Aleksey Vayner -- batshit megalomaniac, irrepressible fabulist, and mighty douchebag of legend -- is baaaack. And he's learned nothing. If you visit his website directly (www.alekseyvayner.com), there's nothing to see, but click the directory "test," and you're granted access to the innermost scheming of Vayner's non-existent soul. It appears to be a terrible rough draft of something possibly even more terrible.

What do you do after you become an internet phenom, subject to interweb-wide flogging and public humiliation? If you’re Vayner, you proceed as though basically nothing has happened. You insist on the genius of the “Impossible is Nothing” video by disregarding the “mockery” from the “the kids in the bloggosphere [sic]” and claiming the just fruits of “international publicity” for having “created a marketing peace [yes, that’s another sic] of himself.” 

The website's main point is ostensibly to promote Vayner's (theoretically) forthcoming book Millionaires' Blueprint to Success (remember his previously forthcoming book? His Holocaust memoir?). Suspiciously, the cover is almost an exact copy of the similarly titled Secrets of the Millionaire's Mind by T. Harv Eker. I'm sure the contents are totally different though. Is this kid retarded?

Also, a tipster notes certain design similarities between Vayner's website and Tim Ferriss's website, mutual douchebaggery aside (check out the buttons). Of course much of the website is unfinished -- "Comming soon [sic]" is plastered all over the place. Is this website fake? It could be, but we don't think so. The site's frequent and amusing deficiencies of language are consistent with Vayner's poor grasp of English. It's just over-the-top enough to be Vayner and just restrained enough to hint at lessons still unlearned. It's also registered in his name.

After the jump -- choice excerpts from Vayner's totally modest and not-obviously-made-up life-story ("Aleksey Vayner’s story is one of discipline and perseverance thought the hardships of immigration"), a damning cover comparison between Millionaires' Blueprint to Success and Secrets of the Millionaire's Mind, and a few screen-shots for good measure.

Continue reading "BREAKING NEWS: VAYNER'S BACK!" »

January 4, 2008 8:59 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (51) | Read more: aleksey vayner , bete noire

Gawker and Dealbreaker are reporting on the re-emergence of the greatest thing to ever happen to this website -- the man, the myth, the video-resume-superstar -- Mr. Aleksey Vayner.

He's been shopping his new resume (take a look) around to various NYC-funds, and has even gone to a couple interviews. According to Dealbreaker, he came off as “personable, chatty, and laid back.” Of course he also claimed to have been about to go pro in tennis...at the US Open...until his doubles-partner broke his wrist two hours before his first match. Drat! Those preternatural coincidences can be a real bitch. (You know, it's not even funny any more; it's just sad.)

Looking at his resume, we can see what Aleksey has been doing with his time off from Yale. He completed some certs -- RIA, CFA (help! what are these?) -- from online shop Boston Institute of Finance, and is living currently in Kips Bay, an area of Manhattan about which we know literally nothing.

He also claims to have authored a book, Millionaires' Blueprint to Success, whose anticipated publication date is Summer '08, which means some yet unknown guest-editor will be reviewing it probably

Know something about this?

November 1, 2007 6:56 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (34) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner

Prime your Google Readers:

For this Sunday's Washington Post, IvyGate founders/editors emeriti/slavedrivers Nick Summers and Chris Beam have penned an op-ed both wistful and erotic. As the screen grab shows, we've got a title confirmed, "Going Home Alone," but the tracklist has yet to leak. It will appear in the Post's Outlook section -- the poor man's Week In Review -- awkwardly near George Will's weekly socio-political history lesson. Then they'll discuss the article in a washingtonpost.com session Monday at noon ET. All this is to say that by Monday around 1 p.m., we'll know Nick and Chris' sexual histories very well.

Check into IvyGate Sunday for the official op-ed reception. This means we'll sloppily post the op-ed, and Nick and Chris probably won't answer your questions. Instead they'll sit back and watch as commenters somehow start debating whether Barnard is part of Columbia within half an hour. "Well tut tut and fiddle-dee-fum," they'll muse, a bittersweet raspiness cloaking their aged voices. "How we do miss the commenters at IvyGate."

And if that's not enough, we'll try to post more hot pictures of Casper (by popular demand) with Nick and Chris' op-ed. Nothing has ever been as important as this upcoming blockbuster post. Eh, maybe this.

September 21, 2007 9:12 PM by Jim Newell | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: aleksey vayner , casper desfeux , chris beam , nick summers , washington post

Penn grad Zachary Michaelson lands on the cover of Trader Monthly's "Top 30 Under 30" edition this month (link goes to companion website, Trader Daily).  Which is cool for Zach, but pretty sucky for Trader Monthly, seeing how their cover boy was already out of his job at Fortress Investment by the issue's debut.

Actually, it's not that cool for Zach, either.  (Did you really think he'd get off so easily?) Now he's the laughingstock of Wall Street blog DealBreaker, where former co-workers are dishing on how "totally full of it" the alleged wunderkind was.  Some claim Michaelson never even held the position "portfolio manager."  Then again, his CNBC interview billed him "global portfolio manager specializing correlation modeling seeking trades that are at once global, macro, and relative value," so the two-word title is a sin of omission, if anything.  DealBreaker readers have already christened Zach the next Aleksey Vayner.  Impossible is nothing?  Or a ridiculously ill-timed job loss, paired with the modicum of tool-itude we have come to expect from basically everyone on Wall Street -- especially the young hot ones?

