Hmm. The bank statements seen by the finance dept. came from the CEO??? How do the "finance dept" not know that's an indication of fraud??
The more pressing question is how they passed an audit by EY?
CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
151–160 of 166 posts
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#152Innocent before proven Guilty but I have to say seeing all these CEOs being charged with Fraud is why there has been so much noise against Capitalism as a whole and CEOs get a bad rep by default. There are so many of us (working our butts off in the background without public stunts/investors etc) and then these idiots spoil it. Being a small bootstrapped CEO myself, I am always concerned about being as honest as poss…
The number of CEOs charged for fraud seems pretty small to me.
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
- where are the contracts corresponding to revenue? Yeah they are an SMB SaaS but this is financial, there will be contracts, NDAs, etc SMB, especially the small end of SMB, does not often have contracts. It's more subscription based. That said, there were 2 versions of the software running at NS8. One was the original software that Adam Rogas and a co-founder created early on. That version was rather "opaque" and re…
Obviously something terribly shady is going on here. I’m not disagreeing with you, I just don’t understand how any director level position, let alone an executive, wouldn’t be able to see serious irregularities if such a significant percentage of revenue was phony. There are just way too many knock-on effects when the overwhelming majority of your customers aren’t real, aren’t paying you, and aren’t putting any load…
When I was a young and naive c-level exec (CTO), the CEO of the company was lying about the numbers to investors and everyone else, but neither me or the coo noticed as we thought it was not our concern; we were doing our jobs which was not finance. While the judge gave us a slap on the wrist only when the company suddenly turned out to have no money, he said it was definitely part of our job to at least validate the numbers. But I know enough people now who will say it is not their job and if the ceo signed off, it is enough for them. So I can see it happen. We had clients (big ones) and we were just not privy, nor interested to be fair, to the contract size. The changes were things like 800k$ product sale heightened to 1.8m etc which was not really unlikely to us or investors. We should have checked...
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#15499% SV startups are scam. 99% VCs are Ponzi Schemes. So getting fucked by this CEO is nothing. LPs are lured by VCs to invest on scams. Ahahah God Bless America!
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#155Being an executive at a (substantially smaller) SaaS startup I have no idea how having up to 90% of your revenue be fabricated could happen without others knowing: - where are the contracts corresponding to revenue? Yeah they are SaaS focused on SMB but this is a financial product, there will be contracts, NDAs, etc - if the majority of the customers are fake there is such little load on the system. How does engineer…
None of it makes sense in the context of a well-run business with proper executives in place. That’s because these frauds don’t operate like a well-run business. Usually, the upper management teams are extremely lean. The business is broken up into different silos such that few people can see the big picture. Each is led to believe they are a tiny fraction of the overall revenue, giving them the impression that the b…
it sounds easier and more lucrative to simply be honest.
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#156I feel sorry for any CEO who actually steps down to spend more time with his/her family. That explanation has now more or less been completely co-opted by "Our CEO got caught in an embarrassing scandal and they need to fade from the public eye for a bit." I now assume that anyone who gives that reason on their way out must have done something terrible that is yet or about to come to light.
"I now assume that anyone who gives that reason on their way out must have done something terrible that is yet or about to come to light."
Maybe you should think about that a little bit more if you really feel sorry.
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have to take at least half you annual vacation starting tomorrow. Have fun! Yeah. That doesn't work. Forcing the same thing in a scheduled way may be a bit of an imposition but isn't unreasonable in general.
Doing so in an unscheduled way is beneficial for similar reasons you want to test when services go down in controlled circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_engineering Large companies simply have different risks. If someone quitting randomly is a huge risk for your business you want to know about it ahead of time to mitigate it while they still work for you. 1 random week of vacation every ~3 years shoul…
If you want to give me an unscheduled couple of weeks off with pay, I'm perfectly cool with that--so long as you don't hold it against me that work doesn't get done. Don't expect me to take it out of my limited planned vacation time though.I have my own plans. That would be a big FU for me.
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#158Hmm. The bank statements seen by the finance dept. came from the CEO??? How do the "finance dept" not know that's an indication of fraud??
The more pressing question is how they passed an audit by EY?
Considering wirecard, I'm thinking that an Ernst-Young audit isn't all that hard to pass. My question is, at what point does engaging EY become a negative signal?
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sometimes tribal/"team sport" group dynamics keep employees inline too. Executives can foster an "us against the world" mentality that blinds workers to that which is obvious to everybody else. When in this mindset, people have the ability to ignore even the most damning evidence. Here's an example: When Enron's CEO verbally attacked wall street analyst Richard Grubman for questioning Enron's accounting practices, En…
This is massively scalable. There are examples, but I do not want to get political.
> but I do not want to get political.
The question I keep asking myself is, if not now, then when?
Re: CEO of Cyber Fraud Startup NS8 Arrested by FBI, Facing Fraud Charges
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Doing so in an unscheduled way is beneficial for similar reasons you want to test when services go down in controlled circumstances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_engineering Large companies simply have different risks. If someone quitting randomly is a huge risk for your business you want to know about it ahead of time to mitigate it while they still work for you. 1 random week of vacation every ~3 years shoul…
If you want to give me an unscheduled couple of weeks off with pay, I'm perfectly cool with that--so long as you don't hold it against me that work doesn't get done. Don't expect me to take it out of my limited planned vacation time though.I have my own plans. That would be a big FU for me.
Sure, so maybe that is a sign that trading isn’t the right industry for you?
I know firefighters often work 72 hour straight shifts. For a similar reason, I know being a firefighter isn’t the right career for me.
I suspect some jobs need to optimize days off for things other than employee happiness. For trading specifically, they can generally make up for it with above average pay.