A group of people at the top tier of the pyramid will decide on a product to buy whole-sale, typically from China or another cheap manufacturer. They will then "hire employees" to sell these products. However, the "employees" will have to buy the useless product from them at a cheaper price than what the employees will sell them at. Many naive people don't research into this, and believe that it will be easy to sell this product, and that the money they will spend on this useless product is an "investment. So, after you've begged all your family and friends to buy a blender or whatever your selling, you're stuck with a useless product and the top-tier of the pyramid makes profit from selling you something they bought wholesale anyway. 0 risk for the top tier, 100% of the risk of the lower tier.