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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

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Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#211

Post by minimaxir »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #175
StavrosK wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Shouldn't we be encouraging people who out bad actors?

Yes, we should out bad actors. But we should also avoid witch hunts. I agree with pluma 100% here. Plausible deniability is important as there are always at least two sides to every story. That said, Penny's account of life at the mystery startup sounds startlingly like that of my experience at Motionloft many years ago. The difference there is that the (ex-)CEO was convicted, and my experience was corroborated by an…

Context for the Motionloft story (it's a good read): https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/30/motionloft-jon-mills/

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#212

Post by novaleaf »

harwoodleon wrote: post #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 sta…

A rant: I hate the "in crowd" subtext that goes on with all these postmortem posts.

People in-the-know know what company and people are being discussed in these posts. Accordingly, "I know privileged information." banter is thrown around.

I wish that, for the sake of those outside the loop (me at least), people either name-names or take the wink-nods to a private message.

This is probably going to be a very unpopular (ie: negative karma) rant, but those of us outside the SV echo-chamber get hit by this all the time.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#213

Post by Chris2048 »

pyre wrote: post #121
hueving wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"victim blaming" is a loaded term to avoid any examination of the responsibility of the person who got screwed. When a drunk driver rolls their car and breaks both of their own legs, it is their responsibility for driving drunk, yet you don't find many people calling that "victim blaming" or "a lack of empathy". Anyone who uses that term tends to be appealing to emotion rather than proposing anything of substance.

> "victim blaming" is a loaded term to avoid any examination of the responsibility of the person who got screwed. Are you claiming that "victim blaming" isn't a thing? There are plenty of people that want to shuttle blame/responsibility around, and will blame the victim for not making better choices, while absolving all others of guilt. Take this incident as an example: "Well, none of those employees are being forced…

> Are you claiming that "victim blaming" isn't a thing?

I think the point is clear: "victim blaming" isn't a thing" isn't that claim, so why are you asking?

Your example is one where some fault lies with the employee, namely employment due-diligence, although not entirely. Its possible for both parties to have partial blame for the totality of faults leading to a situation. A "victim" can also be at fault, as in the drunk-driver example.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#214

Post by ones_and_zeros »

GuiA wrote: post #120
GuiA wrote: 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…

Outside of the edit window for my comment, but wanted to add: the H1B situation sounds fishy as hell. 8 H1Bs costs a lot of money, which the company does not seem to abound with. It seems like something weird might be going on here - if the founders are willing to forge receipts and lie about the company, it might not be beyond them to hold on to passports or some such for "immigration reasons", which would then expl…

H1Bs aren't that much money, especially if it is a transfer [0]. You will of course need legal help but since H1B has become so popular that process has been streamlined and attorneys now use it as a loss leader in order to expand their business.

The other aspect, is that yes it'll be about $4k to transfer an H1B all in, but... consider the savings. A Level 1 "Computer Programmer" in Santa Clara has a minimum wage of $52k[1]. I'm not too familiar with Santa Clara but that is probably a 50% savings over a typical software engineer wage. Paying $30k for 8 H1B transfers all in looks really attractive when payroll is shrunk by $300k+...

EDIT: looking at some of their linkedin profiles they fit the profile of an F1 OPT employee (Bachelors from an unknown university in china, masters from a large state university STEM degree mill, recently graduated), which is even better for the employer, you get a built in tax benefit discount on their wage.

[0] https://www.uscis.gov/forms/h-and-l-filing-fees-form-i-129-p...

[1] http://www.flcdatacenter.com/OesQuickResults.aspx?code=15-11...

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#215

Post by brianwawok »

planteen wrote: post #65
liquidise wrote: post #50

I found the bit about the negotiated salary of particular note. I have never included severance in my negotiations, mostly because i have always left my jobs willingly. Is that something more common than i know of? What is a reasonable target to aim for?

I've never heard of it either other than for executives with golden parachutes

It can happen anywhere. It's all about how much power you have. Random programmer #134 of a Fortune 500 company? Not so much. Hired to lead a new VR projects? Plausible.

For most developer jobs, you don't need it.. because with the job market, it is very easy to find a new job if one flops. But if you had to make a move cross country? It may be easier to get signoff on severance.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#216

Post by pcwalton »

Animats wrote: post #105

The fake wire transfer receipt is fraud. That's a criminal offense. Have a talk with the local DA. California has a large prison system, with cell space available. I've never heard of a startup going that far.

Completely agreed. This is beyond "bad startup" and is actually an issue not just for HN but also for the criminal justice system. The tax issues mentioned suggest a history of this kind of behavior.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#217

Post by auganov »

mrhektor wrote: post #21

Singaporean startup founder here who moved from the US. I have yet to meet a psychopathic CEO here in Singapore, but I've met and heard about quite a few in Silicon Valley / Bay Area. It may just be selection bias (a lot more companies are founded in the Bay Area) but I wonder if there's something more. Any other insights into Bay Area startups vs. international startups here?

I've had the [dis]pleasure of having an even more fraudulent co-founder in China. Heard plenty of stories too. Perhaps stories from SV are just more likely to get exposed to the public (and get attention).

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#218

Post by pcwalton »

cyberferret wrote: post #2

Clicked on this expecting to see another millennial self entitled "why I left" rant, but found a well written, horrifying article on deception and underhanded shenanigans. The CEO of this startup qualifies be listed under the other discussion on here about psychopaths running companies.

> well written, horrifying article on deception and underhanded shenanigans

In this case, the phrase "criminal acts" seems more appropriate.

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#219

Post by OJFord »

novaleaf wrote: post #212
harwoodleon wrote: post #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 sta…

A rant: I hate the "in crowd" subtext that goes on with all these postmortem posts. People in-the-know know what company and people are being discussed in these posts. Accordingly, "I know privileged information." banter is thrown around. I wish that, for the sake of those outside the loop (me at least), people either name-names or take the wink-nods to a private message. This is probably going to be a very unpopular…

    > People in-the-know know what company and people are
    > being discussed in these posts.
    > I wish that, for the sake of those outside the loop (me
    > at least),
Read on to the comments below. You are "in the loop" ;)

Re: Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup

#220

Post by sidlls »

_pmf_ wrote: post #198
rco8786 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with any geography/industry, there are some people with questionable morals. It's nothing unique to SV or startups.

> It's nothing unique to SV or startups. In most European countries, not paying your employees in the course of delaying bankruptcy on purpose will be a jail term. I was under the impression that California (as opposed to the rest of the US of A) had pretty strict workforce protection laws, too.

Laws still require enforcement. And from what I've seen California is a bit over-hyped in many ways, including how liberal/progressive it is, how hard it is to start and run a business, and how well it protects employees.
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