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Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins

Folding Ideas · commentary · Watch on YouTube

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What it is

Dan Olson of Folding Ideas investigates the Mikkelsen Twins and the ghostwritten-audiobook passive-income course industry, even playing along with the scheme. It is a long video essay on get-rich-quick publishing grifts.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN links it whenever threads cover book spam, AI-written ebooks or passive-income hustle culture.

  • 10 people recommended it
  • 8 different months
  • 3 strong recommendations
  • first 2022, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “It is a great and informative watch.”

    In-depth look at the book factory get-rich-quick trend

    freediver, 2022-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Fake Books”

  2. “Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy”

    Uses the Mikkelsen Twins as representative of selling-the-dream grifts

    latexr, 2025-01 · Strong recommendation · in “Using coding skills to make passive income”

  3. “a very entertaining, highly-recommended, and intense gonzo video essay on the topic of the courses scams”

    Intense gonzo video essay on course scams

    pas, 2026-04 · Strong recommendation · in “The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs”

  4. “Relevant high quality and interesting video that dives in to the world of get rich quick book dumping schemes”

    Dive into get-rich-quick book dumping schemes

    TaylorAlexander, 2022-12 · Recommendation · in “Kindle novelists are using ChatGPT”

  5. “Reminds me of the excellent folding ideas video on these sort of scams”

    Explains a course scam built on ghostwritten audiobooks

    asddubs, 2023-02 · Recommendation · in “Hustle bros are jumping on the AI bandwagon”

  6. “definetly worth a watch”

    Explores a buyable program for mass-producing low-effort books

    fattless, 2023-02 · Recommendation · in “ChatGPT launches boom in AI-written e-books on Amazon”

  7. “I recommend”

    Takes apart passive-income course grifts

    fxtentacle, 2023-02 · Recommendation · in “You’re Not a Girlboss – You’re Just Trapped in an MLM Scheme (2020)”

  8. “Folding Ideas on youtube has an excellent explanation of the business model behind the rise of EBook Spam.”

    Explains the business model behind ebook spam

    bizzletk, 2023-09 · Recommendation · in “Amazon Limits Authors to 3 Books a Day to Combat AI-Generated Material”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: video essay, book spam, grifts, audiobooks, kindle publishing, online courses

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