what isn't there. That was another thing that I like thought. I was like, you know, okay, it looks one way on the surface, but on a deeper level. Sometimes what's going on behind the camera isn't quite what it looks like. And that's why social media has changed the entertainment world so much.

Like entertainment by design has been built on smoke and mirrors, right? Where we put this wall up between our star and the rest of the world. And the rest of the world can't know the star is actually a human too. And we create a story. We create a narrative to make him or her, you know, more interesting, more desirable, you know, sexier, wilder than the rest of the world. And that creates that one to many relationships that talent traditionally had. Social media started to break down that smoke and mirrors and initially it provided a, you know, a filtered glimpse into their life, but ultimately provided a raw glimpse into their life. And that kind of created this mindset of like, we could be this too. So I think it's interesting how social

media initially was viewed as an amplifier for talent, but almost kind of became the undoing of the traditional entertainment model as well. Yeah. And it's wild because like I've spoken with influencers and many of them are miserable. They look at the latest, you know, number of likes and that's the way they gauge their self-worth or the latest brand deal. And it just is, it is a occupation that really just provokes a lot of anxiety. Yeah, it's a game that's impossible to win because there's always someone new who's getting more views or is getting more clicks or who looks better. He's a little funnier or is a little smarter. So yeah, I think like once you immerse yourself in the attention business. It's, you know, it's a tough, it's a tough,

never-ending battle. I think you said something along the lines of like it worked better than you expected. I mean, it is pretty crazy what happened when, I think you had like 400 influencers post this orange square. You sold out 95% of tickets, right, you know, basically immediately. What happened when it sort of went beyond what you expected? So the one risk that we took, which, you know, paid off and ultimately became our biggest failure was that the diversity of the talent advertising the orange tile was really, really important. I think if we just had DJs post an orange square, nobody would have cared. We just would have been another like EDM music festival, you know, just like there are every day around the world. I think the fact

that we had the comedians, the models, the athletes, you know, the artists all posting at the exact same time, it created this confusion amongst a consumer where they made. have followed these different people, but they didn't see any common thread between them. And they're like, so why are all these people I admire from so many different walks of life and so many different industries all doing this at exactly the same time? And that kind of led them to want to investigate by themselves. And to almost be like, hey, I figured this out. It's actually a music festival and I want to be there.

So I think we took that gamble and it paid off in the short term, but obviously ultimately created a world that we couldn't live up to. Right. And when it happened, were you just like, oh, shit, what's happening here? like we played this like a fiddle like what was your reaction as it was going down so there was a delay like we expected you know with the talent that we had on board and like with the marketing videos we had made tickets were going to sell right so we launched the orange tile we dropped the trailer and nothing happened for the first like hour and a half or two hours and i was really confused like spent you know

the last two million bucks i had to get this video out the door right and like literally my balance is at nothing i had 100 people on the island and probably needed a million dollars to get everybody home and we're all sitting there and no tickets are selling and I kind of go to bed all depressed. And I get woken up earlier in the morning and it's like, Billy, we've sold millions and millions and millions dollars worth of tickets. And it kind of created this like lag factor where people weren't really sure what it was. But as they started to figure out, it let the excitement almost like bubble over and it's created this really wild sales effect. Yeah. And was that a moment to pause and be like, can we deliver this? Or how did that end up going from this like wild moment

to something that grew beyond your control? I think we expected to probably sell a couple hundred of expensive ticket packages. And we've been doing, at that point, we had probably done two dozen mini fire festivals on these islands where we brought anywhere from 20 to 200 people. So we thought it would just be a paid-for extension of what we had been doing. You know, we always had in the back of our head, hey, we can do this with a few thousand people, but we never thought we would actually be able to move that many tickets. So when that sold, we had to realign the vision and redefine what it was.

And obviously, reality caught up with us over the next four months. Right. And then you also used that excitement to sort of become a master fundraiser. Like you mentioned, you raised, I think, $27 million or something in that range. Talk a little bit about what made investors so interested in continuing to fund this. And clearly they didn't do enough due diligence. Why do you think that was? I think the dilemma of fire festival and the fundraise around it was that by default, doing a festival on a remote island in four months presented dozens of insane challenges.