We were inclined towards the latter and willing to give Zach a break.  But then one of his Kappa Sigma brothers from Penn wrote in:

He was... kicked out of the house for trying to start a fight with his roommate with a hammer because his roommate was smoking in the room.  When his roommate pushed him away, Michaelson called the police.  He also threatened to expose violations by the House if we didn't let him live in the chapter house.

Silly boy -- homoerotic frat fights are for paddles, not hammers!  Sources conflict as to whether Michaelson was kicked out, or quit as soon as he realized he could not secure the 5 (out of about 40) votes necessary to maintain house residency.  We're still wondering how assault with a deadly weapon and the threat of blackmail amounted to the support of a single Kappa Sig (apparently there were three).

View Michaelson's CNBC interview and more "Top 30 Under 30" tidbits, after the jump.

Continue reading "But really, will there ever be another Aleksey?" »

August 18, 2007 10:16 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (25) | Read more: Penn , aleksey vayner , guest editors , kappa sigma , zachary michaelson

They say 80 percent of success is just showing up, but in the age of the hacker, it might be closer to 100. According to Yale officials in the Yale Daily News, the social security numbers for more than 10,000 current and former students, faculty and staff were compromised last month following the theft of two university computers.

In case you were wondering, the computers were stolen from the Yale College Dean's Office -- hey, did someone forget to lock the door? -- on July 17. Apparently the 'puters were password-protected, but we're hedging our bets that the password is "h@rv@rd$uck$01" or something. Yale says the computers were probably stolen to be sold, as if the computers in university administrative offices are worth far more than the MacBook Pros and the Dell XPS laptops that students regularly leave lying around campus.

Um, yeah. Oh, and the kicker?

"The lost files had not been maintained for any purpose," Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said in the Yale Daily News, "but were overlooked in the University’s efforts at reducing the amount of personal information it holds."

Um, nice work, guys. Spring cleaning ended months ago. Of course, Yale sent out letters warning individuals to check bank and credit reports, but chances are whoever made off with the numbers -- which probably includes Aleksey Vayner's and suddenly justifies the theft -- is already high-tailin' it for the border...or Cambridge. (Or Princeton?) -- ANDREW NUSCA

August 8, 2007 10:11 PM by Andrew Nusca | Link | Comments (6) | Read more: 1337 HAXX0RS , Andrew Nusca , Harvard , Princeton , Yale , aleksey vayner , guest editors , privacy issues , stolen computers , stolen social security numbers

From the elevation-challenged lands of Topeka, Kansas comes this morning's jolt of intolerance, thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church (homepage: godhatesfags.com). Seems the anti-everything bretheren are up in arms over the "perverts," "fags" and "dykes" emerging from far-flung Cornell, and they've decided to head toward Ithaca to forgive transgressions, er, I mean spread the joyous Word in honor (persecution?) of Cornell's LGBT Resource Center and general allowance of gay pride.

According to the release, the anti-religious group will be out in full force this Thursday at the ungodly (ha!) hour of 8:30 a.m. in an undisclosed location, all thanks to the First Amendment. The text, in all of it's Samuel L. Jackson-as-Jules Winnfield-esque glory:

This is a seat of higher learning in America, an Ivy League no less, which is filled with perverts running things, and they are trying to make fags and dykes out of all of their students. They, like the rest of America, have taught and CONTINUE to teach full-blown rebellion, to teach their sons and daughters to be snakes just like they themselves are and their father the Devil. Matthew 23:33- Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? John 8:44- Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Jesus Christ called them poisonous snakes! He is not a wimp, and He is going to continue to bereave you of your children until he finally executes the Judgment upon you as he did the Sodomites (Genesis 19) and countless other nations (the Canaanites, the Benjamites, the Philistines, Pompeii, Egypt). America is doomed! She shall be laid desolate! The siege is coming!

Confused yet? Yeah, I am too, and I actually tried to stay awake in Sunday School. To add fuel to the fire, the date on this tour of love comes after the previous day's stop at a New York high school to picket the memorial of five deceased cheerleaders, or "raised-for-the-Devil, American whores." All because the school was "promoting sodomy among students" through a diversity club. Talk about not catching a break.

With a history of making waves on Scarborough Country and Hannity & Colmes and protesting at services for killed Iraq vets and Virginia Tech students -- oh, and reportedly saying the Holocaust was "miniscule" -- it's sure to be a tailgatin' good time. Hell, when FOX News calls you "radical," it's gotta count for something. Word has it that a counter-protest among the Big Red ranks is in the works, so to any Cornellians with a nice view from the ivory tower, be sure to send along the visual goods at ivygate.guest@gmail.com.

Oh, and Aleksey Vayner has nothing to do with this. We just need to get our irrelevant potshots in early. -- ANDREW NUSCA

July 31, 2007 8:56 AM by Andrew Nusca | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Andrew Nusca , Cornell , Gays , Heretics , Westboro Baptist Church , aleksey vayner , crazy flaming bigots , guest editors

We've often wondered what might have become of Aleksey Vayner had he never made his hit film "Impossible Is Nothing." Where would he be in five years? What levels of success would he have achieved?

We're pretty sure the answer has arrived in the form of Timothy Ferriss, Princeton '00. Currently a "guest lecturer" at Princeton (sounds a little misleading to us; he's not in the official directory), Ferriss has honed self-help guruship down to an art -- he's good-looking, well spoken, and he knows you initially assume he's a fraud. His new book, The 4-Hour Workweek, explains how to work very little (check e-mail twice a day, outsource all your work to Asians for $5 an hour) and still live your dreams. Among the dreams Ferriss has already lived: Motorcycling across China. Dancing tango in Argentina (and on Regis and Kelly). Kickboxing. Skiing in the Andes. Gaining 34 pounds of muscle in 4 weeks. In other words, impossible is nothing.

