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A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud

211 points by sxates 10y ago

smb06 10y ago
There was extensive discussion on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679 Now it seems like the CEO faked his past work experience as well.
- akcreek 10y ago
  This might be the thread you were looking for (with 500+ comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518
  - GuiA 10y ago
    And my claim to fame! If someone had told me posting on HN would get me quoted in the NYT...
  - Animats 10y ago
    At the time, I'd suggested talking to the local DA's office about the fraud claim. If no one has done that yet, this would be a really good time, with New York Times coverage. They can prevent the CEO from leaving the country until this is resolved.
throwaawweay 10y ago
My money is on this being a Visa scam company bringing Chinese nationals over. The poorer ones probably got screwed, while the ones who paid (400k from one of his employees???) have probably vanished into the country. (I have nothing against the Chinese, or immigrants in general, I'm an immigrant myself, and I feel terrible for the innocent victims who have lost money, jobs, and for many, their american dream)
- tootie 10y ago
  The only thing that makes no sense is why they hired Penny Kim. The business was seemingly imaginary, the only employees were the CEO's bros and his H1Bs. If the business was some sort of front, why hire a veteran marketing leader to publicize your scam operation? Especially someone who was not in on the scam and was highly likely to rebel? My money is on the CEO being a genuine egomaniac who thought he could will a legitimate business into existence with enough personal charm.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - readitmeow 10y ago
    The business wasn't imaginary. The tech was real. The CTO and devs have been building since December 2015. He misrepresented the runway claiming to put in 2 million when he only had 400k to put in. That's why in the CTO's comment, he said he didn't understand what was the end game, why accelerate into a brick wall? It made no sense why he hired so many people when he didn't have the money too.
- paulcole 10y ago
  If your goal is to vanish into the US, you don't need $400k to do it.
- taneq 10y ago
  They did have a room full of H1B visa holders doing the tech. It sounds like those guys got scammed hardest just on the face of it, it'd be awful if they also got scammed out of money for visas.
eropple 10y ago
This seemed pretty likely to me the second I saw bouncing between tech/analyst positions and "CEO of mines in Asia and South America" on his LinkedIn (when he was mid-thirties at the latest?). There is only so far one can push it before all thered flags go up.
- spitfire 10y ago
  Actually the "CEO of mine in south america" thing isn't so far fetched. Except you have to know that a "mine" can be a 5 acre plot of land dredging up mud to feed into a processing machine. Friends of mine do it each year. So technically they "own a mine in south america". It's still bullshit puffery though. But you can do it for $20K.
  - eropple 10y ago
    Sure, but (I don't know if you saw it before he wiped his profile) it was puffed up wa-aaaaaay more than that. He'd have been lying somewhere.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    I'll see your bullshit puffery, and raise you. I'm part owner of an NFL franchise, and it only cost me $250.
    - bdcravens 10y ago
      Green Bay?
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        It is -- and can be -- the only one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc.
        fencepost 10y ago
        HN is stripping the last "." out of the URL, but it's required for the link. The organization named is the corporate entity that owns the Packers; there are >350k share owners and it's structured such that nobody can own more than 4% of the shares. It's grandfathered into the NFL rules which for the last 30 or so years have limited ownership groups to no more than 32 people, at least one of whom must own a >30% share.
wrong_variable 10y ago
I have some issues with this sort of doxxing. In fact unless a court decision is made I think it technically unfair to the company and their employee the way the mob has brought out their pichfork. We have only heard the story from one person - and it makes the company and its CEO look like Satan's spawns - which in my experience never is 100% true. Having said that, I am always a little unnerved browsing LinkedIn - you have CEOs, CFOs, Management always complaining about their employees, and employees doing cringy asskissing :( It makes me deeply sad what LinkedIn has turned into, LinkedIn just gives employers more power. On the other hand I have noticed that HN, reddit are places where Labour ( employees ) come to complain. Its just an interesting trend where two social networks exists - one for the capitalists and one for labor.
- eropple 10y ago
  Verifying his public information isn't "doxxing", especially when it's fraudulent.
- mugenjin9 10y ago
  The CTO of that company made a public comment on the Hacker News thread backing up her story... It should confirm that her perspective isn't just a rant. It's actually true.
- rspeer 10y ago
  I was concerned about the doxxing at the beginning. But now it's looking like getting the attention of an Internet mob was basically the only option for justice that Penny had left. (I wish I had more faith in the corporate legal system than this.) It's not just one person. We have now had the story largely confirmed by WrkRiot's CTO (maybe I should say "former CTO", or maybe the entire company is effectively "former") and one of its former advisors.
- andrewflnr 10y ago
  We actually have heard at least a bit from the other party, e.g. "she's a disgruntled employee who was fired for cause". In any case, if it's the CEO of a company we haven't heard from on a major issue like this, that's most likely the CEOs fault, most likely because they have nothing constructive to say. Also, I find your characterization of HN as a labor forum as opposed to capitalist rather curious, since its origin lies with one of the purest forms of capitalism possible, startups.