And we kept solving these insane challenges. So I think where, you know, the vast majority of entrepreneurs would have failed, we kept finding these miraculous solutions to prolong the disaster. So every time we solved a problem, whether it was our reverse osmosis system to turn salt water into drinking water, or finding two 737s and setting up a terminal Miami International Airport to bring the guests over. We kept figuring out ways to solve what seemed to be impossible. So those like micro winds just created such a level of excitement and such a level of delusion that we couldn't be stopped that the fundraising became, I would say, easier or smoother. when in reality, it was my fault for not understanding how to zoom out and to realize that even if we solved 50 of these micro problems, I still couldn't solve the bigger overall issue. Right. And it's like in Silicon Valley, like this story really resonates because whenever we've

seen something like this, it's a Silicon Valley, there's like almost a fake until you make it mentality. Like a lot of startups go through something similar. I would imagine where they like raise money based off of a concept and then whatever. They either build it or they can't build it. investors sort of write it off as a loss. Did you see any parallels there between what you did with Fire Festival and sort of like the typical Silicon Valley, um, Silicon Valley process, even though, of course, like, you don't end up. If your startup fails, you don't end up with like hundreds of people on a Bahamas island, not able to get out. I think what's weird is that, like, most, most Silicon Valley startups, they will, they will fake it until they find product market fit,

right? And like, most of these early stage companies are on that journey to find, like the ever elusive product market fit. Fire Festival had product market fit from the first hour, like our first 90 minutes, right? We launched tickets, nothing happens for the first hour, hour, and a half, and then it goes crazy. So there clearly was a demand, and there were customers who wanted to buy what we were building. So it was kind of this weird dilemma where, like, we solved the challenge that most companies wish they could solve day one, and most of the time ends up taking, like, years to solve. But we just set unrealistic expectations for what we could actually build during that time.

and the real problem became when I committed fraud by lying to investors to try to make it easier to raise the capital that I thought I needed. Yeah. I mean, what lies did you tell investors and why did you lie to them? I was like the world's worst criminal. It was like very straightforward, just lies about how much money we have,

lies about our revenue, and just was giving false numbers, tried to raise more capital. And as I looked back on it, I think ultimately it's probably really important for entrepreneurs listening. I think I actually scared away a significant, you know, portion of the capital with the lies. The investors who kept investing

in me were investing in me because they had known me for so long, and they were probably overlooking my, you know, lies about the numbers. Whereas new investors who probably would have invested in fire thought this sounded too good to be true and didn't invest because the lies were too ridiculous. So ultimately, I think the lies probably actually made it harder to raise the capital and probably scared away support that could have actually made fire work. So in some weird way, the lies not only hurt people and sent me to jail, they probably actually killed Fire Festival. Right. I mean, so let's say you would have told the truth. I mean, you probably wouldn't have gotten any more money, though, or would you? I think so. I think more

investors would have actually invested because it was clear there was massive demand for the product. It was clear we could execute, you know, massive marketing campaigns. It was clear we can get talent together. Like, we had done so many things well that that was more than enough to raise capital. And then just the lies made it seem like it was too good to be true and too much. So I actually I think we stopped, you know, funds from giving us the capital we needed by lying. What you would have done with that extra money? Because you got lots of money and still didn't work out. Yeah. So the, like, putting away the fraud, the number one goal was setting an unrealistic time frame, right? We needed a year. And we gave ourselves four months through the fire festival.

And with a condensed period of time, you know, costs increase, you know, labor intensifies. Everything becomes like way harder to actually execute. So ultimately we needed to push the festival back and I don't know if an extra five or six million dollars would have saved us like in that time period. But hopefully had we taken on more capital, more people, we would have had the wherewithal to extend the timeline. Right. The investors that had known you for a while, what's your relationship with them like today, if there is any? Yeah, it's all different. It's like it's very, very hot and cold. Some are like F off and that probably won't change for a long time. And some, are the total opposite where it's like, hey, we get it, you know, how can we support you behind

the scenes to get you back at it? And that support doesn't mean money, but like, how can we be here for you, right, to help you kind of get back to life? Right. Okay, so let's talk about some of your troubles after the festival. So you don't really get in trouble for having all these people come out to the island and then not being able to deliver the festival. It is more the lying to the investors that caused you to spend time in prison. Is that right? Correct. Yeah. So was charged for lying to investors to raise the capital. We spent the money properly. The money was spent towards executing the festival, and that was like lack of experience on my part, but the actual crime was lying to the investors. And so if you would have put on a fire festival and