The book already seems to be taking off. It's currently ranked in Amazon's top 10. The site's reviewers have given it five stars, nearly across the board.

And that's where it gets weird. The Amazon comments are absurdly positive. Frighteningly positive. Eyebrow-raisingly positive. Just look at the slew of reviews left all on the same day, April 24:

C. Ashenden, April 24: I don't give away compliments easily but I guarantee that this book will change your life. Don't wait.

Brian Page, April 24: I'm not a reviewer of books. In fact, this is the only one I've ever commented on. So as the first person to review The 4-Hour Workweek, I'm going to make a prediction. Remember, I called it first. This book WILL be a best-seller.

Sherwood Forlee, April 24: Because of this book, I would have to say that my dreams will soon become reality.

Matt, April 24: I don't know Tim, nor do I have any financial connection to this book. ... I have never written a review on Amazon before, but this book compelled me to write my first. I highly recommend you get it, and I guarantee it will get you thinking about making changes in your life.

Lindsay, April 24: I have always been a little wary of books focused arond life-improvement, but "The 4-Hour Work Week" book strikes the perfect balance between practical guidebook with real-world suggestions for how to maximize the work/life balance (something everyone needs to learn to do) and inspirational encouragement that yes, the life you want is just around the corner.

Michelle Bartakova, April 24: I believe this book is going to be a bestseller, will inspire many, and I would go as far as to say it will save lives. ... The revolution has began.... If this review sounds little bit over the top, well it is and so is the book. This is my first review on amazon, and who knows my next one might be written by my virtual assistant:)

(Hilarious commenter exchange on that last one is here.) When a tipster pointed out the unbroken slew of over-the-top raves to us, we saw this comment among them:

Smells fishy!, April 26, 2007
Reviewer: cyan (Sydney, Australia)
There are 18 reviews beneath me. Every single one was written on the same day. This is the only review of every single reviewer bar one. I wonder what the odds are of 18 individuals who never review on Amazon logging onto the site on the same day and giving the book 5 stars?

Even more fishily, that last comment is now gone. We have to agree, it's hard to see more than a dozen glowing, similarly-argued raves spontaneously cropping up all at the same time -- from people who have never before reviewed another title. If indeed Ferriss had a hand in arranging them, that's not necessarily wrong -- just really off-putting, really douchey, really ... Aleksey.

May 10, 2007 1:25 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (39) | Read more: Princeton , aleksey vayner , gawker

Dear all 17,432 people who emailed us about Michael Cera's Aleksey Vayner spoof video: Yes, thank you, we saw it. No doubt by this point you have too -- maybe at Dealbreaker, or Gawker, or -- wait, really? -- The New York Times. We'll share the Arrested Development star's homage here anyway, as what struck us as kind of eh at first reveals some great touches on second viewing, like how the watercolor Cera paints at 1:48 is already framed and behind glass.

But first, may we issue a polite "deez nuts" to the cowards at YouTube? Cera's "Impossible Is the Opposite of Possible," produced for a McSweeney's event, is currently a "Featured Video" on the YouTube home page, racking up all kinds of honors and 315,000-plus views as of this posting. So, YouTube is happy to jump on the Aleksey Bandwagon now, when all the legal heat is off? You'll recall that back in October, down in the Aleksey Vayner trenches, they hung us out to dry. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen: We'll get you for this. But first, we have to have some copies of keys made:

January 8, 2007 10:26 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comment | Read more: Yale , YouTube , aleksey vayner

When it comes to fixing public education, ideas abound. Standardized testing. Charter schools. KIPP-like behavioral reform. But these supposed solutions pale when set against the latest pedagogical theory to hit America's public schools: "Impossible is Nothing."

We know, we know, it's dead. Which is probably why one first-year Teach for America corps member thought it safe to turn would-be i-banker Aleksey Vayner's ubiquitous maxim (well, technically Adidas had it first) into classroom philosophy. A poster in a New York TFA office reads as follows, according to a tipster:

NYC Corps Members are Building the Movement

Sean Reidy, TFA '06, 7th grade math, Bronx

Sean is building the movement by investing his students in his class motto, "Impossible is nothing." Students believe they can and will succeed in math class. They dress up on test days and have learned what it means to dress for success. Almost two thirds of Seans' seventh grade students joined the Mathletes, an after school club where students can compete against each other in challenging math questions.

For the record: Anything remotely connected to Vayner that also involves "dress up" is highly suspect. But who knows, maybe Vayner will get the last laugh after patching up our nation's troubled education system. Whether that happens before or after the inevitable daytime talk show "Aleksey!", we can't say.

December 18, 2006 9:09 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: aleksey vayner , teach for america

When Harvard's Pforzheimer House announced it was throwing an official Aleksey Vayner-themed party last week, we assumed it would be a 495-lb. blast. People could come in karate robes, or Under Armour and dance pants; gently serve tennis balls at 140 miles an hour; there could even be a little table in the back for plagiarizing books about the Holocaust. Picture it: 2 a.m., hundreds of "Impossible is Nothing" acolytes swilling Aleksey Ale and Vayner Vodka Tonics, ballroom dancing to the beat of "Solamente Tu Amor" and "The Way of the Sword" -- what could go wrong?