honkhonkpants 10y ago
"... but who expects fraud in Silicon Valley?" lol, wut? Anybody who has been here more than an hour is who expects fraud in SV. The first job I had in SV ended in a joint SEC/DOJ prosecution and jail time for multiple executive officers. Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area.
- marvindanig 10y ago
  > Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area. And homelessness. I was disappointed to see hundreds of helpless homeless people, some in horrible mental state, right there on streets in the middle of huge ivory towers that SV thumps its chest on. It's such a shame! And with young kids coming out of those glass doors flashing gadgets and gizmos at each other, with that certain bay area flair … I mean the collective blindness of the place felt only surreal. It's a personal thing but I guess my family will never be at home in the bay area.
  - nononosisisi 10y ago
    Is like trying to help your drug addict friend get better. No matter what you do if they don't help themselves it is a lost cause. Eventually you just have to keep going with your life and wish them well.
    - gfaure 10y ago
      "If they don't help themselves it is a lost cause". In a country where socialism is not a dirty word, this is not necessarily true at all.
      - hueving 10y ago
        In those countries do they imprison people that refuse help? If not, then I don't see how they can do any better with people that refuse to stay clean or refuse help entirely.
        10y ago
samfisher83 10y ago
I guess you fake it until you make it? Obviously not the same thing but when reddit originally started didn't the founders use bots to submit stories. Theros got billions. Kind of sucks for the H1Bs they might lose their visa.
- uberdog 10y ago
  "Fake it 'til you make it" is more about pretending to have confidence before you really have it and less about falsifying your past in a way that's easy for someone to fact check.
  - joshmn 10y ago
    Let's not forget Biz Stone "faked [his] way into Google"[0] [0] http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/ http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    Early in my career I was a bit gray on some skills. For instance, I may have done some tutorials on ActiveX and oversold my knowledge, but by the time I started the job, I put in the work to ensure I could back up my BS.
  - wyclif 10y ago
    Correct. I'm familiar with the trajectory of the "Fake it 'till you make it" meme, but I have never understood it to be a PC synonym for fraud, or passing yourself off as something that you are not (including missing payroll and falsifying investor interest or mundane things like your C.V.)
- tim333 10y ago
  Yeah, I imagine he was hoping investor / VC money would come through and it would all be good. The faking wire transfers thing was weird though - he would have been better off just saying they were out of cash and trying to raise some.
hkmurakami 10y ago
With the promise of great riches, come the fraudsters. Sad.
- vinayan3 10y ago
  It's really sad. I grew up in the Bay Area and felt like the propensity for fraud was very low if not non-existent. I guess it's not like that anymore or maybe it never was and I've been lucky to work for and with people who don't commit fraud.
  - hkmurakami 10y ago
    Same. Grew up in the Peninsula and I feel like things have really spiraled out of control.
chenster 10y ago
Finally, a photo of Isaac Choi https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/09/01/business/01STARTUP2jp/01STARTUP2jp-master180.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/09/01/business/01STARTU...
- 0xmohit 10y ago
  Here is some more information including a contact number. Domain Name: WRKRIOT.COM Creation Date: 25-aug-2016 Registrant Name: ISAAC CHOI Registrant Organization: 1FOR.ONE CORPORATION Registrant Street: 2005 DE LA CRUZ BLVD Registrant Street: SUITE 131 Registrant City: SANTA CLARA Registrant State/Province: CA Registrant Postal Code: 95050 Registrant Country: US Registrant Phone: +1.4083447484 Registrant Email: MYSUBS@HALLFORONE.COM
- chrisper 10y ago
  I really wonder where they dug up that one! I'd ask for a refund from that Chinese scrubbing company
- maverick_iceman 10y ago
  It was in his Crunchbase profile.
- dang 10y ago
  We've killed this comment. Personal attacks, which this crosses into, are not allowed on HN. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 for a fuller explanation. All: please don't post, and do flag, comments that publish identifying personal details on others in the context of attacks on them. (Especially when they're newly-christened public enemies.) Maybe someone has done bad things; reacting to that by becoming a mob is also a bad thing, and we don't want it here.
winteriscoming 10y ago
From what I have read on Kim's blog and other articles, this appears to be more a case of the CEO Choi being an immature and incompetent individual who started out to earn some big bucks but couldn't handle failures and ended up creating one fraud after another. To me it doesnt look like he started the company with the intention of committing some grand scam.
- brockhaywood 10y ago
  Except he appears to have started with fraud, given that his LinkedIn etc misrepresents his past work experience.
SEJeff 10y ago
