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[ Crossing signal clanging ]
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[ Train horn blows ]
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Purves: We're in Opelika, Alabama.
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Sunny Opelika, Alabama.
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I'll certainly say Kyle Sandler is a swindler.
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He was a crook that showed up in town
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and swindled a whole load of people
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with some cockamamie story that he cooked up.
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There are a lot of people who'd like
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to get their hands on him, I think.
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[ Chuckles ]
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Hey, it's Kyle from Nibletz.com,
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brought to you by the Round House,
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Alabama's fastest start-up space.
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Kyle Sandler. He was a...
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He was a character.
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Failure is good. Fail fast.
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When you're a start-up entrepreneur,
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failure is part of the game.
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There's this popular culture stereotype
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of start-up guys,
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and it's definitely Kyle.
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They use words like exit.
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They refer to money in "K."
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What am I going to do for the next four hours?
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Hustle, grind, and work, guys. That's what we do.
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Marsh: There's this idea of social capital,
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especially in small towns in the South.
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Everyone gets some social capital to start with,
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and you can either spend it wisely
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or you can spend it poorly, and he spent it poorly.
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And that is why he is in jail.
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♪♪
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[ Sirens wailing ]
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♪♪
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Opelika is such a small little town, you know.
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You drive through downtown and it looks very cute and historic.
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I covered everything Opelika related.
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I remember we had a black bear loose in downtown Opelika.
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Reporter: A wild morning in Opelika
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as a black bear wanders through...
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We ended up actually winning a bunch of awards
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for that coverage.
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Fuller: I'm just an old country mayor,
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but we've got so many things to be proud of.
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Shane: Your love for Opelika. Can't help yourself.
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[ Laughing ] Yeah, I got caught up in my own rhetoric.
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Of course, we have this thing called Touch-A-Truck,
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and there's every kind of truck
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that a kid wants to crawl all over.
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♪♪
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Marsh: I'm a bartender. I hear everything that goes on.
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I've lived in these 10 blocks my entire life.
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Hence my Opelika shirt
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and my Opelika tattoo.
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Isn't that great?
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We've always been an industrial city.
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We were very pivotal in the cotton trade
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and very rowdy for a long time.
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They used to tell people to duck
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when they came through on the train
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because people would always be shooting.
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Kyle Sandler...
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I should probably tell you how I met him the first time.
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So, he comes in and he starts telling us
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how he used to be at Google
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and he wants to come and spend some money in Opelika
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and he wants to build a coworking space, right?
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And like an incubator thing.
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Automated voice: #StartupAmerica.
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#Watch.
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The future is here.
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#AdidasSuperStar.
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Now this is just epic.
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Computer emoji.
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#MayTheForceBeWithYou.
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Kyle had this kind of nerdy look about him.
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You know, he wore his glasses, he always, always had
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his cellphone in his hand.
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He told everyone that he worked for Google at one point in time
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and that he had set his sights on Opelika
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because Opelika was Alabama's first gig city.
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♪♪
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We want to make the internet fun again
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with our new fiber-optic network.
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Our 1,000 megabits of unharnessed speed online
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is literally to the wall.
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Opelika was very proud of that claim to fame.
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Reporter: The Round House opened in November,
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as Opelika is only one of only seven cities in the nation
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offering fiber networks to businesses.
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We're attracting start-ups and companies
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from across the country that need access to big data.
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The first time I met him,
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he did say that he was gonna make Opelika
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the Silicon Valley of the east.
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Marsh: So, the Round House started in 2014,
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and in the beginning it was this very bright, exciting thing.
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Because what you had was like 20 start-up companies in there,
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and it was a Monster Energy and Red Bull-fueled
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pile of craziness.
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Almost every day, I'd head over.
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-Look, it's the bartender! -Whoo!
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Marsh: The first night, they had those hoverboards,
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and people were jousting with them.
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And there was a snack bar in there
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that he always kept stocked like a fat kid at Christmas.
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Just junk food everywhere.
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♪♪
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It was a hoot.
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It was just a strange, strange place.
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I'm a serial entrepreneur
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and I've had numerous business ideas.
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The most recent is called the Can-Can --
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a round, portable toilet.
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It was designed for advertising, so you would actually wrap it
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to make it look like beer cans, or batteries, or anything round.
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At the Round House, my role was basically a mentor
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for the young entrepreneurs.
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I would review business plans and look at their pitches.
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Weston: My project is called the West Vest,
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and it was a hunting vest for quail.
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There's four pockets on the front where you can keep stuff,
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and then in the back right here there's a zipper.
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And then there's, like, little cooling bags
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that go in in the back,
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and that's where you stick your birds whenever you shoot them.
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Eletrabi: I'm the co-founder and CEO of Tennibot.
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Think of Tennibot as Roomba for tennis balls.
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It runs around the court and picks up balls
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while you are playing.
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Jones: Everybody there was very passionate.
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You know, you go in there at 1:00, 2:00 a.m.,
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there was always a group of young entrepreneurs
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and maybe even Kyle, to some extent, staying there working.
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I think I got less than an hour of sleep.
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Jason's up! Jason, did you sleep here?
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What's up, Zuckerberg?
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Baas: The very first day of my job,
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they sit me at the front and said,
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"You're going to be the community manager."
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And I said, "I don't even know what that means, but okay."
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[ Laughs ]
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Alright. I'll find out what that means.
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I was super excited just to be a part of a movement.
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Automated voice: #TechCrunchDisrupt.
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#StartupLife.
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Coffee emoji.
