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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#91
> Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this

"Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981

"Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown

"Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138

Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#92
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might open themselves up to lawsuits. Even if they will win the lawsuits, that's a money/time sink to deal with.

Is it still libel or defamation if it's all true?

No, but that's not the point.

Not everyone has $50k and the time to fight a libel/defamation suit.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#93
post #14

Welcome to the club. It's pretty much a rite of passage here to spend some time with a psychopath VC, a completely self absorbed CTO with a rich investor dad that fuels his fantasies, or an idiotic CEO with an ego problem, and to pay the price for it (just time if you're lucky, time+money if you're not). I've encountered this myself several times (down to the CEO using hire fast fire fast as a mantra), and judging fr…

> There are very few ways to tell accurately from the outset at first who's going to screw you over

Pay close attention to how they treat others.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#94

> Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this "Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown "Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861

Who was bruce?

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still libel or defamation if it's all true?

No, but that's not the point. Not everyone has $50k and the time to fight a libel/defamation suit.

True, but the alternative is letting people like this get away just because they have power and/or money. Tough situation to be in.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#96
post #55

I've dealt with late payroll before and the fear, uncertainty, and stress really sucked. I was even considering offering the company a 50% haircut on the wages that I rightfully earned already just so the stress would go away. Is there any bank or payroll company that offers a wage escrow service? As in, the company pays X months of wages in advance into a per-employee escrow account that's FDIC insured, and the empl…

A lot of companies would really struggle to put more than one or two pay cycles of pay in escrow.

I'd imagine less so for tech startups, since in their early life most of their money comes in big chunks of funding, but for a lot of smaller businesses that are self profitable (restaurants come to mind), they can't afford to keep wages in escrow, because that's money they'd have to borrow.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#97
post #56
post #14

Welcome to the club. It's pretty much a rite of passage here to spend some time with a psychopath VC, a completely self absorbed CTO with a rich investor dad that fuels his fantasies, or an idiotic CEO with an ego problem, and to pay the price for it (just time if you're lucky, time+money if you're not). I've encountered this myself several times (down to the CEO using hire fast fire fast as a mantra), and judging fr…

> It's pretty much a rite of passage here... most people have or will That's pretty silly. Plenty of people working in startups never put themselves through that kind of BS. There are at last two obvious strategies for avoiding the whole problem: (1) be a founder, (2) work in a more established tech company until you have the experience, personal network, and finances to intelligent pick a startup to work for.

Can confirm, did 1) and ended up with a deluded CEO cofounder, now in 2) and feeling much better.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#99

> Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this "Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown "Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861

Who was bruce?

Assuming http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ is correct then it might be Daniel Kim. The article mentions that he was one of the Business Development team.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#100
Penny, if you do end up reading the comments on here, be sure of a few things:

You have generated more traffic to their site than Jess ever will.

You are not alone in your experiences.

You are obviously a great professional and you will probably do well.

You have shamed the company into probable closure (which is a good thing) as the guy would get worse with more money and bigger teams.

For everyone involved in a startup there are huge risks. Most of the risks are borne by the founders, they get handsomely rewarded if things go well.

But they often don't. I wish the startup community would take heed at this great story and be more honest about the risks, instead of following the hype train.

Macho ego bullshit is to blame for a lot of wasted effort.

But it's really good to hear that you are back with your cat.

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