This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy. I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was on the first or second page google search results for something along the lines of "linux system administrator" and variations. The stars must have aligned as some poor schmuck thought he'd spruce up his resume by copy & pasting lines verbatim from the first 4-5 good Linux resumes he found via google. Unfortunately for him, one of them was mine. Also unfortunately for him, I'm known as a very technical interviewer that doesn't take any bs. So besides the fact he wasn't qualified from a technical perspective for this position, I decided to see what he'd do. I stopped him mid interview and pulled up my resume on my phone. I handed it to him and asked him to read a few lines. Then I asked him to read a few lines that were verbatim from his resume. His face lost all color and he shuddered. There is simply no way I was buying that he and I both came up with the following 3 lines in a row: * Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used keepalived for auto-failover * High performance computing, benchmarking, and kernel tuning. Constant review of upstream kernel activity * Maintenance and engineering on a from scratch Linux distribution in support of high volume electronic trading Amongst two or three additional ones, it was too much of a cooincidence. He swore that the recruiter had doctored his resume and that the recruiter was a liar. I gave him a shot at doing tech for the rest of the interview. However, I turned it up to 11 and was visibly agitated at this point that he'd stolen from my work trying to market myself. Now I'm normally extremely friendly in interviews, but teched him so hard it hurt my brain. He failed miserably. We told his recruiter the story and said if it was true we were going to immediately stop doing business with that recruiter and his company. He quickly and happily forwarded us every single email from that candidate clearly showing they'd done nothing other than rearrange the styling and put their awful logo on it. The recruiter decided to stop working with this candidate as well. Moral of the story: Don't steal people's resume, they work hard making it and that is dishonest. Don't lie to technical people about your technical skills. It will ruin your future career prospects. [1] http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm
- daftcunt 10y ago
  You sound like a cunt.
tptacek 10y ago
Proper title: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud.
jmspring 10y ago
Gold rushes bring in the fraudsters. @honkhonkpants response, I take it tongue in cheek. Born and raised here. There is a lot of good that does happen, the Valley used to be more balanced (tech, manufacturing, ag, etc)... In the 10+ companies I've been at, I could see one as having been fraudulent, that was mostly at the non-founder level pushing work overseas for kickbacks. His career has since stalled. When things are easy and fast and loose, study the gold rush or any other similar history, these things will happen. Today, it's sad that those backing people like this don't use all the tools at their disposal to do deep do diligence. It seems like if you tell the right story, have people skills, and the surface isn't scratched, you can end up with a seed round that isn't warranted.
scott_s 10y ago
Reading a NY Times article that quotes a HN thread is my through-the-looking-glass moment of the month.
joshmn 10y ago
Incredibly curious about this Chinese firm. Are they talking something like BrandYourself, or more... whatever that makes it? If anyone has any leads/ideas, I'd love to hear them. Again, just incredibly curious.
- readitmeow 10y ago
  There's no chinese firm. It's chinese students with OPT visas who needed sponsors to get into the H1B lottery and now they risk getting deported if they don't find another sponsor within 90 days (probably less since they used some of the clock to find this current position)
zaidf 10y ago
WrkRiot CEO's entire resume fraudulent (nytimes.com) Somewhat misleading title. The article itself only mentions the resume once. For example, it doesn't provide examples of the fabrication. If you read the original post. there is little new info. aside from revealed identities.
- manigandham 10y ago
  It does provide 3 examples of organizations that don't seem to exist or have stated they have no records.
- Dramatize 10y ago
  The places he claimed to work at say they have no record of him. Another business can't be found.
calcsam 10y ago
Daniel Tunkelang, the advisor mentioned, is trying to find new homes for the Python developers, so they don't get kicked out of the country. Message him if you're hiring. https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505 https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505
NearAP 10y ago
I'm curious - did NYTimes amend the title of their article? I'm asking because the title of this post on HN doesn't correspond to the title on NYTimes and I was under the impression the submission guideline here says to use the 'original title'. In addition, I read the NYTimes article before I saw this posting on HN and while the NYTimes article questioned 3 items on his resume, I can't conclude his entire resume is fraudulent since the article neither contained the full resume nor did it list all the companies/schools on his resume.
- dang 10y ago
  It looks to me like the submitter broke the HN guidelines by rewriting the title when it was neither misleading nor linkbait. (The submitted title was "WrkRiot CEO's entire resume fraudulent", and we've since changed it to the NYT headline.) Not 100% sure, though, because NYT has a habit of changing its headlines. Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" is one of the site rules here. Please follow it, and especially please don't rewrite titles to make them more dramatic.
sunshinemafia 10y ago
Finally a poster I like: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-trust-isaac-choi.jpg http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-...
- dang 10y ago
  We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines. Personal attacks aren't allowed here, nor this kind of mob behavior.
sunshinemafia 10y ago
An interesting poster created a year ago: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-trust-isaac-choi.jpg http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-... Who is Isaac Choi? And why is Peter not trusting him?
throwaway349000 10y ago
They shouldn't be here in the first place when wages for American engineers have been stagnant for decades.
- dang 10y ago
  We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317 and marked it off-topic.
  - throwaway349000 10y ago
    It was perfectly on-topic. The OP was appealing for assistance in extending the visas of immigrants who arguably never should have been granted those visas in the first place, which I pointed out.

