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Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

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Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#31

Post by mtviewdave »

Animats wrote: post #18

What a mess. I knew Hacker Dojo was having problems, but didn't know the details. I was a member for a while a few years ago, at the previous location, but just to take classes. It's mostly a co-working space now. As of a year ago, people sat silently at laptops under harsh industrial lighting, coding apps into the night. Now that the get-rich-quick app boom is over, not sure what's going on there. $199 per month is…

The Dojo is still at 599 Fairchild (it's second location, where it's been since 2012). The lease will run out end of May. The Dojo has a potential new space in Santa Clara, though they have not signed a lease yet.

Marie Knox has been suspended, so I suspect the web description of her being in charge is merely out of date.

FYI, membership is $195/month. And yes, with TechShop at $125, and Founders Floor in downtown San Jose at $200/month, $195 seems far too high for what you get at Hacker Dojo.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#32

Post by veemjeem »

nongaap wrote: post #11
bickfordb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe this is a failure of the non-profit system: these charities are not required to make their finances transparent by the government or their funders

Transparency is very much part of the non-profit system. Non-Profits have to annually file an IRS Form 990 (it's like an annual report) which discloses finances and are required to have them available for public inspection during business hours. Sounds like Hacker Dojo was not following the rules already in place to prevent this sort of abuse.

The finance report wouldn't show individual transactions. So if you used the credit card to buy yourself $50 worth of groceries, it's likely to fly under the radar. Hacker Dojo does have the general breakdown of their finances publicly -- it's shown every month during their member meetings. However, one could easily hide the $50 in a general group like "janitorial supplies".

When someone embezzles $30k, they don't do it in one transaction. That would be far too obvious. If you space it out over a year, one could make it fairly invisible.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#33

Post by nongaap »

veemjeem wrote: post #32
nongaap wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transparency is very much part of the non-profit system. Non-Profits have to annually file an IRS Form 990 (it's like an annual report) which discloses finances and are required to have them available for public inspection during business hours. Sounds like Hacker Dojo was not following the rules already in place to prevent this sort of abuse.

The finance report wouldn't show individual transactions. So if you used the credit card to buy yourself $50 worth of groceries, it's likely to fly under the radar. Hacker Dojo does have the general breakdown of their finances publicly -- it's shown every month during their member meetings. However, one could easily hide the $50 in a general group like "janitorial supplies". When someone embezzles $30k, they don't do…

The finance report wouldn't have shown individual transactions but the financial controls required to properly put together those annual filings would have caught unusual activity (at the very least dis-incentivized prolonged mismanagement). Also keep in mind proper controls would include having accountants put together the reports and run internal audits.

The other issue is these charges (apparently) weren't invisible/low key transactions. If someone can literally thumb through recent statements and immediately identify suspicious activity like Gym memberships and Vegas trips then that's an obvious problem.

It's one thing if $30k was missing and the company was generating $30 million in cash flow but Hacker Dojo only has $300k in the bank and I have a hard time believing embezzling $30k could be as easily hidden in small transactions if proper controls were in place.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#34

Post by erikpukinskis »

dahdum wrote: post #4
calcsam wrote: post #3

It's pretty clear that Hacker Dojo isn't the strictest about accounting. Just look at their membership fee -- $100 / month, pay if you want. That said, Hacker Dojo doesn't work because recurring revenue > expenses. They work because of the tremendous goodwill they've built up in the community and a devoted base of supporters who are willing to help. Organizational controls should be aimed to strengthen that support -…

The goodwill was a huge part of why I continue to pay the membership despite hardly ever going. Finding out my dues were embezzled have certainly soured my opinion. I think transparency is more important than formalization.

> Finding out my dues were embezzled have certainly soured my opinion. I think transparency is more important than formalization.

Doesn't the fact that you know your dues were embezzled mean that they have in fact succeeded at being transparent? Seems like this is the best outcome. The alternative is that your money was embezzled and you never found out.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#35

Post by marincounty »

nongaap wrote: post #11
bickfordb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe this is a failure of the non-profit system: these charities are not required to make their finances transparent by the government or their funders

Transparency is very much part of the non-profit system. Non-Profits have to annually file an IRS Form 990 (it's like an annual report) which discloses finances and are required to have them available for public inspection during business hours. Sounds like Hacker Dojo was not following the rules already in place to prevent this sort of abuse.

It's not that difficult to abuse power in the non-profit system. I'm not referring to blatant theft by an employee, but other shinagigans usually by the founders--like mixing personal assets with the non-profit assets.

