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Scammed By A Silicon Valley Startup
- cyberferret 10y agoClicked 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.
- sanderjd 10y agoOdd, I've never come across a rant like that. But I do seem to see self satisfied "millennial" bashing pretty often. (I don't think I'll ever understand this impulse to ascribe vague personality traits to broad groups of people across a large number of birth years.)
- cyberferret 10y agoApologies, it was probably a little too judgemental and unnecessarily tarred a lot of people with a wide brush, but there was a phase about 12 months ago where Medium was full of posts, to paraphrase what someone else said: "By unknown twenty-something year olds posting angst driven articles about leaving some unknown valley startup as if they were Jimmy Page leaving Led Zeppelin"...
- barry-cotter 10y agoYou're not helping yourself. Your first post made you sound judgmental and ageist and this one is more of the same.
- jsprogrammer 10y agoCould you please link to one of those posts so that we may read one?
- newllama 10y agohttps://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73df021e7a https://medium.com/@taliajane/an-open-letter-to-my-ceo-fb73d... I'm almost certain that this is the post he had in mind while writing this comment.
- ryguytilidie 10y agoIt's weird, because the person said "another one of those..." The Talia Jane article came to mind but I'm quite sure there aren't others. Seems kind of weird to imply this happens all the time when its happened exactly once.
- jsprogrammer 10y agoThat would be a categorical error as Talia did not leave Yelp.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bendbro 10y agoI'd imagine it has something to do with having eyes, ears and a brain
- sanderjd 10y agoI'm sorry, what? I think you're probably trying to say I'm wrong in some offensive way, but I have no idea what you're talking about.
- pcwalton 10y ago> well written, horrifying article on deception and underhanded shenanigans In this case, the phrase "criminal acts" seems more appropriate.
- gozur88 10y agoIf I'm understanding the article correctly this goes beyond not getting paid because the CEO is juggling accounts - the Wells Fargo thing is probably criminal.
- dragonwriter 10y agoThe "not getting paid on time" thing is, by itself, criminal in California. See California Labor Code Secs. 204 & 215. http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?division=2.&chapter=1.&part=1.&lawCode=LAB&article=1 http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xh....
- derek1800 10y agoHow common is this behavior at startups in Silicon Valley? Can anyone share similar stories or point me at other posts?
- rco8786 10y agoAs with any geography/industry, there are some people with questionable morals. It's nothing unique to SV or startups.
- _pmf_ 10y ago> 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.
- sidlls 10y agoLaws 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.
- gkop 10y agoMy tl;dr layman's understanding is that in CA, missing a payroll equates to the company is no longer a going concern. It's a serious problem to miss a payroll, and this is a good thing. If you are responsible for payroll at a CA company, you need to see a potential shortfall coming well in advance and respond preemptively by negotiating [hopefully] temporary salary cuts with your employees or preparing the team to go on unpaid leave (this is legal - you should continue paying their insurance premiums though).
- tbrooks 10y agoWhat's the real identity of the startup?
- krustchinsky 10y agoLooks like it's Job Sonic. If you look at the CEO, the information checks out.
- sleazebreeze 10y agoJob Sonic -> 1for.one -> WrkRiot Each name worse than the last...
- 1_listerine_pls 10y agoI think they are spot on. They even show the status of the company at each stage.
- jimmywanger 10y ago"Sunshine is the best disinfectant." This might be counterproductive in some instances, but if something doesn't smell right, I'll try to blow it up and make all the dealings very public. I mean, there are no personal feelings involved. You are paying me to be a worker. No pay? No work.
- jtfairbank 10y agoUsually not a good idea. This opens you up to: defamation lawsuits, contract violations, and provides cause for firing which could hurt your own claims. Scumbag Startup: "We fired Screwed Employee for cause." Screwed Employee: "No you didn't! It was retaliation." Scumbag Startup: "Sure we did. Look at what he/she posted publicly after leaving the company. Screwed Employee behaved similarly around the office and was negatively impacting the work environment."
- jimmywanger 10y agoAh, you misunderstood. When I said blow things up and make things public, I meant make all my communications with management and the company very out in the open, CC everybody. That way, if they do fire you for cause, you have a paper trail, and you tend to keep a lid on their worst tendencies because then they have to justify their words/actions to their own employees. No, you never escalate publicly, not to people outside the company. As long as everybody is CCed while the conversation is going on, they don't have a leg to stand on, since everything is factual.
- jtfairbank 10y agoEven doing this with unrelated parties inside the company is dangerous. The best thing to do is just CC your own lawyer. It's sad, but you potentially open yourself up to liability by warning your co-workers. If you do want to warn them, the best way would be through a quiet, short conversation in a private place away from the company. Possibly your lawyer's office.
- 10y ago
- lemonghost 10y agohttps://www.linkedin.com/company/jobsonic https://www.linkedin.com/company/jobsonic ?
- gingerrr 10y ago"Jess" = Tess? Not even that much of a name change.
- dang 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442
- mgkimsal 10y agojobsonic.com = expired squarespace site...
- lemonghost 10y agoOn crunchbase they are now wrkriot: http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/
- planteen 10y agoYep. Just looked at the Wrkriot Facebook page. Previous posts have the old name... and the Spongebob memes
- bArray 10y agoAlmost all the reviews are from people working there which I'm sure you're not supposed to do. It's dishonest at the very least.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- seibelj 10y ago
- MichaelBurge 10y agoIsn't the photoshopped wire transfer literally outright criminal fraud? The government should move fast and break him.
- spriggan3 10y ago> Isn't the photoshopped wire transfer literally outright criminal fraud? The government should move fast and break him. Definitely fraudulent.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Isn't the photoshopped wire transfer literally outright criminal fraud? Its not clear to me that it is criminal fraud; its clearly deceptive, and its clearly intended to defuse expected responses to the already-criminal failure to pay regular payroll, but I'm not sure its an independent crime. But, you know, there are people who taxpayers pay to investigate the kind of thing described in this article (like the local DA and the California Department of Industrial Relations) and I'd defer to them on exactly which bits of this affair are which crimes.
- GuiA 10y agoWelcome 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 from my friends' stories, most people have or will. When there are large amounts of money at stake, I guess it makes sense for charlatans and sharks to flock. There are very few ways to tell accurately from the outset at first who's going to screw you over - I've heard horror stories of the sort from friends at startups backed by high profile entities like YC, famous startups that are often in the media for being "the best places to work at", companies with celebrity founders who have reputations for being "the nicest guys in the world", etc. It's the kind of thing that you can only learn through a few painful experiences, I think. You do learn your lessons: never pay in advance for anything, don't put your own savings or core livelihood on the line for someone else's dreams, get everything in writing, talk to former employees of a company/colleagues of a founder before getting involved, never ever assume that what you have is anything more than an employer/employee relationship, etc. I have to say that I'm impressed by how the poster handled it - keeping documentation, filing wage claims, etc. - the only thing she could have done better was not staying on so long when she wasn't getting paid, but it's an understandable mistake when you're in the moment. I for one am glad I learned my lessons at 22 rather than at 45 with a family to care for and a mortgage to pay. The upside is that there are plenty of genuinely nice, passionate people - when you find them, stay close to them.
- ef4 10y ago> 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.
- GuiA 10y agoCan confirm, did 1) and ended up with a deluded CEO cofounder, now in 2) and feeling much better.