211 points by sxates 10y ago

smb06 10y ago

There was extensive discussion on this topic here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679 Now it seems like the CEO faked his past work experience as well.

akcreek 10y ago
This might be the thread you were looking for (with 500+ comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518
- GuiA 10y ago
  And my claim to fame! If someone had told me posting on HN would get me quoted in the NYT...
- Animats 10y ago
  At the time, I'd suggested talking to the local DA's office about the fraud claim. If no one has done that yet, this would be a really good time, with New York Times coverage. They can prevent the CEO from leaving the country until this is resolved.

throwaawweay 10y ago

My money is on this being a Visa scam company bringing Chinese nationals over. The poorer ones probably got screwed, while the ones who paid (400k from one of his employees???) have probably vanished into the country. (I have nothing against the Chinese, or immigrants in general, I'm an immigrant myself, and I feel terrible for the innocent victims who have lost money, jobs, and for many, their american dream)

tootie 10y ago
The only thing that makes no sense is why they hired Penny Kim. The business was seemingly imaginary, the only employees were the CEO's bros and his H1Bs. If the business was some sort of front, why hire a veteran marketing leader to publicize your scam operation? Especially someone who was not in on the scam and was highly likely to rebel? My money is on the CEO being a genuine egomaniac who thought he could will a legitimate business into existence with enough personal charm.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- readitmeow 10y ago
  The business wasn't imaginary. The tech was real. The CTO and devs have been building since December 2015. He misrepresented the runway claiming to put in 2 million when he only had 400k to put in. That's why in the CTO's comment, he said he didn't understand what was the end game, why accelerate into a brick wall? It made no sense why he hired so many people when he didn't have the money too.
paulcole 10y ago
If your goal is to vanish into the US, you don't need $400k to do it.
taneq 10y ago
They did have a room full of H1B visa holders doing the tech. It sounds like those guys got scammed hardest just on the face of it, it'd be awful if they also got scammed out of money for visas.