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#SouthBySouthWest.
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I'm lovin' it.
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Baas: Kyle definitely had a way of talking about things
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that made you feel like, "Wow, I want to know about that."
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Like virtual reality.
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Like, buzzwords that people around here
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didn't necessarily understand and wanted to know more.
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He told me that he worked at Google,
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he was one of the very first Google employees,
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that he lived above an ice cream shop
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where all the very first Google people
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would go and get ice cream,
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and that he began to work with them from the very beginning.
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And I was like, "That's cool. Wow."
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It's Kyle the Droid Guy live at Eureka Ball...
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Baas: He said he made a lot of money doing that.
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And then he went on to start a couple different start-ups,
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sold those and had good exits on those.
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He talked about big tech companies
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and different conferences.
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We're going to Defcon, which is going to be epic.
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If you went to Defcon with us last year,
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you guys know that we rented out a really big club
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and had over 5,000 people.
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He carried a persona of wealth.
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You know, he bought car after car after car.
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♪♪
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He had a sports car and he had a Hummer.
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I had seen Kyle driving around town
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a few times in his Jag and I was kinda like,
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"Whoa, okay, that does not look like
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it belongs here in downtown Opelika."
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♪♪
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Baas: Kyle needed investors,
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and Kyle was really great at marketing the Round House.
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He would pitch to investors,
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$10,000 got you one point in Round House.
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Wacker: I met Kyle at Rotary.
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And, of course, he was selling shares in the Round House.
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What was supposed to happen was we were investing
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in the Round House that would turn around
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and invest money in these young, in these small companies.
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And they would invest the money for a piece of the action,
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sort of like the television show "Shark Tank,"
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where they give somebody money,
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but they get a piece of the action in return, okay?
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And that money would then be divvied up
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between the investors.
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He was very subtle on how he sold stuff.
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He didn't pressure you to give him your money.
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You went to him and said,
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"I'd like to give you some of my money."
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That detached attitude, it was almost just like,
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"I don't give a fuck, you know. If you want to be in, you're in.
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If you're not, you're not."
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I think that probably drew people in, as well.
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I ultimately put $50,000 in.
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I know there were people that invested much more than that.
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Well, you know, I mean, aim high, miss high.
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Shoot for the moon, right?
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In America, you have to remember,
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we'd been dealing with a capital glut
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amongst the wealthiest people in this country for years.
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This is old, old, old money, right?
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And for a lot of older people, this was the first start-up guy
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they had ever met.
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Okay, now I'm ready. Sorry about that, everybody.
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Thanks for listening to Opelika radio.com.
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And today I hope to see you at the Round House
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for lunch and learn, a community meeting starting at noon
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with free pizza from Marco's.
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And let's jam.
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Baas: Almost every day was a fun day at Round House.
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He opened the doors for anyone to come in
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and be a part of it.
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For myself, Kyle just tapped into my potential
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as a community leader.
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I never saw myself as that before.
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I mentored, I set up pitches and community events.
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We've done everything from helping Chris and Angela
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open up their ice cream business
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to very, very high-tech stuff and everything in between.
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He did some really nice things for people.
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He helped people.
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This morning, Liam called the shots.
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Baas: For example, there's a little boy had cancer,
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and he took him on a shopping spree.
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I could hear him whispering, "Yes, yes, yes!"
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And I was like, "Yeah, this is cool."
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Baas: He was super involved with different organizations
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that were fostering entrepreneurs.
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And so he would always go to those
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and then invite them into the Round House for pitches.
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Every single company that worked in there
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had ambitions to be great.
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So, um, I guess I'll start with my story.
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So, I'm -- My name is Parker Owen.
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Parker Scott Owen.
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I don't know how far back you wanna go.
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Through elementary school and through middle school,
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I was the most nerdy person you can imagine.
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But in an engineering kind of way, not like Comic-Con.
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In high school, I invented a prosthetic leg
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made from a bicycle for third-world use.
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I ended up winning an international engineering award,
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going to the White House,
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becoming a keynote speaker for about a year there.
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By the time that I graduated,
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I really wanted to just go to a state school
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and kind of just breeze through it.
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[ Drum line playing ]
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So, I ended up at Auburn University,
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where I started building my first company.
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The name of my company is Frapz -- fraternity wraps.
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Frapz was the leasing of college students' laptops
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for third-party advertisers.
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You can imagine this being like Coca-Cola, Pepsi.
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And we could actually detect
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how many people within a radius of about 15 to 20 feet
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you were advertising to in real time.
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At the time, we were about $600,000 dollars from finishing
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our $2.5 million round.
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There's a bunch of entrepreneurship professors
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from Auburn University that had invested in this
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incubator accelerator in Opelika.
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And they told me, "Man, you got to see this guy.
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His name is Kyle Sandler.
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He was one of the first 100 employees of Google."
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So I eventually walked in and met with Kyle.
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And he was extremely interested.
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He told me from point blank, he said,
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"This is something that I want to invest in.
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I can write you a check right now
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for the full $2.5 million,
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but I want to talk to some other people first."
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So I was like, okay.
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We'll finish this thing out.
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At some point, we gave paperwork to Kyle,
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and he signed for $500,000.
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So we had him on the hook, legally, did everything right.
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One of the things that happened next is on our way out,
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there was some press there from the local news...
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We're here at the Round House in downtown Opelika..."
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Owen: And there was this guy that was
293
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quite an interesting character himself.
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His name was John McAfee.
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And he said, "Boys, you want to know something?"
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You know, John McAfee?
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McAfee Antivirus software?