- taneq 10y agoWow, that whole tale of woe is giving me flashbacks to a startup game studio I worked at once upon a time. They never resorted to outright fraud in the 'lets not pay them, but say we did' sense but there was plenty of the other sketchy behaviour.
- chejazi 10y agoCrunchbase company profile, as determined from the comments on HN: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-one https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/1for-one
- xiphias 10y agoInvestor $1M Isaac Choi Where's the 4M here that the OP was writing about? She could have checked crunchbase to see that the startup doesn't have money.
- rantrix 10y agoAnyone with an account on crunchbase can contribute any information about a company. The information is not official. It is crowd-sourced. Which means the info can be fake.
- hackaflocka 10y agoIs Crunchbase a 100% reliable source? How do they do their due diligence?
- mcpherrinm 10y agoThey don't at all. I've seen significant errors before. It's usually vaguely correct, but when you've got a manipulative liar running your company, Crunchbase isn't going to help.
- dboreham 10y agoInteresting, because I saw a very similar scenario play out at the very first job I had after college. A coworker's paycheck was delayed then when the check did arrive it bounced. Coworker complained to CEO. Coworker was then fired. As a sibling comment says: this kind of thing happens often enough that everyone has seen it at least once. Definite bonus points for the fake wire transfer receipts though. Above and beyond!
- mrhektor 10y agoSingaporean 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?
- auganov 10y agoI'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).
- mavelikara 10y agoOfftopic, but since you mentioned Singapore: https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/ https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/30/crunchpad-end/
- jmartens 10y agoI had a Singaporean (from Inida) "investor" sign docs only to stall, lie, and eventually fake wire transfers (also from wells fargo, which is ironic in this article). Tried to forget the guy, but think he first name was Sumanth. Be careful if anyone comes across this fraud!
- swang 10y agookay i can understand why the title got changed. but why to what it is currently? feels like a "missed the lede" kinda title which isn't any better than the original title.
- BradRuderman 10y agoThe biggest red flag for me is when no one at the company (even the founders) have experienced the problem their product is solving!
- loeg 10y agoThere's a huge difference between starting a company that will fail on (lack of) merits, and being unethical to your employees. Huge.
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoIs it a bad sign that all SW engineers were on H1B visas? Why wouldn't they hire any from the US?
- liulu 10y agoFor control. A US employee can walk away from the sinking ship any time without too much repercussions, not the case for foreign nationals staying on company sponsored visas
- _pmf_ 10y ago> A US employee can walk away from the sinking ship any time without too much repercussions, not the case for foreign nationals staying on company sponsored visas The Qatar school of management.
- wazu 10y agoWhat could have they done in this situation?
- chrisper 10y agoAssuming that they acutally are legally in the country, they could have talked to a lawyer and try to find a new job.
- gotrecruit 10y agoand the lawyer would tell them "don't bother, just go" unless the lawyer just wants to make free money. honestly, getting H1B is tough enough already - trying to secure an extension or transfer of H1B when your first one is entangled in fraud, practically impossible.
- USANEEDSHELP 10y agoI got the impression that the "founders" are Chinese and were only hiring H1B's because 1-They too are Chinese, 2: Cheaper than local. 3: easy to control with the H1B hanging over their heads.
- hackaflocka 10y ago"Jess is now CMO, still posting memes, pushing her own agenda, and still taking credit for my work." If a man had written this, they'd be accused of being a misogynist, and they wouldn't be posting under their real name.
- bArray 10y agoIf it's a fact, it is what it is - no sexism there. Write it how it is, no more, no less.
- SakiWatanabe 10y ago>Michael said under his breath in our second language, “Look at those Chinese kids. They’re pretty happy they got paid, huh?” Kim (the writer) is a korean last name, is the company CEO korean too?
- gfaure 10y agoHe's been identified elsewhere in the thread through the company's new name, so I would assume so.
- hackaflocka 10y agoDepending on if Choi is a Korean last name.
- khuey 10y agoChoi is a common Korean surname (4th or 5th most common, IIRC).
- gotrecruit 10y agoit's also not an uncommon chinese surname. it's pronounced "cai" in chinese.
- kijin 10y agoIf the company and employees identified by other people in this thread are correct, then yes, it would seem that this company has a Korean CEO who enjoys the loyalty of a Korean clique within the company. Some of the Caucasian employees have close ties to Korea as well. OP was ostracized and eventually kicked out because she didn't go along with the clique despite sharing their ethnicity. The H1B's are Chinese and probably have no influence over how the Korean clique runs their company. The quote from "Michael" suggests that he has little more than contempt for the "Chinese kids". I can almost hear the Korean version of that remark in my head, and unfortunately this kind of racism is all too common among the assholes who give my country a bad rep.
- 10y ago
- mkoryak 10y agoI once worked for a startup here in boston that didn't pay me for a few months until I threatened to file a wage claim (did't work) and to quit (worked). I got the hell out of there as soon I got paid - some of my coworkers weren't so lucky. It seems crazy to me now that I wound up in such a situation, but what it is happening to you, it is usually accompanied by a healthy helping of lies, misinformation and hope. It wont happen again. But it was fun getting ~3 months salary in cash and going to Jordan's to buy furniture with my girlfriend like a gangsta'
- semi-extrinsic 10y ago> But it was fun getting ~3 months salary in cash and going to Jordan's to buy furniture with my girlfriend like a gangsta' Fo' shizzle, if I'm ever gonna buy a nailgun, it's gonna be paid in cash. https://youtu.be/JDpvkwBBu6U https://youtu.be/JDpvkwBBu6U
- h4nkoslo 10y agoHas there ever been an instance of late payroll (as opposed to eg sales commission checks being calculated wrong) where the company actually pulled out of the nosedive? It seems like it's almost always the death knell.
- trcollinson 10y agoAbsolutely yes, though it depends on the transparency of the rest of the team really. I have been involved with three companies in my career which pulled out of this seeming nosedive. One of the companies was going through a really horrible time. They had just got done releasing software that was horribly behind schedule which relieved their customers, but it was still stressful. They were working on settling two law suits. And it was almost Christmas time (first pay check of December, I remember it well). The owner came in and said he couldn't make payroll and that he would be able to as soon as a few customers paid. Everyone was upset. Later that afternoon the CEO's daughter rolled up in a brand new Subaru which he had bought for her over the weekend. I was the head of development, my buddy was the head of operations. We walked the CEO outside and broke the news to his daughter and him that the car was going back. We took the cash and made payroll. We never allowed the CEO to make financial decisions again and about 10 months later closed the sale of the entire business for a windfall profit for him and us. Ultimately everyone got paid well and everything worked out. The second place, the C level executives literally didn't know how to calculate runway and more or less ignored the bank accounts. Checks started to bounce from the bank accounts two days before the payroll was to be cashed. The executives freaked out and honestly felt horrible. Payroll bounced but we warned all of the employees. I was again development manager and the CEO asked me if I knew anyone who could help. We brought in a friend of mine who is a consulting turn around expert. We got one of the existing investors to make payroll, three days late, by signing a personal check. My friend, the turn around expert, wrangled the books (after not sleeping for numerous days to try to figure out the financial situation). We turned the company around, and in a few months had it to a level of profitability it had never seen before. It is possible to turn things around. Really the biggest problems come when people aren't honest with themselves and their employees about the situation they are in. The first CEO in my example had to be honest with himself and realize he had to spend on his employees before he could spend on his family. When he relinquished control of the financial decisions and stuck to what he was good at, the company turned around quickly. The second executive team had to realize that they were young and inexperienced and needed help. When they did and asked for it, the company turned around quickly.