eropple 10y ago

This seemed pretty likely to me the second I saw bouncing between tech/analyst positions and "CEO of mines in Asia and South America" on his LinkedIn (when he was mid-thirties at the latest?). There is only so far one can push it before all thered flags go up.

spitfire 10y ago
Actually the "CEO of mine in south america" thing isn't so far fetched. Except you have to know that a "mine" can be a 5 acre plot of land dredging up mud to feed into a processing machine. Friends of mine do it each year. So technically they "own a mine in south america". It's still bullshit puffery though. But you can do it for $20K.
- eropple 10y ago
  Sure, but (I don't know if you saw it before he wiped his profile) it was puffed up wa-aaaaaay more than that. He'd have been lying somewhere.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  I'll see your bullshit puffery, and raise you. I'm part owner of an NFL franchise, and it only cost me $250.
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    Green Bay?
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      It is -- and can be -- the only one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc.
      - fencepost 10y ago
        HN is stripping the last "." out of the URL, but it's required for the link. The organization named is the corporate entity that owns the Packers; there are >350k share owners and it's structured such that nobody can own more than 4% of the shares. It's grandfathered into the NFL rules which for the last 30 or so years have limited ownership groups to no more than 32 people, at least one of whom must own a >30% share.

wrong_variable 10y ago

I have some issues with this sort of doxxing. In fact unless a court decision is made I think it technically unfair to the company and their employee the way the mob has brought out their pichfork. We have only heard the story from one person - and it makes the company and its CEO look like Satan's spawns - which in my experience never is 100% true. Having said that, I am always a little unnerved browsing LinkedIn - you have CEOs, CFOs, Management always complaining about their employees, and employees doing cringy asskissing :( It makes me deeply sad what LinkedIn has turned into, LinkedIn just gives employers more power. On the other hand I have noticed that HN, reddit are places where Labour ( employees ) come to complain. Its just an interesting trend where two social networks exists - one for the capitalists and one for labor.

eropple 10y ago
Verifying his public information isn't "doxxing", especially when it's fraudulent.
mugenjin9 10y ago
The CTO of that company made a public comment on the Hacker News thread backing up her story... It should confirm that her perspective isn't just a rant. It's actually true.
rspeer 10y ago
I was concerned about the doxxing at the beginning. But now it's looking like getting the attention of an Internet mob was basically the only option for justice that Penny had left. (I wish I had more faith in the corporate legal system than this.) It's not just one person. We have now had the story largely confirmed by WrkRiot's CTO (maybe I should say "former CTO", or maybe the entire company is effectively "former") and one of its former advisors.
andrewflnr 10y ago
We actually have heard at least a bit from the other party, e.g. "she's a disgruntled employee who was fired for cause". In any case, if it's the CEO of a company we haven't heard from on a major issue like this, that's most likely the CEOs fault, most likely because they have nothing constructive to say. Also, I find your characterization of HN as a labor forum as opposed to capitalist rather curious, since its origin lies with one of the purest forms of capitalism possible, startups.

honkhonkpants 10y ago

"... but who expects fraud in Silicon Valley?" lol, wut? Anybody who has been here more than an hour is who expects fraud in SV. The first job I had in SV ended in a joint SEC/DOJ prosecution and jail time for multiple executive officers. Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area.