effectively had all these people come out, there would be no crime, even though you weren't able to deliver it. So if the festival was great, and if the festival was as advertised, I still would have gone to jail because the crime occurred prior to the festival. lying to the investors. So the biggest misconception is that Fire Festival was a scam. The festival itself was not a scam. The scam was the lies that were told to investors to attempt to raise capital for it. But the festival never really ended up happening. No, yeah, it was canceled in the first day. And that's not illegal, though. I mean, we failed, we failed to deliver a concert, but that's not creating a crime if you try to do a concert and gets canceled. So what did you, so you got convicted

of this fraud and sentenced to six years in prison. Correct. What did you think when you got sentenced? I think I was living in this do-or-die mentality where literally I'd wake up in the morning need to need $2 million, $1 million, $3 million by 2 o'clock that day to pay the bills or else the fire festival would be canceled and the whole world would know it's a failure. So I was like literally living by the day and living by the hour for so many months that I couldn't fathom six years in the future. like at that point like two weeks in the future sounded like a lifetime away so when I heard that six year number I just didn't know how to reconcile it you know with the the lifestyle that I had been living and it just seemed like decades and there's a scene in one of the documentaries I think where someone who knows you said you had asked them what jail was like and you said basically like I'm not going to jail did that happen like why did that happen I've heard about the scene I've never seen the documentaries so yeah I don't recall that exact moment.

Were you, once you got sentenced or even before, still trying to, like, use the Fire Festival email list to try to get people to sign up for, like, VIP tickets that weren't going to be delivered? Yeah, for sure. So I was on bail for a year, and I received, it all basically started. The day we canceled Fire Festival, I got a call from one of my investors saying, I need this amount of money, but this time, or else, quote, you're going to be in the cover of the Wallshe Journal and handcuffs.

And while I know I'd committed a crime, I didn't, I couldn't really fathom I had broken the law. I knew what I did was wrong. I'd never anticipated this would mean jail. And that was like the wake up call where it's like, oh, shit, this is real. And out of desperation to try to raise capital, I was trying to do everything and anything, you know, while on bail to make good by that and continued to make stupid decisions that ultimately resulted probably in a longer jail sentence. And yeah, and making the overall punishment way worse.

That's crazy. Okay, I want to talk about your time in prison, so why don't we do that right after this. And we're back here on Big Technology podcast with Billy McFarlane. Billy, it's so great to speak with you. I appreciate you spending the time and speaking so candidly about what happened and sort of, we'll get into some of the things you're going to be doing in the future. But thanks for being here, and it seems like you're like sort of genuinely remorseful and like you have come to terms with what happened.

Yeah, thank you. I think serving four years in jail and 10 months of that in solitary was what was a wake-up call? And I think ultimately I needed a punishment and I needed a time-out. So there are some positives to take out of all this mess. Okay. So let's talk a little bit about your time. Prison or jail? Or is it you used it interchangeably? I still think I say it wrong. Every time I say it, someone corrects me. Sorry. I really don't know. So let's talk about your time in prison. Like what was the day that you reported like? And where did you serve the time? So I was I believe I spent time at five facilities total for various reasons of basically me causing problems.

Oh, my God. How were you doing? Most notably, I tried to do a podcast interview over the jail pay phone. That I empathize with. I mean, doing podcasts at all costs. There you go. I'm glad you can feel me on that one, but they did not take too kindly to that. Why did you do a podcast from prison?

So I had an offer to do it and to get paid. and the deal was that all of my payment would be sent directly to restitution. I think I was in this phase and obviously it wasn't going to be $26 million, right? It was how much do they want to pay you? It probably would have been like $50,000 if I'd actually done it.

So it was something. I think it was more about, I was so desperate to prove that I wasn't incompetent. And I think like, even like family and friends after the documentaries came out, they were like, Billy, you can't do anything. And like, they'd come and visit me and like,

hey, what do you want to do in the future? And I give them an idea or give them a plan. and like, Billy, like, we don't even think you can work at an ice cream truck. And, like, they were, like, dead serious. And, like, they just kept putting me down and belittling me. And I was so desperate to prove that I could do something with my life. And I felt like, hey, this is my chance to show, like, I am capable. I can pay people back.

