Aleksey Vayner, Yale ’07, clearly has nefarious plans.  I mean, this is the man who circulated an eleven-page CV around Wall Street, made a video resume of himself ballroom dancing and lifting weights (crotch-eye view!), “wrote” and “published” a book from the perspective of female Holocaust survivors, declared himself CEO of a suspiciously hard to track down company, and tragically lost his shot at a pro tennis career when his partner suffered a sprained wrist only moments before their first match at the US Open.

Aleksey Vayner is not, for example, the sort of guy you would expect to update his blog with pathetic little posts entitled "Best Way to Fight Fat!"  Well, maybe.  Like, if the best way to fight fat was to buy his nonexistent book, Millionaire's Blueprint To Success.

But this?

Basically, if you are successful at losing weight, you’ll burn fewer calories per day then [sic.] someone of the same weight but who was not overweight and did not diet to shed pounds. This is one of many reasons you find it easier to gain weight (and then some) after you have just lost some weight.

Read the rest of this entry »

When we last left Yale alum and crazy liar Aleksey Vayner, he had a poorly designed website and was writing a book called Millionaire's Blueprint to Success. Of course, cursory examination revealed the website and book likely products of plagiarism. Idea theft, grand plans and a website: it was business as usual for Mr. Vayner. But today Ivygate brings you Vayner news that does not involve plagiarism or crackpot schemes: Aleksey may be married. According to an anonymous tipster:

I heard from a friend who knew him before his stupendous rise to tool-dome [sic] via video that he's married. No details except the waif like...blonde in is [sic] facebook picture is apparently the lucky lady.

There you have it. Vayner has not yet reponded to Ivygate's request for comment. Could it be that the attractive blonde in the above facebook picture is Mrs. Vayner? If true, this is easily Vayner's greatest accomplishment.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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?

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.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

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

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.

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: