Slate Money – “ATM Scam Summer School” (August 23, 2025)

Host: Felix Salmon
Guests: Elizabeth Spiers (NYT), Emily Peck (Axios)
Main Theme:
A deep dive into a summer ATM scam in New York involving youth employment debit cards, a discussion of the risks and realities of alternative private market investments for regular people, and a critical look at the culture of sleepless hustle and thought leadership.

ATM Glitch in New York: The Infinite Money Machine

Overview:
Felix introduces a wild story out of the Bronx: A technical glitch allowed young recipients of a city-sponsored debit card to withdraw unlimited money from certain bodegas’ ATMs, sparking chaos, debt, and an impromptu lesson in "financial literacy."

Key Points:

• The Setup ([02:11]):

  • NYC’s Summer Youth Employment Program gives 30,000 kids either direct deposit or a prepaid debit card for their wages.
  • In July, many found these debit cards allowed unlimited ATM withdrawals at bodega machines due to a software glitch.

• How the Scam Spread ([03:10]):

  • "There's always one patient zero, right?...one kid who puts their card in the ATM...takes out $100...goes back...their balance hasn't gone down..." — Felix Salmon [03:10]
  • The exploit spreads rapidly via social media—especially TikTok—enabling hundreds to join in within days ([07:50]).

• Who Actually Lost the Money? ([08:50]):

  • The real losers: small independent ATM operators who stock machines with their own cash and recoup it through network settlement.
  • While city officials claimed “no taxpayer funds lost,” insurance claims and legal blame games are expected as the dust settles.

• Are the Kids on the Hook? ([05:22]):

  • Debate about the legal culpability of minors (most under 18), since prepaid debit cards typically don’t allow negative balances nor require kids to sign for loans.
  • "The idea that these kids actually owe all of this money, I think, is a little bit legally dubious." — Felix Salmon [05:22]

• A Brutal Lesson in Financial Literacy ([06:57]):

  • Emily: “What an awful introduction…here’s how things work in the real world, kids. It’s a mess. There’s scammers everywhere. Trust no one.” [07:05]
  • Elizabeth: “Congratulations, you succeeded on that front.” [06:57]

Memorable Moment:

• Felix, wryly, on the outcome: “In the first instance, the ATM operators are the owners of the cash...and they've literally lost that money. So it's these sort of people that people don't think about very much...” [08:50]

The Independent ATM Business: How It Works & Why It’s Dying

• Operators own the cash and machines in small stores, not banks ([10:22]).
  • For each withdrawal, they recoup funds plus a fee from user’s banks.
• As cash use plummets, ATM usage and profits decline ([12:33]):
  • Felix: “Cash is dirty. It breeds criminals. It's a pain in the ass. It gets stolen much more easily than most other forms of money...as demand for ATMs goes down, they're going to start raising the prices…” [12:51]

Should Regular People Buy "Alternative Assets"? The Yieldstreet & Fundrise Question

Overview:
Discussion turns to private investments—think real estate, ships, art—pitched to “the little guy” via platforms like Fundrise or YieldStreet. Are these truly democratizing, or a way for amateurs to get fleeced?

Key Points:

• The Pitch ([20:28]):

  • Emily: “Their whole pitch was democratizing assets...invest like the 1%.”
  • YieldStreet pooled small investors into singular, risky projects; Fundrise diversified across many.

• Risks & Realities ([21:13]–[23:15]):

  • Horror stories: One YieldStreet investor lost $400,000, even lost ships ("Gotta know where the ship is," Emily chuckles [21:17]).
  • Diversification is critical; single-project bets are more likely to go to zero.

• Liquidity and Adverse Selection ([24:04]–[25:31]):

  • Private assets are illiquid; lack transparency; when you need cash, you can’t always sell.
  • Elizabeth: "Whatever YieldStreet is getting is kind of the bottom of the barrel to begin with." [24:04]
  • Felix: “If something is being sold to retail, then one can assume it’s something that the smart money has passed on.” [24:26]

• Alternative Asset Marketing ([27:31]):

  • Why people are drawn in: desire to “invest like the 1%”—but the true advantage of the rich is never needing to sell low.
  • Felix: “The first rule of making money is buy low, sell high. … Poor people don’t have that luxury.” [27:31]

• The Public–Private Market Blurring ([33:19]):

  • Emily: “If your goal as a company is to offer private market assets to more people, that...makes them more public.” [33:38]
  • Regulators may soon crack down as the space grows and problems multiply.

