Who says the judicial system is broken? After serving just six months of a six-year sentence, Fyre Festival co-founder Billy McFarland is out and being interviewed by The New York Times. That seems reasonable.
McFarland, who went to jail over multiple counts of wire and bank fraud, told the publication that he has big plans to make it up to his victims.
“I’d like to do something tech-based,” he revealed. “The good thing with tech is that people are so forward-thinking, and they’re more apt at taking risk. If I worked in finance, I think it would be harder to get back. Tech is more open. And the way I failed is totally wrong, but in a certain sense, failure is OK in entrepreneurship.”
I think we’ve seen this one before. McFarland continued: “At the end of the day, I think I could probably create the most value by building some sort of tech product. Whether that’s within a company or by starting my own company, I’m open to both. I’ll probably decide in the next couple of weeks which path to go do.”
Before getting involved in car-crash festivals, McFarland had lots of experience in the tech world. He was the CEO of Spling, an ill-fated online advertisement platform. He then worked on an exclusive “black card” company called Magnises, which promised special social perks at urban millennials. Neither companies were successful.
Despite, these setbacks, McFarland’s clearly confident in his ability to find people willing to fund his adventures again. You can read his full NYT profile here.
McFarland c0-founded Fyre Festival with Ja Rule in 2016, promising a “luxury” festival experience. Originally scheduled to take place in April/May 2017, the festival failed after attendees found problems with the food, logistics, accommodations, security, and talent bookings.
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McFarland and Ja Rule were then sued for $100 million in a class action lawsuit on behalf of the festival’s attendees. The former was arrested and charged with wire fraud shortly afterwards.
