Wall Street War: A Win for Utahn (Steven Overbeck)

Byrne's battle helps bring curbs on naked short-selling practices

Over the past several years, Patrick Byrne's campaign to clean up Wall Street and end a practice that has destroyed companies and cost unwary investors billions of dollars, generated plenty of publicity for him, mostly the wrong kind.

{xtypo_quote_left}  "As we sat down he said, 'Patrick, I want you to know that you have become the most hated man I've ever known in all my life here in New York. Wall Street used to think so highly of you. You were kind of a golden boy. Now, you are despised more intensely than anyone I have ever known. You could kill people, and not be hated like they hate you in this town.' " {/xtypo_quote_left} 

Critics labeled him nuts, a conspiracy theorist, a complete wack job.

Byrne, the chief executive of the Utah-based discount online retailer Overstock.com, even found himself tagged a member of the "tin-foil hat" brigade, a reference to the flying saucer fanatics of the 1950s who adorned their heads with aluminium to ward off, or enhance, thoughts from aliens in outer space.

These days, when people talk of Byrne, the word "vindication" comes up a lot.

"You can always tell who the pioneers are - they're the ones with all the arrows sticking out of their backs," said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University. "You really can't understate what Byrne has accomplished."

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