- zappo2938 10y agoIf all correspondence is done on the phone and not through email. I communicate through writing much better than on the phone so I wrote long and explicit emails. I don't feel like I have anything to hide. The phone only people are the ones who go back on their word. The other thing is one size fits all NDA / non compete contract. Maybe it makes sense for the sales people but for writing code every day inventing things it doesn't make sense for the employee. If people don't want to take the time to write an appropriate NDA / non compete contract I have no time for them.
- uiri 10y agoI think the title should be changed back. The author glosses over the single, real biggest red flag: She never received any paystubs and the company was late on payroll as of before she was hired I have never, ever been paid without either a paystub (as an employee) or generating an invoice which the business then paid (as a freelancer). The outright refusal to share how they arrived at the figure on her cashier's cheque should have sent her looking for a new job in the Bay Area or back to Texas. The real lesson from this story is to always have a backup plan when making a big move: what do you do if you arrive and there is no job/no money? what do you do if you arrive and there is no apartment/room/house/etc.? Scammers exist and there is only so much you can do from a distance to avoid them.
- themartorana 10y agoAlso this really isn't a Buzzfeed list - it's a rather personal story, with a little fraud sprinkled in for funsies.
- jomamaxx 10y agoThis is not a huge flag. When a company starts up, it's difficult for them to get the money operating as per regular. He got paid - that's what matters. The paystub is a minor thing/
- einhverfr 10y agoPay people in regular ways through regular channels. Seriously, though, ADP delivers paystubs. If they were using ADP, they would have gotten paystubs.
- jomamaxx 10y agoWhen a company has just started, they may have not set this up. You can invoice the company. It's not a big deal. Again - of all flags - lack of pay stubs is the least of them if it's just a garage startup with 3-ish people. The actual exchange of money is 100x a stronger indicator of health than the presence of a stub.
- maverick_iceman 10y agohttps://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf
- programmer_guy 10y agoHey guys, just wanted to clear the air on some of the speculation: I'm actually with WrkRiot and can guarantee you we're not the company in question: I've got many weeks of paid on time pay stubs sitting right here. Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. Interesting article though, it's really shitty some have bad experiences like this.
- liulu 10y ago>> Plus we didn't have anyone matching any of the descriptions in this article. That's just outright lying
- tmbeihl 10y agoNew account (10 minutes old right now) with no email? Seems shifty to me.
- aleeds 10y agoProbably want to post some meme's too, that'll avoid the association with the article.
- ursketchy 10y agoThis makes me think this is WrkRiot's CEO posting making me think he's even sleazier then the post said
- paulcole 10y ago"The last time I checked the team page on the site, Michael changed his profile picture to a bulldog" http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ Coincidence?
- 35bge57dtjku 10y ago> Rui Bi | VP of Technology Do you think he uses Ruby?
- d0100 10y agoDoesn't really matter, the internet never forgets... http://imgur.com/a/3XLIw http://imgur.com/a/3XLIw
- sp527 10y agoThis must have been a traumatizing experience but the one thing I would want to add to it based upon my own experience is that things don't get that much better at the unicorns. Having worked for one that's still chugging along, I've seen the fake-it-til-you-make-it paradigm persist well into the 'mature' phase of a company. The industry at large feels like such a house of cards. It's not that value isn't being generated, but rather that it has been so dramatically overvalued.
- a_small_island 10y agoI feel bad for the employees. This song will repeat itself many times over. Selfish deluded egomaniac taking advantage of people and their livelihood. Good luck to the rank and file.
- liquidise 10y agoI 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?
- planteen 10y agoI've never heard of it either other than for executives with golden parachutes
- brianwawok 10y agoIt 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.
- ryandrake 10y ago> 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. Wait, what?? Is the "shortage of engineers" meme back?
- tedmiston 10y agoIt is common for leadership roles even in startups.
- timv 10y ago> I have never included severance in my negotiations It really depends on how much leverage you have, and what you're concerns you have with the company. I knew someone who was hired to head up the regional operations for a business that was based overseas. He was worried that they weren't really committed to the local market, but they assured him that they were, and that this was a long-term position. So, he negotiated that if they closed down his location in the first 12 months of his employment then he would get a very large severance package. Since they were absolutely committed to the market, they agreed. Less than 2 months into the role he got to hold them to that severance deal.
- desdiv 10y agoI'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 employee can log in at any time to verify its balance.
- pyre 10y agoWhen Target declared bankruptcy and pulled out of Canada, they setup a trust (or something) to give all employees 4 months of wages. They all got 4 months of wages, but some stores closed sooner than others, so some people ended up working for 4 months while others ended up basically getting paid to do nothing. You might look into what Target used to set this up.
- desdiv 10y agoGood for them. Sounds like they had to setup a trust: >“Therefore, in what we believe is an unprecedented move, Target Corp. is voluntarily seeking to establish a trust that we will fund with C$70 million. Those funds are designed to provide nearly all Target Canada employees with a minimum of 16 weeks of wages and benefits coverage during the wind-down period.” http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/27/target-canada-severance_n_6556442.html http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/01/27/target-canada-severa...
- pyre 10y agoFrom what I understand, at the point they declared bankruptcy they (Target Canada) didn't have enough money to meet payroll obligations, and the trust was seeded from Target's US operation. It Target Canada had just been standalone chain (i.e. no Target USA), then this probably wouldn't have been possible.
- triplesec 10y agoGreat brand management and value culture by Target there. They are fortunate to have deep pockets to be able to do this, of course
- pyre 10y agoI'm curious what the "H1Bs cannot be used to control employees because H1Bs have a process to move to another company" crowd thinks of this situation.
- st3v3r 10y agoThey'll say something about being able to leave, but completely ignoring the situation being extremely stressful and scary. Victim blaming and a complete lack of empathy will ensue.
- hueving 10y ago"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.
- pyre 10y ago> "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 to work there, so it's their own fault for not getting paid. They should have just chosen a more trust-worthy employer!"
- Chris2048 10y ago> 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.
- st3v3r 10y agoWhy was the company not named? Everyone needs to be warned against working with these scumbags, both employees and clients. I hope the state prosecutes the hell out of them, and the founders are left living under a bridge.
- nameless912 10y agoWitch-hunting. Our legal standard is "innocent until proven guilty", and the author already filed a legal complaint, so the best thing for her to do is tell her story in general terms and let the legal system sort it out. Vigilante justice of any kind (including an internet lynch mob) doesn't help.
- st3v3r 10y agoLegal standard. This isn't a court of law. By your logic, if a friend asked me about working for a place, I shouldn't be able to tell them my experiences, because that would be "vigilante justice." The company needs to be named and shamed, otherwise they will keep getting away with this trash. People will still sign up to work for them, not knowing what is happening. By putting the name of the company out there, those people can be informed, and make a better decision.
- throway29816129 10y agoAs a cheapo freelancer born and working in a country that ranks quite low in transparency, trust and justice system ratings, I'm used to getting shafted by people who hire my services, fail to pay, and leave me with no option to turn to for help. But I've to say I'm shocked something like that happens even in Silicon Valley, and based on other comments here, quite often too. I don't know whether to cry for my fellow shaftees or laugh at them out of cynical schadenfreude. All I can ask is please do something to fix it effectively, because the broken window effect only makes things worse with time.
