Sondhi’s turn against ‘the best Prime Minister Thailand ever had’ may not be unrelated to the involuntary departure of Viroj Nualkhair from Krung Thai Bank, due to the discovery of problem loans worth 40bn baht in its accounts; or to the government’s decision to scrap a plan to develop two new tv channels by splitting up an existing one, in which Sondhi had already invested. As for the peculiar fierceness of the ‘Sondhi phenomenon’, once his weekly talkshow had been taken off air, a deeper psycho-cultural cause might account for it. The two are much the same person: both grew rich by speculating in the booming 1990s stock mar- ket, both spoke in the bombastic terms of the self-styled global ceo, both made friends within the narrow circle of the intellectual and professional elite, both were braggarts and risk-takers who liked to boast about their visionary ideas. The main difference was that while one made it big, the other, more reckless, did not. The fact that each saw the other’s dark side only made it more difficult for them to reach a compromise.