In June of 2012, Alexander, the CEO of Mycelium invited myself and a number of other prominent Bitcoiners at the time to come and see his new product and plans for bitcoin.
It really wowed the ecosystem when first announced:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmGvE8nESw8
I believe Alexander even paid for most of the air tickets for people to come.
As part of the meeting, Alexander also paid for a Segway tour of Vienna for about a dozen of us.
As I recall, it was very expensive. Maybe several hundred dollars per person.
One of those invited was Amir Taaki.
At first the Segway tour was very pleasant and fun for all of us.
The tour guide was an Austrian lady in her mid 50's, who was very knowledgable about everything around the city.
Everyone was thoroughly enjoying the tour. The only problem is that Amir, for whatever reason, couldn't stay with the group.
He would constantly go off on his own with the Segway, and become separated from the group.
The tour guide was constantly having to chase him down and tell him to stay with the group.
The first several times he did this, she was very polite about it, but by about the fifth time he did this, she lost her temper and yelled at him a bit.
I think she said something along the lines of "What the hell is the matter with you? What part of your needing to stay with the group can't you understand?" All of the rest of us in the group were feeling equally annoyed with Amir at this point.
Apparently this wasn't enough for Amir though.
As anyone who has ever ridden a Segway knows, they take some getting used to, and the rider has to stay on it in order to keep it in control.
Apparently this was lost on Amir, although I'm not sure how.
Later on in our tour, Amir was actually near our group, but he noticed a rather large girl on the sidewalk holding a sign that said "free hugs".
This was too much for Amir to resist, so instead of stepping off and powering it down safely, he just hopped off his Segway to give the girl a hug and left the Segway on, but with no one in control of it. Without anyone to guide it, Amir's Segway instantly started going off on its own. It proceeded to go full speed out into a busy intersection filled with cars, it came within inches of being hit by a moving trolley, and eventually crashed at full speed into a tree, tipped over, and started gyrating on the ground.
Along with the rest of us, the tour guide lady looked on in shock as all of this happened. She then safely dismounted her Segway, powered it down, and then ran over to Amir's gyrating and shaking Segway to power it down as well. With the way it was hopping and shaking around on its side, I'm sure it got scuffed up a bit as well. Amir watched all of this happen directly due to his own fault, and rather than coming and apologizing to the tour operator, like a normal person would, he literally ran away down the street on foot, never to be seen again for the rest of the event.
As if all this wasn't bad enough, now the tour guide lady had an extra Segway, with no rider, a mile or so away from the Segway rental office.
It's not possible to ride and control two Segways at one time, so she had to get on her phone to call someone from the main office to come pick it up.
All of us were stuck waiting around for that person to come, and finally take the Segway back to be repaired. The guy who finally did arrive to take the Segway back has some real talent though. He was able to ride the Segway with one hand, while controlling the bicycle that he rode over on, in his other hand. We were all thoroughly impressed with his Segway and bicycle skills.
I don't think violence should be used to prevent people from putting whatever they want into their own bodies, including illegal drugs, but that doesn't mean using drugs is a good idea. I don't have any evidence other than my own suspicious, but due to Amir's strange behavior, and blood shot and watery eyes on that day, I suspect he may have been under the influence of something as well.
I chose to write this up today to show that Amir has a history of incredibly irresponsible behavior.
For those that don't know, back in 2012 Amir was hired to audit the source code of a privately held company called Bitcoinica.
Bitcoinica was hacked, tens of thousands of Bitcoin were stolen, including over 25,000 of my own. While an offer was on the table to buy the entire company, and make every single user 100% whole again, without permission, Amir released the source code publicly, destroying any chance for the company to be sold, and the users to be made whole again. In short, Amir has a long history of irresponsible behavior in the Bitcoin space and we should be very wary of having him be entrusted with any responsibility at all.