I can work. So I think there was, like, the desperation to be heard and to be useful in the world, you know, made me want to do it so badly. Okay. So we'll get to the podcast situation in a minute, but what was, yeah, what was day one reporting to a prison like for you? I think we're in like a long line is like remember, you know, vividly, we're in a long line and like they're asking us all these questions like, you know, you know, what drugs

are you on? Like, what's this? What's that? And like the guy and I couldn't hear the people who were multiple spots ahead of me, just like I could hear the guy in front of me. And he just like lists every drug I'd ever read in every textbook in my entire life. And he's like, and they're like, oh, so like, how long has it been that you've taken it? And they like, he looks around. He's like, you know, like, you know, three hours. Oh, my God. I'm like, wait, wait, what? Like, the guy, they spend like 10 minutes, like, asking the guy about, you know,

all those drug addictions. And then, you know, they comes to me and it's like, what did you do? I'm like, oh, how do I describe my crime? And, like, that was, like, the big wake-up call where, like, you know, what's going to happen here? And they walked me in at a Spanish cellmate. He didn't speak a word of English. And he kept asking me, like, what did you do?

What did you do? I don't know how to describe my crime in Spanish. So I was, you know, super, super scared. And it was like, this is a different world. I'm, I'm in prison on like day one. Was it just like, that's real? I love the TV show prison break when I was a kid. So was there like a sense of excitement there for you to be there?

When I walked in and saw like the clothes that like my cellmate like washing his clothes in the toilet and then hanging them up on like on his bed. I'm like, this is like this is real. And you know, I got super scared obviously. Right. And then so, okay, you get there. There's intake. They ask these questions.

You have your cellmate. Did anybody in the prison recognize you? So for better or worse, people in jail watch a lot of TV. Okay. No, wait. Was the Fire Festival documentaries like playing in the yard? Like, you were there? Yes, they did play those.

Someone snuck in a USB drive and played those. That was six months after I got arrested. And you didn't watch it? I didn't watch it. Okay. Why not? I think I was trying to protect myself from myself. I just knew that I would nitpick it and be like, oh, I don't know this person or I didn't

say that. she didn't say that and like that would have missed the real point where the real point was I committed a crime and I hurt people who I probably didn't know but I was too caught up like at that moment like oh that's not true or like this person wasn't really around I was like losing sight of what was important and then how did you did you make friends for sure I probably met four or five people that I'll be close with for the rest of my life and that was definitely the bright side of it and I think you just get you get naturally get close with people when you're just going through terrible circumstances, right?

Like, you know, guys on, like, football teams, and they're going through, like, super hard games or super hard seasons, they become close. Like, guys who kind of go through these hard life experiences often become, I think, close friends. And so what was your day-to-day like in prison? It's tough, and there isn't much to do, and I think the boredom probably is the hardest factor of all of it,

especially for, you know, an entrepreneur who's so used to, like, having to work to solve my own problems or to create my own problems, not being able to impact my life in day-to-day basis was really weird. Like, how did you feel that? I think it was like, it's time out, right? And it's hard realizing that you have very little control over life. And I kept like, I would sit there and be like, okay, I cause these problems because of these mistakes

or I cause these good moments in life because of these positive actions I took. And now any action I take can only hurt me. And that was kind of this weird, like mental barrier to come to understand. understand. We're like, this is literal timeout for a grown man. And so what sort of decisions are made on your behalf within the prison? I think everything. It's like what time you wake up, what time you go to bed, you know, what time you can call your family, like what you can say to your family, you know, what you have to wear, how do you tuck your shirt in? It's like, there's very little, I think it's designed intelligently to kill ambition. And I think that makes

sense, right? Because like if you have a really bad person, if there's a rapist or a murderer, you want to suck the ambition out of them so they don't commit those crimes in the future. And I kept saying, like, my goal here is to not lose, like, ambition for, like, life because the system is designed to just make you a robot. But if it's supposed to make you a robot, I'm curious what you think about this. Why do you, why is recidivism so high? People go back in society and they go right back. Yeah, it is so hard.