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Sure, we want to know something, right?
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And he told me, point blank, the first time that he met us
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is that he had done more cocaine than he weighs.
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And I was...
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I looked at Connor and I was like,
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"What did we get ourselves into?"
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Like, who are these people?
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[ Scoffs ]
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[ Laptop clatters ]
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Oh. Hello there. My name is John McAfee.
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I am the founder of the McAfee anti-virus software company.
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McAfee is one of the best-known names
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in anti-virus software.
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You've probably used it on your computer.
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Today, its founder and namesake John McAfee
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is being sought by authorities in Central America.
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Police in Belize want to talk to McAfee
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about the killing of his neighbor.
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McAfee: I've been on the move for two years
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because the government of Belize is trying to silence me.
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I have a great deal of information
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that implicates the government...
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He speaks with such a calm, consistent paranoia, right?
321
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You just get the sense that this is just reality
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and you just haven't noticed it yet.
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And, you know, "Let's go get lunch and talk about the time
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that I started a militia in Colombia."
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I actually asked Kyle
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why you were partnered with John McAfee,
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and he said, "Well, John's got a lot of credibility.
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Makes this place look good."
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Reporter: John McAfee founded Future Tense Central in 2013.
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McAfee is growing his company within Opelika's Round House.
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Fuller: There was a story in USA Today
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where McAfee had a pistol.
333
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Kyle got all upset
334
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:17,000
because he thought that was going to upset me.
335
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:21,000
And so McAfee himself called me about that, and I said,
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"Hey man, this is Alabama."
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00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:25,000
I said, "Everybody's got a gun."
338
00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:27,000
I got one myself.
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00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:31,000
Marsh: John McAfee comes in, and this is where we see
340
00:16:31,000 --> 00:16:33,000
this first pivotal change.
341
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:35,000
A lot of the credibility of the Round House
342
00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,000
starts getting tied to McAfee's name.
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00:16:38,000 --> 00:16:40,000
Of course, the best thing is
344
00:16:40,000 --> 00:16:43,000
McAfee says he's running for president.
345
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:45,000
Alabama's first gig city is now the home
346
00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:47,000
to a presidential campaign headquarters
347
00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:49,000
for the first time ever.
348
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,000
The office right as you came in on the left
349
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:56,000
was the international headquarters for the election
350
00:16:56,000 --> 00:16:58,000
for John McAfee. [ Laughs ]
351
00:16:58,000 --> 00:17:00,000
It is near certain that the authors
352
00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,000
of America's Declaration of Independence
353
00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:04,000
could not have anticipated a world
354
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:07,000
in which spy cameras are hidden in cactuses.
355
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♪♪
356
00:17:45,000 --> 00:17:50,000
♪♪
357
00:17:59,000 --> 00:18:01,000
[ Train horn blows ]
358
00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:14,000
Hughes: I met Kyle in February of 2015,
359
00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,000
when I joined the Opelika Rotary Club.
360
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:19,000
I think there were some definite folks in Opelika,
361
00:18:19,000 --> 00:18:21,000
I think there were some folks in Opelika leadership
362
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:23,000
that really thought Kyle Sandler
363
00:18:23,000 --> 00:18:25,000
was going to do big things for Opelika.
364
00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:27,000
There were some folks that were drinking the Kool-Aid
365
00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:29,000
as far as Kyle Sandler went,
366
00:18:29,000 --> 00:18:30,000
there's no question.
367
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:34,000
Me personally, I'm for innovation, disruption,
368
00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:39,000
and bringing business and great living to the city of Opelika.
369
00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:41,000
Owen: He was gaining a lot of traction.
370
00:18:41,000 --> 00:18:43,000
And he brought in more and more investors,
371
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,000
people from across the country.
372
00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:47,000
More and more companies.
373
00:18:47,000 --> 00:18:49,000
They had a day named after him.
374
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:50,000
Kyle Sandler Day.
375
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,000
The mayor showed up, and he had a...
376
00:18:53,000 --> 00:18:55,000
[laughing] thing that he pulled out.
377
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:59,000
This is a proclamation proclaiming today
378
00:18:59,000 --> 00:19:01,000
as Kyle Sandler Day.
379
00:19:01,000 --> 00:19:03,000
Owen: It was official at that point.
380
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:07,000
And you'd seen the biggest grin you've ever seen
381
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:08,000
on Kyle's face.
382
00:19:08,000 --> 00:19:09,000
He was -- He was loving it.
383
00:19:10,000 --> 00:19:11,000
He was just eating it up.
384
00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,000
Congratulations! [ Cheers and applause ]
385
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:17,000
It was a time of just great exuberance,
386
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:20,000
and people had just the most optimistic version
387
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:24,000
of what the outcome could potentially be.
388
00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:28,000
Wacker: Kyle had this young entrepreneur.
389
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,000
He was the rising star of the Round House.
390
00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,000
He was what was going to put it on the map.
391
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:36,000
You know, this was -- this was the home run.
392
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:40,000
I am Taylor Rosenthal, CEO of RecMed first-aid kits.
393
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,000
RecMed is a first-aid vending machine company
394
00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:44,000
that helps consumers get convenient
395
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:46,000
and fast access to first aid.
396
00:19:47,000 --> 00:19:49,000
We have a start-up in house that was founded by
397
00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,000
a now 14-year-old boy named Taylor Rosenthal,
398
00:19:52,000 --> 00:19:55,000
who was declared Opelika's youngest entrepreneur
399
00:19:55,000 --> 00:19:56,000
by the Opelika Observer.
