THE VIDEO SHELF · passive income scams
Contrepreneurs: The Mikkelsen Twins
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 HN readers recommended it
HN links it whenever threads cover book spam, AI-written ebooks or passive-income hustle culture.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Folding Ideas
- Topic
- passive income scams
- Format
- commentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 10
- HN mentions in dataset
- 20
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2022–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
The 'book factory business oppportunity' trend spotted in the article is explored in depth in this excellent Dan Olson video: [VIDEO] It is a great and informative watch.
freediver on Hacker News · 2022-10
In Fake Books> This is what I call meta advice. That’s what I call a grift. Your description reminded me of Dan Olson’s fantastic video on that type of strategy—where you make money by selling the idea that anyone can make passive income by doing something the …
latexr on Hacker News · 2025-01
In Using coding skills to make passive incomea very entertaining, highly-recommended, and intense gonzo video essay on the topic of the courses scams [VIDEO]
pas on Hacker News · 2026-04
In The "Passive Income" trap ate a generation of entrepreneurs
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.