Alas, as the above photo shows, the event was rather under-attended. In fairness, it was up against Winthrop House's "Country Clubbin': A Harvard-Yale 'Tea Partay'." More depressing pics after the jump; either this means Alekseygate has officially gotten old (should we cancel our Christmas benefit gala for Youth Empowerment Strategies?), or it's just the usual case of Harvard kids unable to have fun when it's handed to them on a platter.

Continue reading "Creepy Orwellian Trance of Aleksey Vayner Fails to Generate Fun" »

November 20, 2006 6:08 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (14) | Read more: George Orwell , Harvard , aleksey vayner , parties

Props to the Yale Herald for being the first college publication to get an interview with Aleksey Vayner. Too bad they left their spine on the mantelpiece next to their keys that day. Here's a snippet:

YH: One endeavor your résumé mentions is Vayner Capital Management, a business that you reportedly created. Could you describe this business?

AV: We’re a limited liability corporation, based in New York.

YH: Is that all you can say about it on the record?

AV: Yes.

Now that, folks, is what we call a follow-up question. The piece is so hard-hitting the byline is blank; no one on staff seems to want to take credit for it. Keep on sluggin', guys.

October 30, 2006 12:57 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (14) | Read more: Yale , Yale Herald , aleksey vayner

You know, in all the stuff we've written about Aleksey Vayner, we've never actually used the word "douchebag." Well, we're getting pretty close to using that term right now. Only we're not talking about Aleksey.

Daro Mott and Marcelino Pantoja (Yale '06, above) sent the book query below to the Wiliam Morris mega-agency. G'head, read it, we'll wait.

From: "Mott, Daro" [redacted]
To: "Suzanne Gluck" [redacted]
CC: "Marcelino Pantoja" [redacted]
Re: Query: Aleksey Vayner, a Memoir

October 25, 2006
Suzanne Gluck
William Morris Agency
1325 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY  10019

Dear Ms. Suzanne Gluck:

We would like to preface our query letter with a short paragraph about ourselves. My name is Daro Mott and I graduated from Yale University in May of 2006; I currently live and work in Louisville, Kentucky. My co-author's name is Marcelino Pantoja; he lives and works in Tracy, California and he also graduated from Yale this previous spring. We are budding writers and intend to produce a memoir regarding our puzzling friend, Aleksey Vayner, whom we met as undergraduates at Yale.

In our book, we reveal the most intriguing and entertaining Ivy League persona of today: Aleksey Vayner.

The story of Aleksey Vayner is both sensational and seemingly apocryphal. On the one hand, Aleksey and his family, penniless, emigrated from Uzbekistan to the United States; at eighteen, he gained admission to Yale University as a tennis recruit. On the other hand, Aleksey Vayner sexed up his accomplishments one time too many: recently, he single handedly became the laughing stock on Wall Street after sending an eleven page résumé and
promotional video to UBS AG, the world's largest asset wealth manager.

On October 9, 2006, the New York Sun went to press on Aleksey. Within the span of a week, the Wall Street Journal, the Dow Jones News Wire, Fox News, US News and World Report, London Times, Daily Mail, Forbes, the Yale Daily News, Market Watch, the New Yorker and dozens of other national and international media ran articles on Aleksey. The New York Times, the Today Show and other media picked up the story the following week. Following suit, Aleksey Vayner was featured on Inside Edition and MSNBC early this week. Blogs can't get enough. Yale students scream Vaynergate. Public interest is skyrocketing!  Why?

Aleksey lifts 495 lbs of steel, clocks a tennis serve at 140mph, whirls around a ballroom dance floor with a gorgeous dancer, shatters six bricks with a karate chop, pulls off fantastic stunts with skis—he choreographs all this information and more in his promotional video. Moreover, Aleksey boasts of being the CEO of Vayner Capital Management, a partner in a mega real-estate development firm, a professional athlete and the founder of Youth Empowerment Strategies (YES), a non-profit. He even claims to have self-published a book on the Holocaust from the perspective of female survivors!  Aleksey has chutzpah!

But Wall Street erupted with laughter. And they have not stopped. Aleksey is being bombarded with requests for interviews. The calls have not stopped. Wall Street circulated Aleksey's video and résumé because, Aleksey, whether we like it or not, is simply entertaining.

In the light of this, his cadre of friends proposes to write a book about Aleksey situated in Yale University where we first met him. As his closest friends and recent graduates of Yale, we have personal access to him; in other words, we are self-anointed experts of Aleksey.

In his memoir, we detail the reality that is Aleksey with a flavor made possible from having tasted the "inside scoop." We raise interesting issues and get down to bottom of life at Yale with Aleksey Vayner. We will answer soul searching questions: Who is he? What does he want out of this gift of life? What is folklore, what is reality? Did the allure of Wall Street make a zany guy even zanier? Is he a typical Ivy Leaguer? Is Aleksey Vayner legitimate or is he an imposter? We know the truth.

We look forward to speaking with you.

Respectfully Submitted,

Daro Mott
Marcelino Pantoja

Choo choo! All aboard! The Aleksey Vayner gravy train is leaving the station! Good to know that even during these tough times, Aleksey's "closest friends" are standing by him ... ready to cash in on his fame.

Seriously, though -- most intriguing Ivy League persona? The New York Sun as catalyst? "What is folklore, what is reality?" Sign us up, you "budding writers," for the "flavor made possible from having tasted the 'inside scoop'" on your "puzzling," "zany" friend.

October 27, 2006 3:05 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (52) | Read more: Book Deals , Yale , aleksey vayner , plagiarism , this is why people hate the ivy league

Yale Daily News reporter Tom Kaplan is our new hero. Only a freshman, he's penned a piece about Aleksey Vayner with actual (gasp) reporting! Unlike the toothless Times, credulous MSNBC, or effortlessly spun New York Post, Kaplan's piece moves the ball, noting that the president of Charity Navigator has asked New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate Vayner's fake charity.