And, you know, I've lived this. And I like to think that I probably had 10 times the opportunities of my, four or five closest friends walking at a prison, and it is fucking difficult. It's very, very hard to get back to society. It's hard to have any real work opportunities. And the reality is most people go to jail because they didn't have an opportunity, so they did something wrong. I think like 70% of the federal system are in there for various drug violations. They're selling drugs or using drugs. And they're often doing that because like that's all they know. So if you punish somebody for selling drugs because they have no exposure to other opportunities, you put them in

jail for 10 years and let them out, it's not like they're going to miraculously have an opportunity 10 years later after being removed if they didn't have before. So I don't have the answer. And I think that's much bigger than me, right? But I think it's just like a really, really hard way to punders somebody and expect them to be able to kind of go back to something they never had before. Okay. So you're in general population. You have a cellmate. You're eating lunch with folks in a lunchroom, I imagine. Yep. And you say, hey, let me do this podcast. I understand for your reasons. So you got, how did you get busted for doing the show? I mean, I guess the judge must have listened or how did you do it? Did you do it over the phone or? Yeah, there are these

pay phones and you were allowed, I think, 20, 15 minute calls a month, but you can use them in any order as long as you wait, I think was 30 minutes between each call. So we had a podcast host, basically book a studio for two days and I would call in every 30 minutes for four or five hours one day and did it again the second day. I'm like basically used all my monthly like minutes as I said during those two days. They created a YouTube trailer out of my interview and they post the YouTube trailer online and an hour after that came out, you know, the guard came. I was like, you know, McFarland coming me and just took me to solitary. Really? Yeah. But you're not the first prisoner to do a podcast. I mean, one of the most famous or if not the most famous show is

is the serial show where the guy talks about his innocence. So what do you think was different here? It's tough. And I think this is probably resulted in the biggest, you know, paranoia post-jail where for a fire festival and around that time period, I fully understand like what I did wrong, right? And it's easy to be like, okay, I'm sitting in jail because I did X and I deserve to be here. I hurt people and now I'm here.

The podcast is a weird one for me because it didn't hurt anybody. and it didn't break any rules but the punishment for that was arguably harsher than it was for committing a $26 million fraud so I think that probably left the biggest confusion for me about the system it's like this isn't fair right

I committed a $26 million fraud yes it deserved six years but now I didn't break the rules and I'm doing seven months straight in a hole and like that got me really scared and it's like wow like you know there are powers out there that could snap their fingers and literally like put me Billy in a concrete box

the rest of my life. And I think that probably had terrible effects on me. Was it just discretionary then from the jail to be like or the prison to be like, well, you did a podcast, we don't like that. Now go to solitary? Yeah, they just said they were investigating and they could investigate for as long as they want. And you went right to solitary? Right. Immediately. Yeah. What is solitary like? I think the hardest part of solitary is you're behind this like a metal door and like the rest

of the cell is concrete. And there's maybe like a half. inch underneath the door so you can still hear you can't see anybody else but they're like it's like a long you know concrete hallway of different cells hearing people go crazy and losing their mind is kind of wild so they're like everybody has their breaking point right and like hearing these grown men who maybe look intimidating or who you know we're certainly tough people and talk to big game all of a sudden they're down there for one month two months three months six months whatever it was and just kind of seeing them lose their mind and banging their cells and screaming and crying like that was really eerie did you lose your mind i don't think so i guess i'll let the audience judge that

uh i think there's everybody kind of hits their point and i don't think i hit mine and like i don't know when that point is right would it be nine months would it be two years like who really knows that's kind of the scary thing where like you're sitting in there and it's like okay i haven't gotten there yet but like you know now this guy did and i respect this guy like in my next that kind of freaked you out so you knew the other people in the cells not all of them but some of them like You see them around the prison before they went to solitary, right? So you have some kind of relationship. So what did you do all day long there?

Meditate and try to write. I think the funny thing was everybody was always trying to sneak drugs into solitary. And my thing was I always wanted like a big pen. So I could actually like write right on paper. So I was trying to get, you know, pen smuggled in and everybody else smuggling in drugs. It's kind of funny. Really? Could you read inside?

You could, but they limited it to two books a week. And it sounds like a lot. When you have nothing else to do, it really is nothing. right so yeah it wasn't much like when like literally that's what you do for 18 hours a day you're going to go through it pretty quickly so you're just sitting there reading meditating doing push-ups you know listening to people scream cry sing yell it is always some kind of entertainment and you're not a lot to talk to the other people through there or can you oh you are but you have to scream because like you're behind these metal doors you have to kind of go up to the

hole underneath your door and and yell and scream and what did it feel like when you were eventually let out or why were you eventually let out of there? I think after enough period of time, the investigation ended. I was found not guilty of, I'm not really sure what I was accused of doing, but I was found not guilty of breaking your rule. And they had to ship me to a different prison. So they sent me on Conair to a holding center. And then after the holding center, they put me on a bus from Oklahoma City to Michigan, shackled for 17 hours on a bus. Oh, my God. kind of insane. That's crazy. These were federal systems. Yeah, so couldn't use the bathroom. You couldn't do anything for 17 hours. Seven literally shot on the bus. Right. I mean,

