On Friday May 5th, Billy McFarland, the 25-year-old founder of the disastrous Fyre Festival, told his shell-shocked employees that their paychecks covering the past two weeks would not be coming. Nor would he be firing them, a prerequisite for unemployment benefits in most states. Instead, McFarland offered to allow his dozen-or-so employees to stay on in unpaid roles, where they could work to grow the business to a place where they might get paid again.

The meeting, audio of which was obtained by VICE News, wrapped up weeks of uncertainty for the employees of Fyre Media, the company behind Fyre Festival, whose primary job had been building a celebrity and talent booking app the festival was intended to promote. Rapper and Fyre Media co-founder Ja Rule was on the grim conference call, but his role was that of a listener.

Read the full story here: news.vice.com/story/audio-fyre-f…bodys-getting-paid

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Editor’s note: We’ve combined remarks from the two speeches, each an hour long, into a single audio file, with beeps indicating editing. The speeches are titled, “Seven Things Every Christian Employee Should Know” and “Are You Ready? Protecting Your Church or 501(c)3 Ministry”

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