Also -- and this is pure sugarcane -- it's apparently Academic Integrity Awareness Week at Yale now, but deans are stonewalling on whether they're looking into Vayner's several plagiarisms.

Kaplan's piece is a serious take, but the last two sentences are the funniest thing we've read all week:

Vayner's attempt to stand out in his application appears to have backfired, although advertising executive Donny Deutsch said on MSNBC he would hire Vayner immediately for his creative genius. Director of Undergraduate Career Services Philip Jones declined to comment on whether Vayner's strategy is a sound one.

But with Halloween less than a week away, some Yalies in need of an outfit may have found inspiration of their own in the Vayner scandal: some students said that "Aleksey Vayner" will likely be a popular costume on campus this year.

One Metro North ticket to New Haven for Oct. 31, please! If we come out there, will someone throw a party?

October 25, 2006 12:16 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (21) | Read more: Yale , Yale Daily News , aleksey vayner

Breaking our promise already, sorta. We don't want to cover this, but we can't ignore it. Welcome to the party, NYT; headline says it all.

The Resume Mocked 'Round the World [The New York Times]

UPDATE 3:19 p.m. Oct. 21: Oh look, Michael J. de la Merced's story made it into the Times print edition. But with the guts cut out -- what little there were in the first place, anyway. This part makes us want to ram an airplane into an apartment building:

The Internet scrutiny also raised questions about some of Mr. Vayner's claims in his résumé, including assertions that he ran his own charity and investment firm.

There have also been questions over whether he copied sections of a self-published book, "Women’s Silent Tears: A Unique Gendered Perspective on the Holocaust," from Web sites.

Mr. Vayner, 23, contends that both the charity and investment firm are legitimate. And the accusations about his book, he said, were based on an earlier draft that has since been changed.

Oh! Well then! Mr. Vayner contends, does he? Then everything must be A-okay. You keep doing that tough reporting, Michael J. de la Merced.

October 20, 2006 8:53 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (23) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , new york times , plagiarism

It's time to declare a moratorium on all things Aleksey Vayner. This horse is not only beaten to death -- it's been shipped off to the glue factory, buried out in the yard, and decomposed into its component minerals.

Yet here we are.

When the behemoth Today Show limps into the story, getting pretty much every fact wrong ("Someone at one of the Wall Street firms is believed to have sent the video to YouTube" -- no, you hacks, we did!), and not even mentioning the fraud angle, we feel obligated to do one. last. post. And to make it a doozy.

We've obtained (best word in journalism, right there) the first 11 pages of Women's Silent Tears, Vayner's self-published book about women in the Holocaust. The book's host, Lulu.com, took it down after reading our initial report that segments of the work were plagiarized. Well, now that Vayner's work is freely available for download (cease and desist this, Alex), you can Google it for yourself, or follow our handy guide below.

But first, we just have to share this bit from his wholly original "Acknowledgements" section:

[A]nonymous gratitude goes to the generals and intelligence officers who provided the hands-on skills and knowledge that expanded my horizons and changed my perspective on the world forever.

Now for the more Kaavyaesque bits. From the preface:

Women’s voices have given rise to many powerful accounts of the Holocaust, and yet few researchers have analyzed these perspectives to learn what the horrifying events meant for women in particular. [Stolen from: Experience and Expression: Women, Nazis, and the Holocaust]

From the "Broad Overview of the Holocaust" section:

In ancient times, when there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the priests of the Temple would offer animal sacrifices to God. Some sacrifices would provide the priests with meat for their own consumption, while others would be wholly consumed and only ashes would be left. The latter type of sacrifices was called, in Greek, holokauston, which means, “wholly burned.” In Hebrew, the word for this type of sacrifice was 'olah.’ However, when the Roman Empire adopted Christianity as the state religion and translated the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament into Latin, they borrowed the term holokauston from Greek and rendered 'olah’ as holocaustum. The English term derives from the Latin word. [Stolen from: The Holocaust History Project]

Then there's this bit from his section on euthanasia, which appears to be lifted in full.

The term euthanasia (literally, “good death”) usually refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill individual. In Nazi usage, however, “euthanasia” was a euphemistic term for a clandestine program which targeted for systematic killing institutionalized mentally and physically disabled patients, without the knowledge or consent of themselves or their families. [Stolen from: Holocaust Encyclopedia]

There. We're done. Forever. We'll update if the guy gets expelled or charged, but that's it. We're not even going to tell you about how we got in contact with the guys who made the ski video he bought.

October 18, 2006 2:01 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (63) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , i-banking , plagiarism

Listen, we tried to put this dog to sleep on Friday, we really did, but it just keeps waking up. If you're still following Alekseyfest 2006, you might get a kick out of these "developments." (If you're new to all this, you'll have to start at the beginning.) We don't blame anyone who wants to tap out at this point. Anyway, here's the latest on our meal ticket:

Even Aleksey Vayner's lawyers are denying any connection to Aleksey Vayner. The Wall Street Journal phoned Vayner's legal team and found this:

"After initially saying in an interview that he was exploring privacy lawsuits, Mr. Vayner asked that further requests go through his Fort Lee, N.J., attorney. The lawyer said, via her assistant, that she doesn't represent Mr. Vayner."

We took the Journal's cue and called up Ron Bar-Nadav, the guy Vayner cc'ed on his "cease and disist" letter. We asked him if he represented Vayner: "No, sorry." Click.