400
00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,000
Myself and the OANews photographer went to Round House
401
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:04,000
to do an interview with Taylor and with Kyle.
402
00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:07,000
They were working on a prototype at the time.
403
00:20:07,000 --> 00:20:10,000
Kyle was just kind of there in the background
404
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:11,000
and then would pipe in with,
405
00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:14,000
"Taylor's gonna be a multimillionaire by the time
406
00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:16,000
that he's in the 10th grade."
407
00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:20,000
Everybody noticed that Taylor has got some big things brewing.
408
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:22,000
A new prototype is on the way.
409
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:26,000
Hurley: I was also told that Six Flags was interested
410
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:29,000
in purchasing the first 100 machines.
411
00:20:30,000 --> 00:20:32,000
-Who's your partner? -Um, Kyle Sandler.
412
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:37,000
Hurley: The next thing you know, Taylor is being invited
413
00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:40,000
to these various tech shows.
414
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:42,000
And that really kind of fueled the fire.
415
00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:45,000
Taylor stories were really blowing up.
416
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:49,000
I mean, people were so invested in his journey.
417
00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:51,000
I was just kind of rolling with it
418
00:20:51,000 --> 00:20:54,000
and I recognized that Taylor was,
419
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:57,000
in many ways, sort of Opelika's sweetheart.
420
00:20:58,000 --> 00:20:59,000
Varney: Our next guest
421
00:20:59,000 --> 00:21:01,000
is a 14-year-old young man from Alabama.
422
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:04,000
Baas: Everyone loved the fact that he was on television.
423
00:21:04,000 --> 00:21:06,000
Everyone was excited for him.
424
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,000
Taylor Rosenthal could soon be earning big bucks.
425
00:21:09,000 --> 00:21:12,000
Reporter: He's already raised $100,000 from local investors.
426
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,000
Bolton: Great to see you. Thanks for coming in.
427
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:17,000
Baas: We even had like a viewing party for Taylor.
428
00:21:17,000 --> 00:21:20,000
Everyone wants to believe in a 14-year-old boy.
429
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:23,000
[ Laughs ] I mean, we all believed in Taylor.
430
00:21:23,000 --> 00:21:27,000
Now, what's this about you got a $30 million offer
431
00:21:27,000 --> 00:21:29,000
for your company -- is that for real?
432
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:30,000
Yes, it is. Who offered that?
433
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:32,000
You don't have to use their name.
434
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,000
But what kind of company or person offered the money?
435
00:21:34,000 --> 00:21:37,000
It was a major healthcare company.
436
00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:39,000
And you turned it down? I did.
437
00:21:39,000 --> 00:21:42,000
I said earlier that you were a very smart young man.
438
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:45,000
What are you doing turning down $30 million
439
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:46,000
at the age of 14? Um...
440
00:21:47,000 --> 00:21:49,000
We felt like the time wasn't right.
441
00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000
We kind of wanted to grow and develop the company
442
00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:53,000
a little bit more.
443
00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:00,000
I was a little bit puzzled by the idea
444
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:06,000
that it had morphed into this $30 million idea
445
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:08,000
just in those couple of months.
446
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:11,000
Somebody went and put Band-Aids in the snack machine
447
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,000
at the OANews
448
00:22:13,000 --> 00:22:16,000
and was like, "Hey, look, $30 million."
449
00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:18,000
Reporter: He says his magic number is a bit higher.
450
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:20,000
$50 million. $50 million?
451
00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:21,000
Yes.
452
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,000
Once he cashes out, he says he'll put aside money
453
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,000
to buy a Bentley.
454
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,000
That's when I said, "Man, there's something wrong here."
455
00:22:28,000 --> 00:22:32,000
To hear that this kid turned down $30 million,
456
00:22:32,000 --> 00:22:35,000
not even for a product, but an idea --
457
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:38,000
I mean, that's -- it's bullshit. [ Chuckles ]
458
00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,000
I'm sorry for my language, but it ain't right.
459
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:42,000
That's kinda when I started getting suspect.
460
00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:45,000
I remember even emailing Kyle telling him, "Hey, I don't think
461
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:47,000
RecMed's -- you know, I don't think you'll get a patent
462
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:49,000
'cause there's actually a thing called the Pixus."
463
00:22:49,000 --> 00:22:52,000
That's a machine that hospitals use to vend,
464
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,000
you know, their Band-Aids and their cough drops
465
00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:57,000
and things like that. So I felt it was too similar.
466
00:22:57,000 --> 00:23:00,000
Taylor's invention was some sort of vending machine
467
00:23:00,000 --> 00:23:02,000
for medical supply.
468
00:23:02,000 --> 00:23:05,000
It felt like something doesn't add up.
469
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,000
Kyle -- he mentioned he had worked at Google,
470
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:09,000
but I couldn't find anything online talking about Google.
471
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:12,000
He mentioned he sold his company to Yahoo
472
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:14,000
and walks around in a Yahoo T-shirt.
473
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:16,000
Looking into this, I can't find any information,
474
00:23:16,000 --> 00:23:17,000
no press release from Yahoo
475
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:19,000
about any acquisitions in the area,
476
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:22,000
so that's why I had grown suspicious.
477
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,000
I wasn't thinking con artist.
478
00:23:24,000 --> 00:23:27,000
I'm just thinking weird vibe.
479
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,000
We decided not to move forward
480
00:23:29,000 --> 00:23:33,000
and not to be involved as part of the space.
481
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,000
Hughes: I remember going to the Round House the first time.