they're talking about what's happening to Sam Bankman Freed also and he's been transferred like this. Oh, I didn't see that. Okay. In the same way. It's all the same way for everybody. So the bus ride was particularly long. They say it's very long. What happens on these bus rides? Not people screaming. They play music. So I think that was the first time I heard music in seven months. Oh my god. So like the first like first two hours of the bus ride is kind of sensory overload and they were blasting they're blasting music and it's like literally I hadn't heard any any radio any music any TV in seven months. I was like that was a little bit like that was a little bit of shock. What level of security were these prisons that you were at? Um, I did it all. Uh, I was in Brooklyn Attention Center, which is like all

levels. Right. That's on Atlantic Ave. Yep. So technically like technically like max right. But that's that place is supposed to be pretty bad. What was that like? That place is rough. That was like that was the only place where it's like, you know, you legitimately could get stabbed for no reason. Really? So that was certainly the roughest place. And then I went to a minimum and then kind of went up the ranks from there based on my various behavior. So what else did you get into trouble for doing in the other places? At the first place, I was post-Brooklyn, like my first, you know, real facility was minimum security.

And I had a USB device. And that's against the rules. Okay. And they busted you? I got in trouble for that. Went to solitary for three months for that. And then you did a total of 10 months of solitary, but ironically, the time I actually broke the rules, they only did three months. And I didn't break the rules. It did sevens? It just doesn't make sense, right? It just doesn't. It's a little confusing. When you were ever, when you were in there, did you ever think, man, like I was on a beach in the Bahamas partying with supermodels like a year and a half ago. And now I'm in solitary confinement. How did this happen? It's like all the guards always be like, oh, you know, penthouse to the outhouse and like trying to make fun of me like that. But I think what people don't understand. Like I never missed. I miss any like nice things right i didn't miss a nice apartment i didn't miss a nice vacation i miss

people and i miss like connection like when you have nothing you don't think about oh i want my like beautiful home it's like no i want a friend to talk to i need like you know i want a woman to touch i want like family to talk to you like you just like the most basic things so i think like the just like a cool beach just seems so far from reality at that point that like my desires were way more you know simplistic yeah it really tells you a little bit about like what matters in life yeah literally literally it's like i would have traded anything for like you know a night with friends like in that cell you know before i thought about like going to a great apartment or great house or a beautiful restaurant and then you got let out two years early yeah so everybody gets in the federal system

everybody gets 15% off for what they call good time um so you know i lost a month of that for the USB device i did not lose any of that for the podcast and then there was a law passed by trump called the First Step Act, which gave nonviolent offenders a year off. And that came as a surprise. We had been hearing about it for years, thought it was bullshit. And then, you know, I was woken up one morning at 5 a.m. saying, hey, you know, McFarlane, your date changed. And the rest is history. And then you got to walk out? Yep. What did you do when you walked out for the first time? I had to go to the halfway house in Brooklyn. So I was basically had like a four month, four months left in my sentence to be served at a halfway house, which essentially is like a

open prison where you can, you know, leave during the day and come back and sleep at night. So I just drove in a car from Detroit, Michigan to Brooklyn. And I'm like, how am I turning myself back into jail after all this? Right. So it's kind of a weird experience. But yeah, it was, it was way better, you know, than in real prison for sure. Where's the Brooklyn halfway house? It was on Gold Street. Okay. Yeah. It was fine. No, unremarkable. And so how did you feel coming out, just being done with it? It felt so, it, it, it, it, it, it still didn't feel real. And I think like when, when I was woken up and told my date had changed, I had maybe a month and a half left before I would go to the halfway house. And those 45 days

became the hardest 45 days of the entire sentence where I was convinced that one morning, just like they call me to give me good news one day, they're going to call and tell me, hey, just, we're joking, you know, you have 20 more years, you're never leaving. And it's like that anxiety, I never really had anxiety in my life until that last 45 days where you just like, knew something bad was going to happen and it wasn't going to be real. So that was super stressful. Yeah. You never got into any fights in the prison or anything like that? I had a couple issues early on that were, you know, solved, but I never, never got hurt. What happened there? I had a cellmate in Brooklyn who, you know, told me that someone was trying