Aleksey's partner from the ballroom dance segment of the video wrote us to "clear my name." "I'm just a bystander in this whole mess," Nansi says, noting that Aleksey is not her regular dancing partner, that she had no other role in creating the video, and that she's been getting a lot of pervy attention from Internet weirdos. "And my outfit for the video is what I actually wear at dance competitions," she adds, "so please do not make a big deal out of that since it is nothing out of the extraordinary in the ballroom world." Noted! (As for Aleksey's Under Armour, there's really no excuse.) Nansi's full e-mail is after the jump.

Aleksey may -- may -- have bought the ski footage in his video off Craigslist. A tipster wrote us last night with what could be an amazing document -- if it's real. He claims to have a copy of a Craigslist post from August; the file looks real, but then again, Craigslist pages might be the most easily faked on the Internet, and there's a rash of fake Aleksey stuff floating around. Plus, who saves Craigslist pages? Judge for yourself:

Ski Racing Video Needed
Reply to: aleksey.vayner@gmail.com
Date: 2006-08-01, 4:48PM EDT

I want to purchase high resolution, quality racing/freestyle skiing to add to a school project on skiing. Length not important since i dont need more than 10-15 seconds max. Just needs to be sharp, fast, and impressive. Email asap if you got something

no -- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Compensation: negotiable

188956917

Any nerds out there who could bunk or debunk this? Get in touch.

UPDATE: Oh, and he made The New Yorker, too.

Continue reading "Aleksey Vayner Storyline Almost as Immortal as Aleksey Vayner (UPDATE)" »

October 15, 2006 7:45 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (42) | Read more: aleksey vayner

Aleksey Vayner is dead! Long live Aleksey Vayner!

There is officially nothing new to report on Aleksey but we bring you this anyway, because it delights us. Some Italian newspaper called Corriere Della Sera is on the case, and thanks to Google Translate, we can say with authority that no better summary of the situation has ever been written. Guilt of the crisis, indeed.

Graduated to Yale it tries job with a videoclip
Aleksey Vayner has realized a video on own intelligence and preroom. It has not found job but in compensation it has become famous
   
NEW YORK - Aleksey Vayner, neolaureato ambitious of the prestigious university of Yale, is meeting series difficulty to find job to Wall street. And this although turns out to you drained to us absolutely extraordinary. Its candidacy has been rejected from the main merchant banks - Ubs, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Group and Jp Morgan Chase - one after the other. Guilt of the crisis? More probably the guilt is of the stramapalato chosen way from the young person in order to introduce to the possible futures employers. Vayner has realized in fact amatoriale filmato of approximately six minuteren (■ Guarda the video), and it sendes it to the companies like autopromozionale message, with to the curriculum. The news is brought back from the New daily paper York Post.

REFUSED DERISO AND - In the filmato one Veyner is looked at that wake with impeccable style, dances with a provoking girl, plays to tennis and raises in arena beyond 220 chili of weights. In foundation the voice of the aspirant banker who tells the own qualities, says to have consideration for the mediocre ones and does not explain as “its impeccable physicist reflects its mental acumen”. A video judged too much audacious and adulterated from the employers that have not saved to the boy little lusinghieri comments and derisioni, beyond to sbattergli the door in face. For all answer, the full of rocks Vayner has threatened to make cause for violation of the privacy the field revives human of Ubs, to which it had sent just the curriculum. The megaphone of the company, Kris Kagel, has made to know that Ubs is adhered rigidly to the laws for the treatment of the data of the numerous candidates. “If some violation were found, they would be taken however the just provisions” have concluded Kagel. But while the video of Vayner is ended in Net. With good peace of the privacy.

October 13, 2006 12:02 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (42) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , plagiarism

On Oct. 9, North Korea detonated a nuclear device. The same day, Aleksey Vayner blew up. Coincidence? Impossible is nothing.

Just for the record, we think this story has crested. Don't get us wrong, our New Haven bureau will remain on 24-hour alert in case Alex gets kicked out of school -- as the president of Charity Navigator is demanding -- and we will forevermore bask in the glow of having helped to create a staggering cultural force. For example:

In other Vaynergate news:

• Aleksey goes international, landing on the pages of a London tabloid and our amusingly ad hominem comments section...
• ... and American TV gets. even. stupider. MSNBC's Donny Deutsch lauds Aleksey in a four-minute segment, calling him a "brilliant creative executer" and declaring "I'd hire him sight unseen." To Donny, and whatever moron interviewed him: We have so much disdain for you. Can we make that font any more italic?
  
• Chuck Norris-inspired fan sites are sprouting everywhere, notably here ("When Sir Edmund Hillary got to the top of Everest, it said 'Aleksey was here' in yellow snow") ...
  
• ... and people continue to make fake web pages in Aleksey's name. Um, you counterfeiters get the irony here, don't you?
  

October 12, 2006 12:26 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (24) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , donny deutsch , i-banking , plagiarism

From: DMCA Complaints <copyright_counternotice@youtube.com>
To: ivygate <ivygate@gmail.com>
Date: Oct 10, 2006 9:06 PM
Subject: Video Rejected: Copyright Infringement

Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Aleksey Vayner claiming that this material is infringing:

IvyGate: Worst Resume Ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjRZgmc3RyQ

[...]

Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.

Oh, it's on.

Anticipating a move like this, we had a conference call today with counsel from the Student Press Law Center in Arlington, Va., a truly wonderful organization that dispenses pro bono legal advice to college journalists (and, uh, us). We're confident that we have a valid fair use claim to Aleksey's video -- but formally contesting YouTube's action would just take too long. So here's what we're going to do.