Hustle Culture & Thought Leadership: The “Sacrifice Your 20s” Fantasy

Overview:
A recent op-ed by 22-year-old multimillionaire Emil Barr extolled forsaking sleep, friends, and fun in your 20s to "get rich," spawning both derision and a discussion of the cult of entrepreneurial “thought leadership.”

Key Points:

• Wild Tips from Emil Barr ([40:56]):

  • Sleep 3.5 hours/night, only network, outsource all chores, optimize transportation by...using helicopters.
  • Emily: “This one, he admits, is unconventional, but it involves using helicopters to cut travel time between meetings.” [41:41]

• Reality Check ([42:13]–[44:04]):

  • Felix: “None of the young people I know…would be willing to sleep three and a half hours a night...” [42:13]
  • Elizabeth: “A 22-year-old living on three and a half hours of sleep a night consistently for a year is going to suffer cognitive damage from it. Nobody can do that.” [42:33]

• Thought Leadership as Status ([46:00]):

  • Many entrepreneurs pursue it not just for business, but for personal validation and recognition.
  • Elizabeth: “Part of the fun for them is just that it gives them respect from their peers and they feel like people now have to listen to them in a way that they didn't before. And so it's a huge status thing.” [46:00]

• Downside to Business Celebrity ([48:20]):

  • Emily: “A great example of how the marketing of an entrepreneur and how I did it and I'm so successful works fabulously…Do I even have to say it? … The President of the United States.” [48:32]
  • Distorted perceptions of competence through media narratives.

Numbers Round: Standout Stories & Data

• Elizabeth: 400,000 TikTok followers for Olivia Fernie, a luxury travel agent who caters to the whims of the wealthy (like overnighting Birkin bags or investigating “allergic” reactions to margarita limes) — [49:54–51:16].
• Felix: $500—the current difference in GDP per capita between the UK and Italy, with the UK’s relative decline post-Brexit: “Italy and Britain now have the same GDP per capita...Pre Brexit, there was like a $4,000 difference.” [52:57]
• Emily: 88%—of companies filing for IPOs in early August had only one or no women on their boards; 93% had similarly low representation in their C-suites (reflecting a rollback of prior diversity efforts). [54:27]

Notable Quotes

• “This is meant to be a debit card...there is no overdraft facility. There is no such thing as a negative balance. These kids are under 18...so the idea that these kids actually owe all of this money, I think, is a little bit legally dubious.” — Felix [05:22]
• “Without social media, this would have been in five kids. With social media, it was 500 kids.” — Felix [07:50]
• “Cash...is a pain in the ass. It gets stolen much more easily than most other forms of money.” — Felix [12:51]
• “There is an argument to be made like, well, we are giving you an opportunity that wealthier people have, which is to invest in these startups, these early stage companies. And that might be appealing to people.” — Emily [28:21]
• “The rich people make all their money doing this one thing that you can't do, but here's the back door. That's a really appealing narrative.” — Elizabeth [30:45]
• “It’s a huge status thing. And maybe it does help their business. I think most of the time it doesn’t. It helps build their personal brand.” — Elizabeth [46:00]

Tone and Takeaways

• Candid, occasionally sardonic. Felix’s running asides and Elizabeth’s pointed, humorous observations keep the mood lively even as they pull apart financial grift and business culture clichés.
• Cautionary on “democratized” investing: The show is skeptical of the "invest like a tycoon" pitch—private markets are opaque for a reason.
• Critical of hustle culture and the pursuit of "thought leadership" for status rather than substance.
• **Empathetic to young people caught up in systemic glitches but still tough on unrealistic stories of financial bootstrapping and online success.

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [02:11] The Bronx ATM glitch: what happened and why
• [08:50] Who actually loses money in ATM scams?
• [12:33] Cashless society and the decline of the ATM business
• [20:28] Should ordinary people invest in asset platforms like YieldStreet and Fundrise?
• [24:04] Structural problems in retail alternative investing
• [33:19] Merging of private and public markets—regulatory implications
• [40:36] Hustle culture: The Emil Barr "sleep 3.5 hours" millionaire story
• [46:00] The rise of entrepreneurial “thought leadership”
• [49:54] Numbers Round: TikTok travel agents and gender equity in IPOs

For Listeners

This episode offers a thoughtful, skeptical, and deeply informed look at the intersection of financial technology, investment fads, and cultural narratives of wealth. It challenges the “quick win” mentality, underscores the perils of market democratization, and reminds listeners of who really bears the costs—and who really gets the rewards—of both financial glitches and private asset bets.