- ryanSrich 10y agoIt's just over saturation. Not everyone can work for a reputable, well paying company. Hopefully with stories like people will become more privy to the talent shortage myth. It's a money grab that allows startups like this to survive. If there really was a talent shortage no one in their right mind would ever work for a shady startup in Silicon Valley where the rent is 3x the national average.
- glimps9 10y agohttps://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Having always been the youngest person in the room, I have always needed to fight to make my voice heard. Some experiences were good, but other's turned into a nightmare...but the truth is no failure was a step back for me, rather the lessons I learned from my mistakes helped me build the foundation that I needed to succeed. I believe that boundaries were created only to be broken both in my professional and social world. When a person is faced with the option of retreating or pushing forward it is always best to believe in yourself, your dreams, your visions and your team...nothing can be gained by losing your heart and will to moving ahead. In short I am the person that would like to defy the odds and take my future into my own hands."
- tedmiston 10y ago> In short I am the person that would like to defy the odds and take my future into my own hands. Well, he's definitely got the taking his future into his own hands part down.
- dang 10y agoPosting that crosses into personal attack and that is not allowed on HN. Please don't do this again. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379833 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379833 and marked it off-topic.
- foxylad 10y ago> The names have been changed to protect the innocent and guilty. Assuming the writer is as scrupulously honest as they seem to be, how legally exposed would they be in actually naming names? And assuming they are exposed, are astute commenters who use clues from the article to reveal the company also liable? It seems to me that it would be a HUGE public good to name the names. Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this; being able to safely expose them would go a long way to stopping such scum.
- pyre 10y agoThey might open themselves up to lawsuits. Even if they will win the lawsuits, that's a money/time sink to deal with.
- readitmeow 10y agoIs it still libel or defamation if it's all true?
- ceejayoz 10y agoNo, but that's not the point. Not everyone has $50k and the time to fight a libel/defamation suit.
- readitmeow 10y agoTrue, but the alternative is letting people like this get away just because they have power and/or money. Tough situation to be in.
- k-mcgrady 10y agoNot really. She left enough clues that people on HN could figure it all out pretty quickly. Seems like a good middle ground to exposing them but protecting yourself.
- 10y ago
- halestock 10y agoHow did a company with 17 employees manage to get 9 H1Bs?
- jboggan 10y agoThis stood out as well. I'd wager that those 9 Chinese employees might be misled about their legal status.
- readitmeow 10y agoThere are work VISA's also for people that have pending H1-B applications which is what I think OP meant. It would also explain why the employees weren't able to leave easily since the H1-B's are pending.
- yid 10y agoThis is absolutely incorrect. There are no temporary work visas for people with "pending h1-b applications".
- readitmeow 10y agoI worded it poorly. It's not a work visa for that case specifically, but I know there are work visa's for people who were students that have their h1-b applications in the lottery. I think non-stem students with masters get 2 chances while STEM students get 3? I work with a lot of immigrants so this is from what I understand. Sorry if I'm giving false info.
- yid 10y agoYes, it's called "OPT", but is only for students on f-1 visas to get practical training in their areas of study. While it is temporary work authorization, it is not a work visa. There's a pretty huge difference in that h1bs offer a path to naturalization, whereas f-1 opt does not.
- 8KjRu5VAAeMBIZm 10y agoI've been burned repeatedly by startups recruiting me for one role which matches my experience/skillset, then after a month or so radically changing the role to one which I'd had no experience with. I get pivoting, I get needing to be flexible, but why would you hire someone skilled in networking operations and four weeks later decide that person need to design/develop your Windows application instead? I've always been paid, however I now check to see if startups have actually filed the SEC paperwork when they claim to have raised a round, and verify with the investors they claim to have backing from that they've actually invested in the company. One startup I worked for lead the employees to believe we had a solid 18 month runway, when in fact the founders were covering payroll from home equity lines of credit. They didn't actually close the round until a year after most of the initial employees left as payroll became erratic. Another startup I worked for on the basis of a handshake...never do that. After a year of developing the company's MVP the founder formalized the structure and equity of the company, cutting the four early employees out as co–founders and reducing our equity from 2% to 0.5%. As were were all working on handshakes, none of us had legally committed to working for him, so we all walked away. He lost the MVP since I had the only copy. The last startup I worked for (and will ever work for), I was recruited by the CEO to come in and build a mixed-discipline technical team in a supporting role. Within a month it became fairly clear that I'd been hired over the objections of pretty much the entire management team, which had I known I wouldn't have taken the role. I was clearly pegged as "a bad hire" which would not have happened had anyone I'd interviewed with spoke up. Throwaway account…
- s3b 10y ago> verify with the investors they claim to have backing from that they've actually invested in the company. I'm curious, how would you go about doing this?
- mooreds 10y agoIf they are a US company, I'd start with Edgar: https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html https://www.sec.gov/edgar/searchedgar/companysearch.html For example, you can see the amount of money FullContact raised in 2015 here: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1523064/000152306415000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1523064/000152306415...
- choiwisely 10y ago> Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this "Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown "Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861 https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861
- joelrunyon 10y agoWho was bruce?
- vertis 10y agoAssuming http://www.wrkriot.com/team-1/ 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.
- bambax 10y ago"It’s very honored to have worked with Al." I bet it is.
- aaron695 10y agoWitch hunting. You don't know the real story, especially just how 'evil' Jessica is.
- taheca 10y agoOh please please please everyone.. check out her Soundcloud page. https://soundcloud.com/tessstevens https://soundcloud.com/tessstevens May I suggest Don't look back into the sun. Just skip to the middle to hear the singing.
- harwoodleon 10y agoPenny, 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.
- novaleaf 10y agoA 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.
- OJFord 10y ago> 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" ;)
- harwoodleon 10y agoHit by it all the time? Where do you live? Vegas? If the SV echo chamber extends to Texas, you might be right about the club. She's just being careful! If she has brought the company down by explaining her position she may get in all sorts of trouble by naming them too. Lawyers would love to take her down if there's been a lot of money creamed. He'll probably use this HN thread to blame her for his company failure.
- iamleppert 10y agoOn Isaac Choi's LinkedIn page he also has the following "jobs platform": http://1for.one/ http://1for.one/
- Animats 10y agoThe 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.
- hackaflocka 10y agoI would second talking to the DA. The photoshopped Wells Fargo receipt is just too much. You'll be doing someone downstream a huge service. Someone these guys would end up scamming otherwise.
- threatofrain 10y agoI fear that they don't even know the real name of their CEO!
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- acangiano 10y agoIt's okay, the DA office would find out for them.
- lightspender 10y agoThis.
- pcwalton 10y agoCompletely 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.
- veidr 10y ago+1 for pursuing the criminal angle, not because it would make it right for you, or be easy, but simply because it's the right thing to do. That was 17 real crimes committed. Our society is better off when we collectively do our part to make sure that criminals like that face the justice system.
- bambax 10y ago> Jessica would ignore my best practices recommendations (...) and promote her “gonzo style” writings that were often filled with typos and grammatical errors. > I don’t when or how the money became an issue Typos happen.
- mkagenius 10y ago> 'filled' with typos and grammatical errors. icymi
- Veen 10y agoSo does proofreading.
- OJFord 10y agoOr rather, it should.