482
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,000
It was almost like they were filming a story
483
00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:39,000
about a Hollywood start-up.
484
00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:41,000
That's the impression I got.
485
00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:44,000
[ Fanfare plays ]
486
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:53,000
♪♪
487
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:55,000
My first impression when I walked in
488
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:59,000
is here's a guy, he's playing the part.
489
00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:06,000
Kyle was just talking fast and swilling his Red Bull.
490
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:12,000
♪♪
491
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,000
I saw a lot of money being spent,
492
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:16,000
a lot of money going out,
493
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:18,000
but I couldn't for the life of me figure out,
494
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:20,000
where's the money coming in from?
495
00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:28,000
♪♪
496
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:08,000
♪♪
497
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,000
[ Bell tolling ]
498
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,000
Owen: It'd been four or five months
499
00:25:16,000 --> 00:25:18,000
since we had been in Round House
500
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,000
and we haven't gotten a check.
501
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:23,000
We're running on 8 grand at this point.
502
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:25,000
We're bled out.
503
00:25:25,000 --> 00:25:30,000
And I told Kyle, I was like, "Kyle, I need your check."
504
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:33,000
And he just kind of smirked.
505
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:38,000
And then it was like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
506
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,000
He flipped.
507
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:45,000
He said, "Lemme tell you how this game is played, boys."
508
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:47,000
And... [ Chuckles ]
509
00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:52,000
He said, "We're gonna have to renegotiate."
510
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:58,000
I think he enjoyed being in a position of power over somebody.
511
00:25:58,000 --> 00:26:01,000
More like the Godfather than anything.
512
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:02,000
He wanted to be that guy.
513
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,000
A gangster.
514
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,000
Which he kind of was.
515
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:09,000
So we left.
516
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,000
We took all of our documents, all of our stuff,
517
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:13,000
with boxes in hand out the door.
518
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:16,000
And that is the day that everybody knew
519
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,000
that the jig was up.
520
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:20,000
Because we were the only company
521
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,000
that had raised money prior to being there.
522
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,000
So, it's what happened.
523
00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:31,000
I lost my livelihood and my company
524
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:33,000
and our future
525
00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:35,000
because of that.
526
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,000
Marsh: I think, really, if you chart it,
527
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,000
it all kind of makes sense, right?
528
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:46,000
It's kind of the progression of a guy getting deeper
529
00:26:46,000 --> 00:26:48,000
and deeper and deeper and deeper.
530
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:50,000
And knowing he's in over his head,
531
00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,000
but, you know, there's no way back,
532
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,000
and so you have to keep going forward.
533
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,000
About this time, he starts the second Round House
534
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:04,000
down in lower Alabama and he starts traveling a lot.
535
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:11,000
My voice in my head screamed the moment that he left town,
536
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:14,000
going, "Why is he not here?
537
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:17,000
Why is he not answering these emails?
538
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,000
Why is he avoiding people?"
539
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,000
Investors definitely were looking for answers,
540
00:27:24,000 --> 00:27:26,000
and wanting a meeting.
541
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,000
And Kyle, he kept putting that off and putting that off.
542
00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:30,000
And then at one point, you know, he just said,
543
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,000
"I'm going to buy them all out.
544
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:34,000
I'll buy every one of them out."
545
00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:38,000
And he told me that he had a big annuity
546
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,000
that came every year,
547
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:41,000
that he would get
548
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:43,000
a million dollars.
549
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:44,000
And I was like, "Wow."
550
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,000
And he's like, "Yeah, it's my Google money.
551
00:27:46,000 --> 00:27:51,000
It's to protect me from touching it too much."
552
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,000
I said, "Okay, if that's the plan, great."
553
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,000
His birthday, the annuity day, was coming up, and I felt
554
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,000
like a release, like here we are, we're almost there.
555
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:06,000
We were all kind of getting ready for that investor meeting
556
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:07,000
and this buyout.
557
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,000
And Kyle comes in and he starts working on his computer.
558
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,000
He was feverishly doing something.
559
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:18,000
He called me and a colleague of mine into his office
560
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:20,000
and he said, "I just want you to know
561
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:22,000
everything's going to be okay.
562
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:23,000
You know, everything's going to be fine."
563
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:25,000
And he slid this paper across
564
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,000
and it was like a Fidelity report of his investments
565
00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,000
and all the things that he was worth.
566
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:35,000
But my colleague just looked at him and said,
567
00:28:35,000 --> 00:28:36,000
"I saw you,
568
00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:38,000
and I saw you out there,
569
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:40,000
and you were on Photoshop
570
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:45,000
Photoshopping that Fidelity logo on that.
571
00:28:45,000 --> 00:28:47,000
This is bullshit.
572
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:50,000
This right here is fake."
573
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:53,000
And my heart just, like, sank.
574
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:57,000
This is crazy. [ Laughs ] Really?
575
00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:02,000
You're going to forge a document just for me to believe in you?
576
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,000
I left that day.
577
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,000
Hughes: I can remember sitting at my desk
578
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:14,000
getting a phone call from Kyle
579
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:17,000
and he was kind of whispering, he was talking very, very fast.
580
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,000
It was almost as if he was hiding somewhere
581
00:29:20,000 --> 00:29:22,000
and the police were outside his door.
582
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,000
And he was just flooding with,
583
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,000
"They've got me. I'm busted.
584
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:29,000
Listen, this whole thing was a scam."
585
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:31,000
I was like, "Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on."
586
00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:32,000
I said, "Kyle..."
587
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:34,000
I said, "I'm your friend.