to extort me for $150. And he offered to pay them on my behalf or to fight them with me. And I said I wasn't going to pay. And he anticipated that response. And when I wasn't, and paying attention. He basically went and fought the guys for me. He got stabbed and I came back to my cell and he was bleeding everywhere. And he had literally like, you know, taking him for me. So what made this guy want to fight on your behalf? He was a really nice guy. He was also in for a financial crime. He had a 14 year sentence. He was six years in on a sentence. And he was back in Brooklyn to appeal his crime. And he just lost his appeal. So he's waiting to get sent back to his permanent facility. And this is before my sentencing. And he's like, if you get any trouble before

you're sentencing, you know, the judges look really down upon that. If you can't keep yourself out of trouble in here, you'll get more time. And I already have mine, so he went and did it. He was ready to fight. He was ready to go. Yeah. It's probably a mix of being super mad that he lost his appeal and, like, also just being a really, really good guy. And there was another one, you said? Nothing, nothing too serious. Like, nothing bad. It was, you know, like when there's 2,000 men locked in a recreation center together. Yeah, exactly. It's pretty, you know, people get upset. Okay. So you get out and then it's like, all right, you got to try to build your life back up again. But I imagine you can't get a job. Like, I imagine most

people who speak with you are also just like, is Billy telling the truth to me? Like, is he trying to con me now? Like, so what did you do? It's, I think I kind of had this idea that I would walk out and all the people who had seen me, I want to say, like work or operate or live for the past 12 years would all be there. I'm like, oh, you serve your time. Like, you're back, like, you know, and kind of have open arms. And the reality was it just, like, it wasn't like that.

And it took probably six to 12 months to really get back a group of people who could, who could really trust me. Yeah, so it's hard. And yeah, so it's been a tough, tough ride. Okay. And then I said, well, you couldn't possibly try to create another festival. And then I looked at your Twitter and it looks like you're trying to do fire. Festival too.

Yes. Billy, for real? Why? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Fire has been the most talked about music festival in the world since 2016. Obviously, the majority of that is bad. But as an entrepreneur, I think this is an incredible challenge. And if someone executes fire successfully, the brand value is there.

I think the desire for the experiences is as strong as ever. So ultimately, I have partnered with professional festival people. So I'm not the one building Fire Festival 2. Those are third-party companies. And I think when they do fire correctly, there's a real opportunity for that new fire brand to pay back a lot of what is owed from Fire Festival 1. Wait, so are some of the same investors that invested in Fire Festival 1 investing in Fire Festival 2? No, it's a new group.

So there's two professional festival companies who are actually doing it. And they're in charge of everything, whether it's, you know, budgets, money, 10 stages. Like, they do it all. But I think incredible opportunity to fulfill the dream of Fire Festival. but also to fulfill the new dream, which is paying back people who are legitimately owed. Right. So wait, are you just licensing the name or what's your role in it? I'm helping with the marketing. So it's like not a straight licensing deal, but, you know, they're in charge. Okay. I see. Yeah. And so your, your priority for the payment will be to the investors

first and then the people in the Bahamas second or because I was looking at the Bahamas. They say that you're a fugitive or something like that. I saw that. That came out of nowhere. almost two years ago now, maybe a year and a half ago. So that was kind of hard. Yeah, so I'm my best friends in the world live in the Bahamas. When I was released, I had two people from the Bahamas who had never been to the America. They flew up that day to come and see me. Really?

I mean, the people. That's really cool. It's interesting. So, I mean, you didn't watch the documentaries, but I did. And I mean, the people in the Bahamas, some of them are like speaking, you know, they had already been through this whole experience and they couldn't speak highly enough of you. Like, in fact, there's one scene. where somebody calls you call somebody while they're on camera and they're like yeah billy i'm

i'm saying the good word or something like that yeah i'm saying nice things yeah um but then there's also the other side of like all the workers that were at the festival and didn't get paid and there's one restaurant owner who'll you know sort of like when you think about the event her image is like really sort of um prominent who just uh you know at the lot had to dig into her savings to pay for the workers and all of the supplies and stuff that she had to lay out for the festival and never got reimbursed. Yeah, it's tough.

And so once again, the Bahamian vendors, and just to give numbers here, I think we probably spent 4 million on Bahamian vendors over four months, and there's approximately 250,000 still owed to them. Unfortunately, that's not covered under restitution. However, it's something that I do want to pay back.

