The Silk Road quickly ballooned into $1.2 billion enterprise, and Ross embraced his new role as kingpin. All the investigators knew was that whoever was running the site called himself the Dread Pirate Roberts. Spurred by a public outcry, the federal government launched an epic two-year manhunt for the site’s elusive proprietor, with no leads, no witnesses, and no clear jurisdiction. It wasn’t long before the media got wind of the new Web site where anyone-not just teenagers and weed dealers but terrorists and black hat hackers-could buy and sell contraband detection-free. In 2011, a twenty-six-year-old libertarian programmer named Ross Ulbricht launched the ultimate free market: the Silk Road, a clandestine Web site hosted on the Dark Web where anyone could trade anything-drugs, hacking software, forged passports, counterfeit cash, poisons-free of the government’s watchful eye.

That’s all it took to launch his website, the Silk Road.The unbelievable true story of the man who built a billion-dollar online drug empire from his bedroom-and almost got away with it. Using an alias, Ross left a few messages advertising its existence on drug-related forums. The recent invention of Bitcoin had made his pipe dream realistic, and he was so excited that he worked long hours teaching himself the code he needed to build the site. After a handful of failed business ventures, Ross began working long hours to develop an idea he’d been toying with for some time: an online marketplace where people could buy and sell anything from drugs to guns without fearing for their safety or privacy. Julia quit school and followed him to Austin, Texas, where his family lived. He was politically active on campus to the point where his libertarianism distracted him from his studies, which led to a dismissal from his PhD program in 2010.

Ross was a 24-year-old graduate student at Penn State when he met his girlfriend, Julia.

The author traces how Ross transformed his nascent idea for an “eBay for drugs” on the Dark Web into a multimillion dollar business, as well as the team of crafty feds who brought him down-and ultimately put him behind bars for life. PREVIEW: American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton tells the story of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of an illegal website that helped people buy and sell illicit goods anonymously. Start Publishing Notes’ Summary, Analysis, and Review of Nick Bilton’s American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road includes a summary of the book, review, analysis & key takeaways, and detailed “About the Author” section. PLEASE NOTE: This is a key takeaways and analysis of the book and NOT the original book.

American kingpin bilton