After spending almost four years behind bars, Billy McFarland is a free man. The Fyre Festival icon has gone down in pop culture history for his failed festival, as well as the court cases that developed because of it. McFarland was accused of defrauding investors into the millions, and a part of his judgment was to repay his victims $26 million.
With a restitution number that high, questions have risen regarding what McFarland will do now that he has been released from prison. The New York Times recently sat down for an expansive piece with McFarland and during their chat, he hinted that he had his eyes on the tech world once again.
Prior to his Fyre Fest fame, McFarland operated a few technology-based companies and that seems to be where he thrives—minus that multi-million-dollar hiccup on the Caribbean islands.
“I’d like to do something tech-based,” said McFarland. “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.”
“At the end of the day, I think I could probably create the most value by building some sort of tech product,” he said. “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.”
He left readers with that enigmatic revelation and it will be interesting to see what he comes up with next. Elsewhere, he addressed his crimes. “I lied. I think I was scared. And the fear was letting down people who believed in me — showing them they weren’t right.”
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