Overstock.com CEO: 'Progressives' Have Hijacked The Word Progress

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com stopped by  The Rich Zeoli Show on 1210 WPHT on Monday to discuss regulations and how it affects his ability to do business in today's market.

"It's like saying how much does atmosphere get in your way", Byrne described trying to hire an assistant to be on call and how the feds told him it was illegal.

"I need a strange kind of assistant, one who will work for me, but the truth is maybe once a week I will call, and the rest of the time is yours. You can work as much as you want, collect benefits, but at some point, I will call you at 2 a.m. and say I need a flight to Singapore, and you gotta be ready to take the call and do it. The feds cam in an audited us and told us it was illegal because technically he is on- call all the time and he is owed two hundred thousand dollars in overtime", Byrne said. "So I canceled the job altogether. Here's a guy who have loved to have that job, but it doesn't work".

Byrne did not shy away from politics, he said, "Progressives have hijacked the word progress, they are taking it for granted that the things they want to do count as progress, they want us to assume that it would progress to have a much bigger and powerful state, so if they get to just capture the word progress, I figure I can capture the word freedom."

Byrne characterizes himself as a small L Libertarian.