- nameless912 10y agoIf your marketing material has typos (yes, even including your company twitter account), you don't deserve a second glance from me, and I think many people would feel similarly. On the other hand, this was an off-the-cuff blog post. They're different.
- ara24 10y agowell written story. with all the troubles, I wonder how the founder could just keep going. may be it is as the story says, "default human condition to not give up" but at what cost.
- allenu 10y agoI suspect that he's probably convinced himself that they will one day be successful so these smaller missteps will be paid back several times over once they are. If he's been operating that way for a while, inertia must kick in, especially if no one is really calling him out on basic things like payroll. As Feynman once said, "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
- scottmf 10y agoWhat's crazy to me is the company didn't expect anyone to take their story public. Not even the woman in marketing. I hope you guys continue to expose fraudulent startups and CEOs like this. It really is a service to us all.
- choonway 10y agoI would have left the company at red flag #6, inability to tell a compelling story. And I am looking at this from a software developer's point of view.
- therealjohn 10y agoKeep it up Penny! I have only worked for one startup ever right after graduation, and when I think back of it, those 2 years were not only too good to be true, but they did happen. There are good leaders out there, keep having faith!
- libpcap 10y agoTwitter: @isaacchae1981
- cycomachead 10y agoGosh this is awful. I'm glad Penny was able to get out when she could, but I can't imagine being in that experience. And the marketing...if "wrkriot" is really the new site, this is just sad. The latest post on "Goals" is just SMART goals without even mentioning the acronym...wow.
- kennell 10y agoHow on earth does a shady, newly founded company with a handful of people manage to hire 8(!) H-1B workers from China? I really feel bad for those workers. Essentially they are obeying coding slaves for the company until they eventually get their green card. They can not risk being fired, they will not ask for a raise, they can not easily switch to another job etc. etc. A native worker like the author is less likely to put up with this kind of BS for very long. This is unfair for both the foreign workers and native workers. Cases like this really show that the H-1B system is a total joke.
- javienegas 10y agoMany of JobSonic devs have been foreigner students in the US, that allows them to work after their MSc is finished. H1B application (lottery this days) is at the beginning of April, H1Bs granted visas won't be effective until October of the same year. Most of the JobSonic devs started in the end of 2015, therefore they are not H1B visa holders, JobSonic 'probably'(I hope) applied for their H1B visa because they have been students in the U.S. they have more chances of winning the H1B lottery. If the won the lottery, their visas won't be valid until October 2016. There is a quota of 60k H1B per year, and extra 20k for students in U.S. Universities. Edit: So their H1B application (Oct 2016) depends on JobSonic well being, that's why they are not asking about getting paid, because their H1B visas are not valid yet.
- gaius 10y agoRed Flag 4.5: The high percentage of H1Bs with little experience. This visa is meant to be for people with irreplaceable skills, not cheap labour.
- kabdib 10y agoHow is it that an "H1B with little experience" is even possible, then?
- nameless912 10y agoDepending on who you ask, varying flavors of immigration fraud.
- krinchan 10y agoLegally, all you have to do is post a job offering on some dark corner of the internet for your job that pays a fair market wage. If you can't hire anyone for a specific period, you get to look for an H1-B! The problem is that "fair market wage" is actually defined legally by congress. That wage for IT related jobs is barely enough to make a proper middle-class living in a metal trailer 2 hours outside of Las Vegas, much less San Francisco, New York City, or even Atlanta. So you basically base your office in a city where the COL is high, require your employee to live in said city, and post job listings with a wage no US Citizen who lives in that city would take. If you get anyone actually desperate enough, you invent some magical reason they don't qualify. Not enough experience (10 years for a tech that's been out 2), didn't have experience with JMS (1 out of the 2,000 tech keywords on your listing and honestly if you can write a java application you can read a JMS queue, it's 10 minutes of google), or any of the other reasons you can invent to not hire someone. It's the exact same strategy deployed to not hire someone based on sexual orientation, gender identity, or ethnicity. Then, you get your cheap H1-B worker who can't leave your company or even change their job title or they get deported.
- menage 10y agoThat sounds more like the process of applying for a Labor Certificate, as part of a green card. For an H-1B you just need an approved Labor Condition Application, which attests that you're offering the "prevailing wage" for the region/occupation, and (I think) that there's a general shortage of that occupation in the region (and not that you had no US citizen replies to your specific job advert)
- partycoder 10y agoGlassdoor can be a proper place to leave warnings to potential candidates.
- aioprisan 10y agoSunshine is the best medicine https://twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/767449617071878144 https://twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/767449617071878144
- jsumrall 10y agoSomeone from that area might want to contact the local DA's office: http://sfdistrictattorney.org/contact-us http://sfdistrictattorney.org/contact-us
- restlessdesign 10y agoRed flag #…well…whatever: noindex tags on the company’s homepage. Though maybe that’s included in that Chinese company’s “Scrub the CEO’s name and profile photos from the Internet” package.
- wingworks 10y agoI would never work for a company where the CEO's name and pictures aren't public. They're the face of the company, I'm not sure how he expects the company to become big if he's hiding all the time...
- d0100 10y ago"About a month in, our interim leader returned to Korea, and a woman was brought in who had worked at several video game companies. She used to know our CEO’s in college. She was kind, thoughtful, and attentive. I knew the company would eat her alive. After our boss departed, I took over a few of his duties. One of them was “viral marketer.” I was now creating ad campaigns on Facebook in an attempt to bring monthly active users to the site. I had no training. I was acting on one hunch and instinct after another. Yet, I was good. A month or two passed without incident, and then we lost a team member. Unable to withstand the workload and the move, she left to be with her boyfriend. We all made fun of her for it." Seems like the "other side of the story" from Tess. Doesn't make her look any better... http://theunderemployedlife.com/working-start-almost-killed-part-one-2/ http://theunderemployedlife.com/working-start-almost-killed-...
- mgkimsal 10y agoWow... good find! "A real start up company is populated by a shark tank full of thieves, corrupt business people, unscrupulous investors, and fickle employees" WTF? So you're not a 'real start up' unless you've got a bunch of corrupt criminals running the show?
- PedroBatista 10y agoThat must be a typo, I'm sure she meant "Jail"
- dec0dedab0de 10y agothat was about another company, and in the last few minutes the site turned into some kind of scam. I guess someone is actively monitoring this thread.
- pascalmemories 10y agoCAREFUL! That link has a boobytrapped payload that roots Android devices and installs malware (latest Android 6.0 device). Probably a dodgy ad network injecting it. Best visit with noscript enabled.
- adkshirsagar 10y agoTess is one angry content writer: 3. Be realistic about what you can and can’t do in a day, due to your sleeplessness. Take it easy when you’re sleepless. A lot of automobile accidents occur due to tiredness too, so if you can, try to stay off the road. If you’re hella alert for your commute, don’t chance it by doing something extra. Be responsible, idiot.
- dang 10y agoPlease see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- blumentopf 10y agoIt was done in an afternoon according to its creator: https://mobile.twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/769357556762324992 https://mobile.twitter.com/WrkRiot/status/769357556762324992 https://mobile.twitter.com/tessstevens/status/769356906448035840 https://mobile.twitter.com/tessstevens/status/76935690644803...