We've posted the clip to Veoh, and just in case they remove it too, you can access it directly here, on our own servers.

We saw Aleksey's first cease and "disist," and we're not scared. Mr. Vayner? Mr. ron706@aol.com, Esq.? Bring it, sirs.

UPDATE: Turns out that serving up the enormous video file blew the roof off our server. We'll let Veoh host for now, and re-host it if they take it down.

October 10, 2006 8:47 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (159) | Read more: IvyGate , Yale , YouTube , aleksey vayner , cowards , i-banking , legal

Can someone please get this man a sitcom?

Clearly, Aleksey Vayner deserves it. In the four days since we (cough exclusively! cough) posted the video the Yale senior commissioned of himself and attached to some i-banking applications, dozens of people have shared their Aleksey stories with us. And more often than not, they're stories he told them -- which is why we don't feel bad about all the attention we're heaping on this fabulist. (Fake business, fake charity, fake book -- sympathy kinda evaporates, don't it?)

All day long, the tips kept getting better. We can only share a few here -- but we suspect this spring will never run dry.

• The writing sample Aleksey attached to his i-bank applications appears to be at least partially plagiarized from this source (which, weirdly, he quotes earlier in the piece). Search on "hidden beta exposure" in both articles.
  
  
• A member of the Yale tennis team wrote in to dispute Aleksey's claim that he competed on the Satellite tour: "I played for Yale tennis, and he tried to walk on the team. He got cut the second day. I had one conversation with him, and he claimed to have KILLED 24 people in the caves of Tibet."
  
  (Other great comments: "I too played for Yale tennis, and Vayner/Garber claimed that he has trouble flying on planes because he has to register his hands as lethal weapons each time he goes to an airport."  And: "The giveaway on the investment firm was that he said his firm specialized in "risk-aDverse" strategies. The other giveaway was that he's fucking crazy.")
  
  
• We decided to not be too scared of the cease and desist letter Aleksey emailed us, given that he copied and pasted it from the first Google hit for "cease and desist letter," right down to the "very truly yours" signoff. Attorney Ron706@aol.com, Esq., really earned his fee there.
  
  
• At Yale, Aleksey has offered to treat sports injuries using various "Eastern" therapy methods, including massage and acupuncture. Before "treating" a "patient," he sent them this letter. You simply have to read it in full. Somewhere in there he claims that his brother is "head of pediatrics at Columbian Presbyterian hospital in NYC." A search on the Columbia Presbyterian Physician Network turns up no one with the last name "Garber" or "Vayner." But our favorite part is this line: "I am not certified in any Western sense of the word, neither in Chinese medicine, Tui-Na, Shaolin trauma medicine, nor in acupuncture, all of which I practice extensively never-the-less."
  
  
• And, um, not quite so humorously, the SEC and dean of Yale College have been notified of Aleksey's transgressions.
  

God, what theater. You cannot make this shit up. Unless, y'know, you're Aleksey.

Bonus: The Yale Daily News joins the fracas. Money line: "Among the claims [a dance teammate] said she has heard is one that Vayner is one of four people in the state of Connecticut qualified to handle nuclear waste."

October 10, 2006 8:50 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (53) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , i-banking , plagiarism

The Aleksey Vayner saga continues this week, and we're happy to report: It just keeps getting better. A quick preview of this entry for the Adderall set:

1. Vayner's fraudulent investment firm
2. Vayner's fraudulent charity
3. Vayner's fraudulent book about the Holocaust

Let's start with his investment firm, Vayner Capital Management LLC. The site is pretty basic -- unassuming layout, innocuous graphics, stock photos. But take a look at the text. On the "About Us" page (Google Cache, we love you!), Vayner Capital promises to marshal "expertise," "agility" and "passion" to all its business dealings. Here's a sample:

Our people bring a passionate intensity to the way we invest and service our clients. This is especially true in the realm of investment research, where our competitive edge lies in our drive to identify opportunities before they become widely known, to unearth information that others overlook, and to understand the companies in which we invest to the greatest degree possible.

Why does this matter? That paragraph is nearly identical to a section from the web site of Denver Investment Advisors, who also promise "experience," "focus," "passion," and "agility." Compare here. It's not clear if Denver knows about the homage, but we're sure their lawyers would be flattered.

Now let's turn to Vayner's charity, Youth Empowerment Strategies -- not to be confused, of course with this Youth Empowerment Strategies. Why are there two? Well, we're gonna break it down real simple: one is real, and the other isn't.

Vayner's site has a "Charity Navigator Four Star Charity" logo from Charity Navigator, an organization that ranks good charities and weeds out frauds. We called them this morning. "Oh, we've heard of them," Leonie Giles, a program analyst there, said immediately. They asked Aleksey's site (which lists a non-existant Manhattan address on its "Donate Another Way" page, btw) to take down the fake "Four Star" logo two months ago, and are considering legal action against them. Giles recommended we contact the freaking Connecticut attorney general.

Vayner lists on his resume his self-published book, Women's Silent Tears, which he calls a "gendered look at the Holocaust." You can't read the whole book online, but you can preview the first few pages. We examined a section on euthanasia, and guess what. The entire passage is lifted from the online Holocaust Encyclopedia. Scan Vayner's book for yourself here. See the identical passage here.

(UPDATE: Vayner has removed his book from Lulu.com. Real classy.)

So let's get this straight: Vayner created a fake charity. He named himself CEO of a non-existent investment firm. And he plagiarized a book on the Holocaust.