588
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,000
You know, you need to be careful."
589
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:40,000
I said, "I'm, you know, a few weeks from being sworn in
590
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:41,000
as the district attorney.
591
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:43,000
If it is what you're saying,
592
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,000
I may have to prosecute this case."
593
00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:48,000
I said, "So you need to stop talking right now."
594
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,000
And he goes, "No, man, I just wanna talk, I just wanna talk.
595
00:29:50,000 --> 00:29:53,000
I don't care about any of that. I'm caught, I'm busted."
596
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:54,000
He goes, "I want to make it right.
597
00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:56,000
I want to make it right."
598
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,000
He did have contrition in his voice,
599
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:01,000
like he felt bad that he did this to these people
600
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,000
that were his neighbors and his friends and trusted him.
601
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:08,000
He almost sounded like he really cared.
602
00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:10,000
Baas: I think it was a couple days later he came down
603
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,000
and he shut Round House down.
604
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:17,000
Kyle walked in
605
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:21,000
and he said that he was really sorry,
606
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:23,000
the money's not there.
607
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,000
It was all a lie.
608
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,000
And so...
609
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,000
I had to, like, confirm it one more time with him.
610
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,000
Like, I remember pulling him aside and being like,
611
00:30:35,000 --> 00:30:38,000
"You mean the annuity, the million dollars every year,
612
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:40,000
that's not real?"
613
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:44,000
And he said,"No, it's not. I don't have the money."
614
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:49,000
Hughes: I think the city of Opelika
615
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:51,000
collectively, you could've knocked over
616
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:53,000
with a feather when this came out.
617
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:56,000
I mean, Round House was so intertwined
618
00:30:56,000 --> 00:31:00,000
with the city of Opelika and the gig internet
619
00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:02,000
and everything that was going on.
620
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:05,000
I mean, everybody was just floored.
621
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:07,000
I went into Kyle's office that very next day
622
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,000
and his computer was gone.
623
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,000
He lickety-splitted out of town
624
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,000
before he got tarred and feathered.
625
00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,000
Baas: You had investors coming in, they were angry.
626
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:24,000
They were going into filing cabinets and stealing files,
627
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:27,000
and people were trying to collect computers,
628
00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:29,000
anything that was there that was left.
629
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:37,000
♪♪
630
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:39,000
Marsh: It's like if you've ever seen one of those videos
631
00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:41,000
where somebody throws a ping-pong ball
632
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:43,000
into a room full of mouse traps?
633
00:31:43,000 --> 00:31:45,000
It's chaos for a minute,
634
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,000
and then everything's gone
635
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:50,000
and it all falls silent.
636
00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:54,000
And the Round House was kind of left as this husk.
637
00:31:57,000 --> 00:32:01,000
And then I think, very quickly after him,
638
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:05,000
you know, ending the Round House,
639
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:09,000
that's when he publicly said he didn't work for Google.
640
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:12,000
And again, that was, for me, like a -- whew!
641
00:32:12,000 --> 00:32:15,000
What? You kidding me?
642
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,000
You didn't work for Google?
643
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:21,000
Like, the very thing that you started your lies with with me,
644
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:24,000
that was the foundation of it. [ Chuckles ]
645
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,000
That was hard.
646
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,000
That was very hard. Mm-hmm.
647
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,000
We were all just trying to get answers.
648
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:36,000
I mean, who is this guy who lied to all of us?
649
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:42,000
Would it better if we held hands?
650
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:46,000
-[ Laughs ] -That's good. Yeah, it works.
651
00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,000
So, when we were growing up,
652
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:53,000
we knew Kyle Sandler, um, starting...
653
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:55,000
He was always around.
654
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:57,000
Yeah.
655
00:32:57,000 --> 00:33:00,000
We grew up in Maryland.
656
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:03,000
In high school, everyone knew him as the kid
657
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,000
who burned the putt-putt down.
658
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:08,000
We have rumor
659
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:13,000
that he was also burning bridges in the area.
660
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:16,000
He did burn things.
661
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:19,000
And then the report card.
662
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,000
So, his parents had promised him something
663
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,000
if he got, like, a really good report card.
664
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:28,000
And so he photocopied my report card
665
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,000
and he took the letters
666
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,000
and cut them out and pasted them over his,
667
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:36,000
and then photocopied that and gave it to his parents.
668
00:33:36,000 --> 00:33:39,000
His parents were furious. Oh, they were so mad.
669
00:33:40,000 --> 00:33:41,000
Ugh!
670
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,000
He had a tough relationship with his dad.
671
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:47,000
It was definitely his mom he favored.
672
00:33:47,000 --> 00:33:50,000
She, I think, covered and protected him
673
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:52,000
for a long time, and he abused that.
674
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:56,000
He would take money from her purse all the time.
675
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:57,000
That was a normal thing for him.
676
00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:00,000
He treated it like it was a bank account.
677
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,000
His adoption always seemed to weigh over him.
678
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:08,000
He had a lot of questions about who he was when he was younger.
679
00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:12,000
I think if you dig real, real, real far down,
680
00:34:12,000 --> 00:34:14,000
I think probably at the root of all this
681
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:18,000
was just wanting to be loved and appreciated
682
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:19,000
and a part of something.
683
00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:21,000
That's really it, you know.
684
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:25,000
There's a certain definition to "lie"
685
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:28,000
where I don't believe it
686
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:30,000
and I'm passing it off as the truth.
687
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,000
But when you talk to Kyle, he does believe it.
688
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,000
Yeah. And he's passing it off as the truth.