- mgkimsal 10y ago"Rebranded @wrkriot today into a killer, no frills modern brand identity. BTW you can build a new brand in an afternoon." "Who says you can't build something amazing in an afternoon?" Well, you can do something amazing in an afternoon. wrkriot just... isn't it.
- redbergy 10y agoI'm happy someone responded to the "BTW you can build a brand in a day" tweet[1]. Lack of respect for an entire industry; she comes off as very inexperienced albeit ambitious. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/kellykruschel/status/770306809924116480 https://mobile.twitter.com/kellykruschel/status/770306809924...
- ChristopherE 10y agoFWIW, it appears miss stevens has protected her account and as of the last hour WrkRiot no longer exists on TWitter.
- dang 10y agoPlease see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12380925 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12380925 and marked it off-topic.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- kelukelugames 10y agohere you go. choiwisely 8 hours ago [-] > Employees and investors absolutely need the right to know about the people doing this "Michael" the CEO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 "Charlie" the CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown "Jessica" the CMO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 https://www.linkedin.com/in/tess-stevens-28bb9138 Company: http://www.wrkriot.com/ http://www.wrkriot.com/ + https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861 https://www.linkedin.com/company/7587861
- novaleaf 10y agothanks for the details, though my rant is more about this behavior in general, and not so much about this specific instance :)
- kelukelugames 10y agoI agree. People have no incentive to change unless we name names.
- wpietri 10y agoHowever much I want to see these culprits caught and punished, I think it's a lot to ask a jobless, possibly homeless person to attract retribution from people who have already proven that they will do absolutely anything to maintain the appearance of success. Even when you win, bogus lawsuits are expensive and painful to sort out. My mom was sued after a business deal went south. Seeing the judge find for her on all counts and upbraid the plaintiff and the plaintiff's lawyer was satisfying, but it was not worth the 18 months of severe stress or the substantial legal bills that we had to pay. If you would like to see more names named, then try accompanying your request with a credible offer of a legal defense fund at least $100k in size. That's a lot more persuasive than the notion that random internet commenters will be disappointed.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- 0xmohit 10y agoMaybe somebody should try reaching out at +1.4083447484 to figure why the startup acted thus.
- erikb 10y agoActually many of the red flags aren't really red flags. I already considered to completely ignore this article. But some, especially 8 and 9 are quite valuable to people who have never experienced that. The ones I consider serious are these: 1 (hire/fire fast), 4 (given responsibility without authority), 6 (unclear product), 8 (weird money habits), 9 (law problems). Others I consider quite important: too much money without backing in team strenght and professional attitude (either founders or investors are bullshitting someone), don't trust the team (when shit hits the fan everybody will cover their ass and taking care of others may be considered breaking your employers trust), act context aware (opinion is more important than actual facts, consider when to tell which fact/idea to whom, when everybody is happy because of a successful lie then you have low leverage for the moment). In any case I think you need to have a few of these experiences to be able to survive in a business environment. When stakes are high, information is hard to come by, and you don't have years to learn to know the other parties, then people will do unexpected things (lying, faking success, spying, or simply not supporting you when you are under attack). Important resumee point: I survived X scams.
- TheActuallyer 10y agoI've experienced a quite similar situation. Moved to a new city with a promise of a nice pay and a good job for a startup. First month of the project CEO ended up in a psyc ward. Luckily I got out with my head and limbs still attached to my body.
- kordless 10y ago> Wanting to put a good foot forward, I brushed off the confusion This is codependence, defined.
- wcummings 10y ago>There’s no way a startup I found on Angel.co is going to screw me over, I thought Is this satire?
- tedmiston 10y agoBased on the fact that the author called it "Angel.co" over and over instead of AngelList, I have a hunch she hadn't worked in startups before this.
- maceo 10y agoWage theft causes American workers to lose an estimated $50 billion dollars per year. Usually low-income workers, many of whom are not in a social class where they're friends with a smart lawyer, are the victims. This is just the SV flavor of what millions of American workers suffer from year-round.
- delwilliams 10y agoSadly Silicon Valley is ripe for frauds because of the money.
- poolshark 10y agoThese are the kind of startups that give the H-1B visa program a bad rep... sad
- jamisteven 10y agoI see nothing about her researching these founders prior to agreeing to work for them, nothing about a signed contract, something like this would never happen to me, sounds like this girl needs a good lesson in street smarts. Way too gullible.
- readitmeow 10y agoShe obviously had a contract seeing as how she had to get it revised multiple times before she signed. If you did research and couldn't find enough about the CEO, you would see the CTO, the other founder, was legitimate with press releases by companies that were eventually acquired by big names like IBM. Saying this would never happen to you is pretentious and ignorant.
- castis 10y agoSure, all the information about those people is out there now, but we don't know the state of information that she had available to her before this. It's good that you stopped by to point out that you're better than others, though. Looks good on you.
- albertcbrown 10y agoThis is Charlie. I met the CEO (not sharing his name, though it is in this thread) through his brother in law, Jay. Jay worked with me at a prior company. He was a data scientist and factual. He mentioned his brother in law came to Silicon Valley to do a startup having made some money as an investment banker. As we talked, the CEO stated he is putting in $2M to fund the startup in November. In December, with $400k or so in the company with the rest coming, we started to build. We grew steadily till about April with a prototype. At which point, the CEO kept mentioning money was coming and with a few different reasons on why it did not arrive. I bridged May and June. As the stories piled up, I started to ask more pointed questions. I met Bernie, the lawyer who was real. Bernie has an office with Montgomery McCracken in NYC. I insisted the CEO to fly twice to NYC to meet with Bernie and resolve the funding issue. On the last trip, he claimed he got a $500k loan from his lawyer, Bernie, and his cousin, Tommy. The last payroll with ADP was made. I did not find out till the beginning of August that the money for the last payroll came from one of the employees. I thought there was $500k available starting July. It became apparent it was not available shortly thereafter. In July, Penny joined. We went through more stress at the company with the CEO stating every other week money was coming from a variety of sources – a line of credit from Mackie Research due to his personal connections, his money making it over, and different investors. None of it came to pass. In August, I thought it better to let some of developers go as there was no funds to pay them and ask the other ones not to come to work until money is in the bank. An investor did come in that allowed us to make July’s payroll a month late. I did not see any of the wire transfer confirmations till later as I was showed by a couple of the employees. I did not get a confirmation personally. The team was paid for that wire transfer (July). In August, I tried to validate his story with his brother in law with no success. I was not able to corroborate any of his story after contacting his educational institution and prior institutional employer. This lack of trust came to a head a week ago and we parted ways. The current story from the CEO right now is that the team will get paid for August on Monday to Wednesday this week. I have no idea if it is true. To this day, I don’t understand the game plan from the CEO. Why accelerate into a brick wall? None of it makes sense. I am currently out the bridge, expenses, August office rent and back pay. It never occurred to me, till too late, that somebody would misrepresent so much of his story. For being naïve and believing in the dream, I am truly sorry.
- geocode 10y ago"Jessica"'s point of view: https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-your-job-fighting-the-good-fight/ https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-y...
- buckbova 10y ago"You’re not trying to dupe people or trick them. You’re trying to help. You’re looking out for all of your friends who are living in their parents’ basements crying over their degrees, wishing they hadn’t taken on the student debt. You’re rallying for your parents, who are working well below their intelligence and skill sets just to put food on the table. You’re going to enable the world to stand up for itself and take back its work ethic. You’re going to change things." Changed for the worse.