1. Is the non-profit in Deleware? So many shady non-profits set up shop in Deleware. When you read the requirements you will see exactly why. I've gotten to the point, I will only listen to CA non-profits when it comes to donating. California has some stringent requirements.

2. Yes--they have rules, and procedures, but there's a lot of people who don't follow the rules. The rules are getting harder to get around, but so many non-profits are there for one reason. The reason--provide a job, and a good wage to the founders. The Obama administration enacted rules that make non-profits more transparent though.

3. I have watched a few non-profit founders make, usually a husband and wife, very rich. I could go on at lenght, but tired, and it seems like no one really cares.

4. When ever I get someone asking for money for their little non-profit, I go to, forget the name--Guidestar. I download the free preview. I go to the bottom of all the pages, and look at their 1040's. I then look for the one, or two people making a lot of money. There's always one, or two individuals. I get so discouraged, and wonder if anyone in these nonprofits really cares about what they proclaim.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#36

Post by brbsix »

There's a brief bio here: http://behindthedojodesk.blogspot.com/p/about.html

One interesting quote: "My role and what I do has grown beyond what it was originally envisioned to be at Hacker Dojo, and frankly I'm not sure if there are too many terribly hard lines around what I do and don't do."

I get the feeling that she didn't have much in the way of supervision.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#37

Post by inDigiNeous »

As a Finnish person visiting Mountain View last year, I spent 2 weeks at Hacker Dojo coding on my project.

Very creative atmosphere there, and something that really doesn't exist here in Finland at that scale. Kinda sad to hear their name is being dragged down.

I felt it's a bunch of good people there, got to meet some of the people running the place too.

The next big thing could rise from places like Hacker Dojo, I wish them all the good and hopefully finding a new place.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#38

Post by alricb »

"At a hacker space, when you walk in, you've got to assume people are trying to crack (your computer). They can't help it," he said.

Poor little hackers, they have no self-control.

Also, isn't it standard practice in the US to present audited financials to an annual general assembly? With $300k in the bank, you should be able to afford to hire a CPA, no?

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#39

Post by emarkz »

From the trenches of those Dojo Members seeking to regain control of our nonprofit... In my opinion:

The last executive director was brought in to fund raise via grants and sponsorships, and failed miserably, instead raising that $400K ($300K + $100K stolen), off the backs of it's members by doubling membership fees, and converting a quarter of the Dojo into a private VC incubator.

He also wasn't an entrepreneur or a hacker, but more the slick politician type, and killed the Dojo culture, driving away most of the best volunteers and people, by ending member voting, spying on members, and banning anyone he didn't like (at the slightest of excuses at times). This and the previous board ignored members complaints, until he let the corporate status lapse, and there was no corporate veil for the board to hide themselves behind.

And now we are at war with this board, trying to gain back control that existed as a gentleman's agreement between the founders and the members, but wasn't written in the bylaws because clueless lawyers were consulted.

Also - the $30K number is a made up number by the most recent board member, who bought his board position, and is the most responsible for harassing the recently resigned whistleblower member. There are few to no records kept of the purposes of expenditures. If all unaccountable expenditures were added up - it'd be double or triple that $30K number...

Lesson: Bake your culture into your DNA, or when the good King era ends, the bad king era will begin...

Kind of blows my mind that in Silicon Valley - the Valley of the Disruptors, Hackers build an organization utilizing 100 year old feudal corporate antique autocratic bylaws.

Don't tell me we can't smart phone app, wisdom of the crowd, self govern our own hacker asses.

Re: Disarray at the Hacker Dojo

#40

Post by makomk »

diskcat wrote: post #16
bickfordb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe this is a failure of the non-profit system: these charities are not required to make their finances transparent by the government or their funders

Well the non-profit system isn't designed to allow people who embezzle money to be caught within a day or whatever. I don't think any accounting system is. The fact that the thief is eventually caught shows that the system does work, and the amount of damage that has been done isn't fatal to the organisation. There is going to have to be some amount of trust between the staff of an organisation and this trust can be…

No, it doesn't show that the system works. According to the article, the board had to be strong-armed into allowing members to elect Sudarshana Banerjee by someone they'd actually banned from the space, and she's since resigned under pressure from the rest of the board. It seems clear that the entire board is complicit in covering up the misuse of funds and the non-profit system has done nothing to stop this or to make it possible for members to discover that it has happened.
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