689
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:39,000
Kyle really has not changed too much over the years.
690
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:45,000
I think he's just a bigger version of who he was back then.
691
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:51,000
Marsh: Now Kyle finds himself with an enormous amount of heat.
692
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,000
And he did this in Alabama.
693
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:54,000
The people that he's dealing with are not people
694
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:58,000
that are used to people not following through.
695
00:34:58,000 --> 00:34:59,000
And for all of the travails and problems
696
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:01,000
of the good ol' boys system,
697
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:04,000
one thing you can say is it does keep people honest.
698
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,000
And so they start chasing after him hard.
699
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,000
I got a call from an FBI agent.
700
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,000
I was, you know, "Whoa, this is crazy,
701
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,000
[ Laughing ] I'm getting interviewed by the FBI."
702
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,000
We started identifying all the witnesses,
703
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,000
coordinating with headquarters and we initiated
704
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,000
an investigation shortly thereafter.
705
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:27,000
We did find a criminal history when we ran his name.
706
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,000
He used aliases and secured different loans
707
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:32,000
using different names.
708
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:36,000
Owen: Kyle had been in several other places around the country
709
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:40,000
and was a convicted felon of forgery.
710
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,000
Purves: How does one become a crook?
711
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:47,000
I don't think anybody looked him up.
712
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:49,000
That was the thing that amazed me afterwards.
713
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,000
Nobody had bothered to check his credentials.
714
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,000
And he walked into town, gave this wonderful story,
715
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:57,000
and he was believed.
716
00:35:57,000 --> 00:35:59,000
He was confident.
717
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,000
I think that's what people were drawn to, was the confidence.
718
00:36:01,000 --> 00:36:03,000
Now, I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that are saying,
719
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:06,000
"Kyle, well you know, you've got -- you're well off,
720
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:09,000
you do well, you travel all over the place."
721
00:36:09,000 --> 00:36:10,000
He did not look the part.
722
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:16,000
No 20- or 30-million-dollar person has bad teeth.
723
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:21,000
And I remember, we went up to his house for a party
724
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,000
that he was throwing on for some of his entrepreneurs,
725
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:26,000
bringing in more investment dollars.
726
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:27,000
And it was just nasty.
727
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:31,000
He had dogs and cats and birds.
728
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,000
And he never cleaned up after the --
729
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:37,000
I mean, there was feces on the floor.
730
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:42,000
Oh, my God, did he trash that house.
731
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:46,000
It was really a mess.
732
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:47,000
Owen: I remember one night
733
00:36:47,000 --> 00:36:49,000
I went to his house for movie night.
734
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:51,000
You could just see a whole playlist of just
735
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:53,000
"American Greed," "American Greed," "American Greed."
736
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,000
That was like his favorite show.
737
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:57,000
Man #1: The limit on the credit card
738
00:36:57,000 --> 00:36:59,000
was the only thing that stopped him.
739
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:01,000
Man #2: They exceeded the greed limit.
740
00:37:01,000 --> 00:37:03,000
He loved "American Greed."
741
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,000
Which I thought was very interesting in hindsight.
742
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,000
I guess if you are a con artist, you study con artists.
743
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,000
Was Kyle learning how to be a better criminal?
744
00:37:13,000 --> 00:37:15,000
Yeah, I think so. I think so.
745
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:19,000
It was a very long time until they caught him.
746
00:37:19,000 --> 00:37:21,000
Hughes: It almost became a running joke
747
00:37:21,000 --> 00:37:22,000
of, well, the FBI's here, the FBI's there.
748
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:25,000
Have you heard from Sandler? And I think by that point,
749
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:28,000
nobody really thought they would see him again.
750
00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:31,000
We knew he'd fled. We had an idea that he was in Texas.
751
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:35,000
He didn't really try to hide the money trail.
752
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,000
Officer: Hey, Kyle, come here. Talk to me.
753
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:42,000
Officer Shuer, Bryan Police Department.
754
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:44,000
How you doing? -I'm good. How are you?
755
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,000
Gravelle: In Texas, he had started another scam.
756
00:37:47,000 --> 00:37:48,000
Take this bag off for me.
757
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:51,000
Yes, ma'am, do you have your ID on you?
758
00:37:51,000 --> 00:37:55,000
Gravelle: In fact, he was married to three women at once.
759
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,000
He didn't divorce any of them. He just kept moving on.
760
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:01,000
The last one, he had convinced her to quit her job,
761
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:05,000
start this LLC, was going to try and oversell stock
762
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:07,000
like he did with Round House.
763
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,000
He got handcuffed, you know, right there in front of her.
764
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,000
That was the first she realized something was amiss.
765
00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:14,000
Officer: He's got a warrant out of Maryland, too.
766
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,000
Did you know about that one?
767
00:38:16,000 --> 00:38:18,000
No, I don't know anything.
768
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:23,000
I think the third wife, she got it annulled after --
769
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,000
at least that's what I heard.
770
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:31,000
When Kyle was arrested, the first thing
771
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,000
everyone wants to know is, what did they get him on?
772
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,000
And where did everyone's money go?
773
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,000
That was the only conversation.
774
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:42,000
But the immediate thing thereafter was --
775
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:43,000
we got this fucker.
776
00:38:43,000 --> 00:38:45,000
It was jubilant.
777
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:46,000
Like, there were many a drink bought
778
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:48,000
because Kyle Sandler was going to jail.
779
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:52,000
I got a text message of a video of him being arrested,
780
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,000
and it just brought a big smile to my face.