- geocode 10y ago"Jessica"'s point of view: https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-your-job-fighting-the-good-fight/ https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-y...
- mikeryan 10y agoI think that story is about another startup called Vingle. Vingle (https://www.vingle.net/ https://www.vingle.net/) Looks like Tess has been attaching herself to some bombs.
- pauljaworski 10y agoTo be honest, she doesn't seem very talented, so she's just taking whatever she can get. In one of her personal blog posts, she said that she applied to 200 companies and got 3 responses - one of which was WrkRiot.
- magic_beans 10y agoThat's horrifying.
- dang 10y ago> To be honest, she doesn't seem very talented, so she's just taking whatever she can get Even in a thread full of personal attacks, this stands out as one of the lowest and most vicious comments we've seen. I'm going to assume you did it thoughtlessly rather than maliciously, so instead of banning you, will ask you to stop and consider how malicious such thoughtlessness can be. You didn't just kick someone when they were down; you dug up information about how down they are, and published it in order to kick them in front of others. That's a mob behavior, worse than many things people spent their day being indignant about in this thread. Please don't post like this to HN.
- dang 10y agoPlease see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12381368 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12381368 and marked it off-topic.
- delwilliams 10y agoThe reason she did not see the red flags is because that's what being conned looks like. They don't call them con artist for nothing, and he seems up the chain on mastery.
- jlian 10y agoI went through a similar experience. In hindsight the red flags were extremely obvious but I was also in extreme denial. I really wanted it to be true and was not willing to face whatever I would be able to dig up. So I didn't try. Paychecks were bouncing and I was still clasping onto the sliver of hope in order to not lose the job. I was (am still am) a new grad with no experience but I had co-workers with families and responsibilities. We all wanted it to be true too badly and willfully ignored the warning signs.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- leaningtower 10y agoUnder the assumption that the story is true, thing that I cannot assume from a blog post, this should be notified to the authorities more than be posted on HN. Also notice that before any actual confirmation or official investigation, pointing fingers trying to find companies that match the description could be a criminal offense as well as you could damage the reputation of totally fine companies.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Also notice that before any actual confirmation or official investigation, pointing fingers trying to find companies that match the description could be a criminal offense as well as you could damage the reputation of totally fine companies. Well, I mean, that's already been done, but I don't see any criminal law that could remotely be applicable. What crime do you imagine this is? Heck, I don't even see how posting "it appears from details in the article that it is talking about WrkRiot" could even be civil defamation, even if taking other things into account (Such as the source article) the net effect is damaging. Even if the source article would, if deanonymized, be defamatory. Damaging reputation alone isn't generally actionable, at least in US law. Knowingly (or recklessly) making false statements that damage a company may be.
- sodafountan 10y agoPerhaps the person who wrote this article is smarter than we think and this is some intricate marketing plot designed to draw traffic and attention to wrkriot?
- HalcyonicStorm 10y agoExcept that this brought a lot of bad attention to the company and the people who work there
- mathattack 10y agoRed flag #10: There’s a huge moral and legal difference between buying time with lies versus calculated fraud Maybe legally, but not so much morally. The lies are part of calculated fraud. Nonetheless, a very good cautionary tale. I've seen several friends of mine chase "Too Good To Be True" dreams.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
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- ChristopherE 10y agoShaka, and the walls fell. It looks like the rats are fleeing the ship: https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-ab0dc6723b8c#.vq6u3rj7y https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-ab0dc6723b8c#....
- puppetmaster3 10y agoreminds me of this: http://reddit.com/r/startups/comments/3m3lp6/failed_startup_is_destroying_me http://reddit.com/r/startups/comments/3m3lp6/failed_startup_...
- hannahwright 10y agoWow, just wow. The ultimate sketchy. How do companies like this expect to carry on and cover up their fraud with a simple name change?
- amusedreading 10y agolol, WrkRiot just posted this response https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf WrkRiot is considering legal action against a disgruntled former employee who has launched a slanderous campaign against WrkRiot and some of its employees via social media. While it is not our policy to discuss personnel matters, we want to make it clear that this former employee was fired for cause. Signed affidavits from current employees attest to this former employee’s failure to perform her required duties in the workplace. In addition, they attest to her participation in an attempt to undermine or oust certain members of management. This former employee demanded a sum of $50,000 upon her departure. Under no verbal agreement, contract or any other type of covenant was this person entitled to such a sum. After learning that WrkRiot would not pay what it considered extortion money, this former employee began her campaign of slanderous of activity over the Internet. WrkRiot believes this former employee’s writings have led to dangerous situations for many of our employees through the leaking of personal information and through threats being made over social media from others who have taken the former employee’s misinformation as truth. We regret having to spend time and effort on this when there is so much to do in the development of our unique application. However, we want to make it abundantly clear that the slanderous writings of a disgruntled former employee do not represent the truth about WrkRiot, its management or workforce. The racist, sexist and abusive comments our employees have received are inexcusable. Further, we want to make it clear that we will seek any and all legal remedies to end this campaign of slander.
- wrkriot 10y agoThe few employees left at WrkRiot are constituted primarily by Chinese developers being exploited, as well as the almost-exclusively Korean clique surrounding Isaac Choi. The CTO, Al Brown, posted a thread here mostly corroborating Penny Kim's story. Al Brown noted that attempts to investigate CEO Isaac Choi's background story were utterly fruitless. Al Brown also cutely noted that Isaac Choi has a "real" lawyer somewhere as an indirect reference to the fake lawyer and law firm posted on the photoshopped Wells Fargo wire transfer receipts. There were many Wells Fargo wire transfer receipts, each individually faked for the respective employee. The then-intern initially expressed skepticism over details of the wire transfer receipt, and upon checking Wells Fargo's current site, red flags were discovered. That spurred some Googling which discovered the original source image for the Wells Fargo forged documents. This culminated in an explosive moment at the office where a young intern was furiously and very visibly (it's a small office) yelling at CEO Isaac Choi for what looked like incompetently forged Wells Fargo receipts. Al Brown may or may not have made mistakes with regards to mismanagement of product features and hiring and management for the front-end team, but his skill and professionalism was broadly recognized by other developers in the office, and Al Brown staying on board as long as he did brought a lot of faith to the product. And now WrkRiot is engaged in legal intimidation.
- uberweb 10y agoTess F. Stevens == Jess ?
- newacct510510 10y agohttps://twitter.com/ADP/status/751377837656014852 https://twitter.com/ADP/status/751377837656014852
- dang 10y agoPlease see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12380065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12380065 and marked it off-topic.
- nottellingyou 10y agoEveryone is focus on the wrong point. Anyone could help those poor Chinese kids to get a job? They might have to go back to China
- nottellingyou 10y agoAnyone can help those POOR Chinese kids. They might have to go back to China because of this.
- mrmarquo 10y agoI don't think that anyone with such a low IQ would be able to even incorporate the company not to hire people. There are many inconsistencies in the article (related to visas & investors) and characters seem unlikely to exist. The author did a great job of shaping and creating the story in order to attract attention. What actually happened: Penny Kim created "the company", "founders", "employees", "website", etc. Apparently in her last tweet she's looking for a job: https://twitter.com/PennyKim/status/770398267293048832 https://twitter.com/PennyKim/status/770398267293048832
- normandy04 10y agoexcept: https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-ab0dc6723b8c#.k35q2go6s https://medium.com/@dtunkelang/lesson-learned-ab0dc6723b8c#....