Forget Rahmatullah Hashemi. Why is Aleksey Vayner at Yale University?!

October 9, 2006 11:41 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (229) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , i-banking , plagiarism

From: Aleksey Vayner <aleksey.vayner@gmail.com>
To: ivygate@gmail.com, ron706@aol.com
Date: Oct 9, 2006 12:04 AM
Subject: Cease and Disist Notification

Dear editor, writer, owner of IvyGateBlog,

It has been brought to my attention that you have made an unauthorized use of my video, my photographs, have made public disclosure of private facts, and have slandered me in your articles on IvyGateBlog.com. I have reserved all rights to the video you have uploaded onto YouTube.com, and have made available on your site. I have also reserved all rights to the photos you have used in your articles about me. Furthermore, you have made an illegal public disclosure of private facts by posting my cover letter, resume, and my article on hedge fund selling beta as alpha, online on ivygateblog.com. Finally you have extensively slandered me in your articles.

As you neither asked for nor received permission to use copyrighted video and photographs for your articles, you have willfully infringed my rights. You have also illegally made my private information public.

I demand that you immediately cease and desist. You must remove the illegal copy of my video from your youtube.com account and any other site, cease any use and the distribution of my property and information, remove my private information that are my cover letter, resume, and the research paper on “hedge funds selling alpha as beta,” the use and distribution of all infringing works derived from the materials mentioned above. I ask that you destroy such copies immediately, and that you desist from this or any other infringement of my rights in the future. Kindly provide proof within 10 days that you have complied with my request dated October 8th 2006.

Very truly yours,

Aleksey Vayner

p.s. Due effort has been made to obtain your company’s physical contact information. If you kindly provide me with a physical address, a copy of this notification will be sent to you by registered mail. 

October 9, 2006 11:10 AM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (99) | Read more: IvyGate , Yale , aleksey vayner , first amendment , help wanted , i-banking , the law

But that's only the tip of a huge and hilarious iceberg. Turns out Aleksey is somewhat infamous among Yalies as the "Crazy Prefrosh" profiled in 2002 by Yale's Rumpus tabloid. If you thought Vayner's credibility was shaky after seeing the video, wait til you read the profile. It is devastating. For starters, his name back then was Aleksey Garber. He claimed to have spent much of his childhood in a Tibetan monestary in post-Soviet Uzbekistan before moving to the United States, where he was employed by both the Mafia and the CIA. He was also a tennis instructor whose students include Harrison Ford and Sarah Michelle Gellar. And oh yeah: he met the Dalai Lama along the way and is the second greatest martial arts fighter in the world.

Other tidbits we've culled from Yalies: He failed out second term of freshman year (which explains why he's now class of '07). He claims to have recently represented himself in a court case in the Supreme Court of Westchester County. He also says the author of the Rumpus piece was suspended for writing it -- which we know to be categorically false. Then there's this, from a female character witness:

This guy always creeped me out ... gross gross gross. He claimed he knew how to practice all kinds of medicine, and he would work on my friend's shoulder and I would get really upset because he's NOT A DOCTOR. One time he gave her a "deep tissue massage" and she ended up with WELTS all over her back. He's a pathological liar. Real creep.

Oh, and that picture above? Click it to see Aleksey's old profile (since "banned") at ModelMayhem.com, some kind of cultish social networking site for porn stars and fans of human growth hormone. 

We have so much more to post but we still have questions! Where does this guy come from? Did he change his name because of the Rumpus profile, or something else? How did he pay for the not-terrible-quality video? What's the story with his self-published book?

We get an Andrew Cunanan-style shiver straight down our spine every time we watch the video. But the scariest part for real? You know some asshole at Goldman is gonna make him an offer just for causing such a stir.

UPDATE: Read more of IvyGate's wall-to-wall coverage of Aleksey Vayner!

October 7, 2006 1:44 AM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (17) | Read more: Yale , aleksey vayner , i-banking

UPDATE: YouTube has removed the video; we've replaced it with a Veoh clip below, or you can download the file here.

UPDATE 2: Turns out that serving up the enormous video file blew the roof off our server. We'll let Veoh host for now, and re-host it if they take it down.

Aleksey Vayner is having a bad day.

Imagine you're a recruiting director at an investment bank. Aleksay's resume come across your desk. The '07 Yalie's stuff seems normal enough, until the link to a video at the end. Twenty-four hours later, you're the laughingstock of New York, the newest viral sensation. We've been forwarded his stuff a couple times, and the email suffixes tell the whole story: Greenwich Capital Markets, Credit Suisse, Wachovia Securities, JP Morgan, Lazard, on and on and on.

Subject: FW: one more resume, u must see video
Subject: FW: this is pure gold.
Subject: True story- On line resume of a candidate for our training prog ram
"Too funny not to share" ... "This guy must be the pride of Yale" ... "You can't make this sh** up" ... "Don't you guys go trying to recruit him - I've added myself to cs's yale recruiting team. He's ours" ...

Here's a link to Vayner's official site (what's with the weird must-be-over-18 warning?), and his original cover letter and resume.

[Ed. note: We rushed this online as soon as we got it, only to notice Dealbreaker.com had it a little while ago. The headline overlap was accidental, seriously.)

UPDATE: Read more of IvyGate's wall-to-wall coverage of Aleksey Vayner!

October 6, 2006 4:21 PM by Nick Summers | Link | Comments (111) | Read more: Jobs , Yale , YouTube , aleksey vayner , ballroom dancing , i-banking , karate , omg , weightlifting