I've actually submitted a request to the Bahamian government to pay that back. So waiting for approval on that. But, you know, my goal is about to be done this year. Oh, wow. And so are you, you're not going to host the second fire festival in the Bahamas. It doesn't seem like you're allowed there. I don't think so.

I think it would be a nice, a nice, like, you know, recap for the story. But maybe they'll have us for fire three. Yeah. So, and how do you anticipate? I mean, you know, it's so interesting hearing you talk about the brand. like I don't know I guess like there would be there's an element that's like let me see what this is all about like I want to experience it but also like an element of just like I don't know if I would pay a lot of money for the chance that this would happen again yeah are you thinking about getting people out there fire was always pitched like we create moments that you never forget right now is like our tagline and we created a moment that you never forgot it was obviously the wrong moment so I think my goal this time is just getting the proper help to create that moment to create that moment. moment in the right way. We had also been talking, and I truly believe that the people who attend the next iteration of fire are going to be far more interesting than people who attend

fire three or fire four once everything is proven out. I think we're attracting a certain kind of adventure, a maniac adventurer, someone open to anything, right, for fire two. So, yeah, I'm really interested in meeting the people who are actually buying tickets and coming to fire too. I think they're going to be interesting group people. What percentage of your fire one attendees do you think would have been just totally fine, like living in those emergency tents and like going through at the weekend? Good question. Once again, this doesn't take away from the fraud that was committed.

I think there were two or three bad, like game time decisions that I made the day of the festival that ultimately made it to be canceled. Yeah. What were those decisions? So there was a storm the night before the festival. Yeah. And it, you know, I would say deteriorated. are our preparations by a significant amount.

So when planes started arriving at 7 a.m. the next morning, instead of having people come to their tents and get situated right away, we directed them all to a beach on the other side of the island, and we sent over boats, jets, skis, booze, and allowed them to essentially have a party all day long and had them come back to the tents at sunset that night. So by the time, everybody arrived, instead of it being one plane load at a time,

it was probably a thousand people all at once. They were drunk. A lot of them drunk, our lights weren't working, so it just became completely unmanageable. And yes, the tents were nowhere near as good as they needed to be, but it probably would have survived how we had people come, you know, sober and manageable group sizes starting first thing in the morning. Yeah. So are you going to market Fire 2 the same way you marketed Fire 1 with these, are you going to

get influencers again? No, we've been really funny like 180 take and how to market it. So I'm excited to roll it out. Yeah, we can't release it yet, but it's not. going to be it's not going to be glossy like supermodels we're going to make make fun of myself a little bit and that's in 2025 yes and you're also boxing i did one uh one thing one like kickboxing fight i fought me 30th so a couple months ago uh okay i think top 10 life experience for sure oh talk about it you knock some guy out i fought a i fought for a promotion called karate combat uh

they're doing really well they're like a startup fighting league i think they're like a crypto or crypto-focused fighting league. And I fought a crypto influencer on May 30th. But that was really, really cool. I mean, made a couple dollars back toward restitution. It wasn't crazy, right? But I think it was more about taking on that life challenge. And I am very, very happy I did it. How much do you have left to pay? Is it still 27 million? Yeah, I have not paid, you know, that much yet. I pay every month. So I paid like maybe like 60 grand or something like that. Where are you making money from today? So do a lot of marketing work. So I can consult for a number of venture-back startups, you know, helping them create these viral moments

for their brand. And then that's one thing we know you're good at. Yeah. So, like, that's the bread and butter. And that kind of keeps the lights on and pays the bills. And then I have a couple of other fire-related projects. Obviously, you know, doing a deal with festival companies for Fire 2. Did a licensing deal for a third party to produce a fire musical, which I think is

interesting. What? There's a musical? Where's that going to be? Hopefully Broadway, but it just takes a few years. So I think they're making their announcement in September or October. Wow. Are you going to do more political work?

I don't know. So I've really focused on doing projects in the music space right now. And we'll kind of see where that goes and open to everything and anything. Okay. Last question for you. What's your relationship like with Jarl rule? There is none. What happened there?

There is none. Yeah, I think he had a lot of really admirable traits. I think he was a very charismatic guy. I think he was a great salesperson. And, you know, we were certainly close friends for a number of years. But, you know, shit happens. And I think we're on different paths now. Okay.

Billy McFarlane, thanks so much for joining. Great speaking with you. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it. All right, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back on Friday breaking down the week's news. Until next time, we'll see you then on Big Technology Podcast.