- mrmarquo 10y agoDaniel on his Facebook page says to "help the victim" and he attached a link where she's asking for a job: https://www.facebook.com/dtunkelang/posts/10101152283865739?comment_id=10101152542123189&comment_tracking=%7B%22tn%22%3A%22R0%22%7D https://www.facebook.com/dtunkelang/posts/10101152283865739?...
- mrmarquo 10y agoSeems so unreal.
- dtunkelang 10y agoYes, this is real. And she could really use the help. It was very brave of her to come forward this way: she took personal risk, and it's not like she's gaining anything from this personally. On the contrary, she's facing threats of legal action, as well as the risk that future employers might avoid her because of association with this dumpster fire.
- godzillabrennus 10y agoThis is becoming better than an episode of Silicon Valley on HBO. I hope they release a video statement countering the claim where you can clearly see they have coke out on the table. The CEO of this "company" is basically Russ Hanneman without the money. Instead a boat load of debt.
- dang 10y agoThis is not an acceptable comment on Hacker News. Please post civilly and substantively, or not at all. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12386468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12386468 and marked it off-topic.
- jinatonic2 10y agoFound the CEO https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981 https://www.linkedin.com/in/isaacchae1981
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- tedmiston 10y agoTo gather from all of the subthreads, the company's names include: JobSonic, 1for.one, and WrkRiot. Disclaimer: Note that these are still technically rumors from the Hacker News comments that seem plausible but there has not been explicit confirmation, besides the author "recommending" a comment on Medium that points to this thread saying that HN has figured out the name.
- intothemild 10y agoThe company "job sonic" posted something on its Facebook confirming that they will be suing a former employee for the medium post.. Thats confirmation in my book
- joelseq 10y agoCan someone explain to me how they are selling job data when they are scraping it from other job boards? https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/videos/1142030219204484/ https://www.facebook.com/WrkRiot/videos/1142030219204484/
- potie15 10y agowas waiting for this to show up here
- mattydread 10y agoHere's a followup from Business Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/wrkriot-burned-700000-allegedly-lied-to-employees-2016-8 http://www.businessinsider.com/wrkriot-burned-700000-alleged...
- socrates1998 10y agoThese guys are fucked. If she has all the screenshots and other material, they will be fighting a losing cause. And it doesn't sound like they have any money for lawyers, lol. This is what you get when fuck people over with giving them their severance. They have ZERO reason to hold back. I wish this type of stuff was published more often.
- ChristopherE 10y agoTechCrunch article on them trying to disappear from the Internet https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-scam-accusation/?ncid=rss&utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-sca...
- carrja99 10y agoI feel the worst for those H1B1 employees. They can easily be left in legal limbo with this situation.
- SamChoi 10y agoYikes. Hope I don't run into one of these when I graduate. :/
- chicagotosf 10y agoThis guy? https://www.facebook.com/isaac.choi https://www.facebook.com/isaac.choi
- smb06 10y agoThey have scrubbed their online presence. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-scam-accusation/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/30/wrkriot-vanishes-after-sca...
- nnazemi 10y agoAnyone else notice that, in the last week, the CTO has had employees post recommendations of him on LinkedIn (presumably in a preemptive effort to salvage his reputation)? https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown https://www.linkedin.com/in/albrown In case deleted: Liubin Jiang Backend Developer at 1for.one Corporation There is so much about Al I want to share. To be short, 1. Great mentor. Not only in coding but also his personality. 2. Workaholic. I can't count how many time I've seen Al working at midnight and weekends. 3. Faithful. Al has faith in everything and everyone. This motivates us the most. 4. Knowledgable. I literally never saw a technology or technology problem Al did not know how to fix and how to coach us to spot the solution ourselves. Al is the most luckiest and best thing I can imagine especially when I just start my career in this industry. I would kill for working in Al's team again!!less August 26, 2016, Liubin reported to Al at JobSonic Rui Bi Software Engineer It’s very honored to have worked with Al. He is a genius in IT area, very knowledgeable person. As a leader, he is humble and always being nice and patient to the team. He guided me not only what to do but also the idea, the thinking; not only about works but also life. It’s really lucky to have him as the first mentor in my career. I would never forget this experience we work together. I just hope I can work with Al again!less August 25, 2016, Rui reported to Al at JobSonic
- dang 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442
- dimitar9 10y agoHopefully they can sue this Korean cheater, throw him into jail for years and deport him back to North Korea.
- ChristopherE 10y agoAnother follow-up by Tess Townsend of Inc. A couple highlights: "...I'm not happy that all these names and faces are out there." -- Penny Kim Kim has received 10-20 invitations to apply for marketing positions in SV and Texas. Kim received a cease and desist order via email prior to the now deleted threat of legal action posted to Facebook. http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/medium-post-wrkriot-viral-why.html http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/medium-post-wrkriot-viral-w...
- webmaven 10y ago> Kim has a couple theories as to why her post struck a chord in the startup world. First, she thinks anonymizing the startup stirred interest, referencing a concept with which she became familiar after writing the post: the Streisand effect. It's the idea that hiding information can have the unintended consequence of publicizing it by motivating people to find out what's missing. Argh. That's not the Streisand Effect, the SE is what happens when the subject tries to suppress the story, especially using legal threats (which happened too, but only quite a bit after the Medium post was getting traction). The name of the phenomenon of secrecy driving up interest is the Information Gap effect, IIRC. Plus, in this case, we can add rubbernecking (also known as morbid curiosity) driving up interest.
- ChristopherE 10y agoNew details emerge in a story by the New York Times including an interview with Choi and questions about his background and allegations of not fulfilling advertising contracts. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/technology/a-silicon-valley-dream-collapses-in-allegations-of-fraud.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/technology/a-silicon-valle...
- bitbreakrus 10y agoWhat is funny, is that Tess Stevens, that chick who were working at Wrkiot and was taking credit from Kim's work may have deleted her twitter account, but she didn't with her SoundCloud and band camp accounts https://www.vingle.net/TessStevens https://www.vingle.net/TessStevens https://tessstevens.bandcamp.com/ https://tessstevens.bandcamp.com/ https://soundcloud.com/tessstevens https://soundcloud.com/tessstevens
- AKifer 10y agoReading this story, seems to be a story straight out of Venkatesh Rao fertile mind instead of a real life story. These guys will have a tough 2016 quarter, now all the eyes left Martin Shkreli to be on them.
- AKifer 10y agoFrom Jessica "1For.One is a start-up company in Silicon Valley, and unlike most impersonal and money hungry people you meet here, the founders have truly created a sense of family and obligation in the office. I’ve only been here a week, but feel completely integrated. Everyone is friendly and open, they work hard, but smart. It’s a breath of fresh air." https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-your-job-fighting-the-good-fight/ https://tessfstevens.com/2016/06/10/the-new-mission-liking-y...
- grangerthings 10y agoThis whole time, I'm surprised everyone's remained unphased by the Spongebob memes on WkrRiot's Facebook page.
- thelarkinn 10y agoDoes anyone find this search results on ISAAC CHOI ironic? (Photo shows google search results with Poker Player for online gambling site as one of the top results). Wonder where all that money went. ;-) http://imgur.com/a/bX9po http://imgur.com/a/bX9po
- zippyzealous 10y agoHas anyone else had a similar shitty experience with a startup?