781
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:56,000
[ Laughs ]
782
00:38:56,000 --> 00:38:58,000
Marsh: There was a sense of justice.
783
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,000
This guy screwed our town to get some cheap thrills
784
00:39:01,000 --> 00:39:02,000
and buy a junky car or two.
785
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:05,000
It was pretty cool that, you know, the town of Opelika
786
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:08,000
is the one that took him down.
787
00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:12,000
Reporter: Kyle Sandler, the man charged for his role
788
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:16,000
in a scheme that swindled over $1.9 million
789
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,000
out of more than 50 investors,
790
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:22,000
appearing in court Tuesday physically trembling.
791
00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:27,000
Kyle sold basically more of the company that existed.
792
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:29,000
That's fraudulent. You can't do that.
793
00:39:29,000 --> 00:39:30,000
The people in Opelika,
794
00:39:31,000 --> 00:39:33,000
they wanted their pound of flesh.
795
00:39:33,000 --> 00:39:36,000
Wacker: Several of us went down for the sentencing.
796
00:39:36,000 --> 00:39:38,000
I got up and I addressed the court.
797
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:43,000
It's pretty hard to admit that you got taken for a ride.
798
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,000
It was stolen from me with a smile,
799
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:47,000
and I gave it over with a smile.
800
00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,000
That's the part that hurt about it.
801
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,000
Reporter: His state sentence is 12 months in jail.
802
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:53,000
He will then be sent to a federal prison
803
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:57,000
to serve around five years for his federal sentence.
804
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,000
Automated voice: This call is from a federal prison.
805
00:40:46,000 --> 00:40:51,000
♪♪
806
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,000
[ Train horn blows ]
807
00:40:57,000 --> 00:41:03,000
♪♪
808
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,000
Baas: My husband came up the steps of our porch
809
00:41:07,000 --> 00:41:10,000
and he said, "You got a letter from Kyle."
810
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,000
And I was like, "Whoa, okay."
811
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:21,000
"Inmate at the Montgomery city jail."
812
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:25,000
"When I started writing apology letters,
813
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:28,000
your name was at the top of the list."
814
00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:31,000
Mm.
815
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,000
"I'm sorry, Emily, for lying to you..."
816
00:41:36,000 --> 00:41:38,000
[ Chuckles ]
817
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:42,000
"...deceiving you without your knowledge,
818
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:45,000
and manipulating you.
819
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:49,000
I loved the good work we did
820
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:52,000
in the community you built."
821
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:54,000
I built. [ Chuckles ]
822
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,000
[ Sniffles ]
823
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:01,000
[ Inhales shakily ]
824
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:08,000
"Now, in retrospect, I could have probably built it with you
825
00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:10,000
and bootstrapped and honest."
826
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:15,000
[ Sniffles, sighs ]
827
00:42:16,000 --> 00:42:21,000
♪♪
828
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:23,000
Kyle sold me this picture.
829
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:26,000
I believed in that dream,
830
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:30,000
and I wasn't going to let him or anyone else ruin that.
831
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:33,000
So, I get a text message from a man
832
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,000
who said he was going to restart a coworking space.
833
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:41,000
And he said, "I hear you are the person that made that place."
834
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,000
And he said, "Would you consider coming back to work?"
835
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:46,000
And I said, "Yeah.
836
00:42:46,000 --> 00:42:48,000
Let me Google you first." [ Laughs ]
837
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:50,000
-Congratulations. -[ Applause ]
838
00:42:50,000 --> 00:42:53,000
Reporter: Located in the heart of downtown Opelika,
839
00:42:53,000 --> 00:42:56,000
Collaboration Station brings together entrepreneurs
840
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:58,000
and small business owners.
841
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,000
Baas: I have every office full and I have 21 new offices
842
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:06,000
and we are opening a second location.
843
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:08,000
I don't want to give any credit to Kyle.
844
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:09,000
None whatsoever.
845
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Like, I don't think he deserves any credit.
846
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:17,000
But I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't met him.
847
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:21,000
I really came into my own as an adult
848
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,000
and as a professional because of him.
849
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,000
I'm want to leave this town better than I found it.
850
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:28,000
[ Laughs ]
851
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:31,000
And I don't plan on leaving anytime soon, so...
852
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:33,000
This is my home. And I love it.
853
00:43:33,000 --> 00:43:35,000
I love Opelika.
854
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:39,000
[ Indistinct conversations ]
855
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:41,000
Marsh: If you just read the story,
856
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:44,000
you think, you know, this con artist came in
857
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:47,000
and took all these poor schmucks
858
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:49,000
in this Alabama country bumpkin town
859
00:43:49,000 --> 00:43:50,000
and killed their town.
860
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:52,000
And that's not true.
861
00:43:52,000 --> 00:43:53,000
Opelika's doing great.
862
00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:56,000
And we're probably better for going through it.
863
00:43:56,000 --> 00:43:58,000
[ Bell tolling ]
864
00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:00,000
Why pick Opelika? [ Chuckles ]
865
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:02,000
Not the first place you go to, really, is it?
866
00:44:02,000 --> 00:44:05,000
And then once you've been here, it's a lovely place to live.
867
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,000
As he found out, I think -- until he got caught.
868
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:10,000
[ Laughs ]
869
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:17,000
♪♪
870
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,000
[ Cellphone ringing ]
871
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:23,000
District Attorney Brandon Hughes.
872
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:17,000
♪♪
873
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:26,000
♪♪
874
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:35,000
♪♪
875
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:44,000
♪♪
63921
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