marvindanig 10y ago
> Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area. And homelessness. I was disappointed to see hundreds of helpless homeless people, some in horrible mental state, right there on streets in the middle of huge ivory towers that SV thumps its chest on. It's such a shame! And with young kids coming out of those glass doors flashing gadgets and gizmos at each other, with that certain bay area flair … I mean the collective blindness of the place felt only surreal. It's a personal thing but I guess my family will never be at home in the bay area.
- nononosisisi 10y ago
  Is like trying to help your drug addict friend get better. No matter what you do if they don't help themselves it is a lost cause. Eventually you just have to keep going with your life and wish them well.
  - gfaure 10y ago
    "If they don't help themselves it is a lost cause". In a country where socialism is not a dirty word, this is not necessarily true at all.
    - hueving 10y ago
      In those countries do they imprison people that refuse help? If not, then I don't see how they can do any better with people that refuse to stay clean or refuse help entirely.
      - 10y ago

samfisher83 10y ago

I guess you fake it until you make it? Obviously not the same thing but when reddit originally started didn't the founders use bots to submit stories. Theros got billions. Kind of sucks for the H1Bs they might lose their visa.

uberdog 10y ago
"Fake it 'til you make it" is more about pretending to have confidence before you really have it and less about falsifying your past in a way that's easy for someone to fact check.
- joshmn 10y ago
  Let's not forget Biz Stone "faked [his] way into Google"[0] [0] http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/ http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/
- bdcravens 10y ago
  Early in my career I was a bit gray on some skills. For instance, I may have done some tutorials on ActiveX and oversold my knowledge, but by the time I started the job, I put in the work to ensure I could back up my BS.
- wyclif 10y ago
  Correct. I'm familiar with the trajectory of the "Fake it 'till you make it" meme, but I have never understood it to be a PC synonym for fraud, or passing yourself off as something that you are not (including missing payroll and falsifying investor interest or mundane things like your C.V.)
tim333 10y ago
Yeah, I imagine he was hoping investor / VC money would come through and it would all be good. The faking wire transfers thing was weird though - he would have been better off just saying they were out of cash and trying to raise some.

hkmurakami 10y ago

With the promise of great riches, come the fraudsters. Sad.

vinayan3 10y ago
It's really sad. I grew up in the Bay Area and felt like the propensity for fraud was very low if not non-existent. I guess it's not like that anymore or maybe it never was and I've been lucky to work for and with people who don't commit fraud.
- hkmurakami 10y ago
  Same. Grew up in the Peninsula and I feel like things have really spiraled out of control.

chenster 10y ago

Finally, a photo of Isaac Choi https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/09/01/business/01STARTUP2jp/01STARTUP2jp-master180.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/09/01/business/01STARTU...

0xmohit 10y ago
Here is some more information including a contact number. Domain Name: WRKRIOT.COM Creation Date: 25-aug-2016 Registrant Name: ISAAC CHOI Registrant Organization: 1FOR.ONE CORPORATION Registrant Street: 2005 DE LA CRUZ BLVD Registrant Street: SUITE 131 Registrant City: SANTA CLARA Registrant State/Province: CA Registrant Postal Code: 95050 Registrant Country: US Registrant Phone: +1.4083447484 Registrant Email: MYSUBS@HALLFORONE.COM
chrisper 10y ago
I really wonder where they dug up that one! I'd ask for a refund from that Chinese scrubbing company
maverick_iceman 10y ago
It was in his Crunchbase profile.
dang 10y ago
We've killed this comment. Personal attacks, which this crosses into, are not allowed on HN. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12395442 for a fuller explanation. All: please don't post, and do flag, comments that publish identifying personal details on others in the context of attacks on them. (Especially when they're newly-christened public enemies.) Maybe someone has done bad things; reacting to that by becoming a mob is also a bad thing, and we don't want it here.

winteriscoming 10y ago

From what I have read on Kim's blog and other articles, this appears to be more a case of the CEO Choi being an immature and incompetent individual who started out to earn some big bucks but couldn't handle failures and ended up creating one fraud after another. To me it doesnt look like he started the company with the intention of committing some grand scam.

brockhaywood 10y ago
Except he appears to have started with fraud, given that his LinkedIn etc misrepresents his past work experience.

SEJeff 10y ago

This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so much for another guy. I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was on the first or second page google search results for something along the lines of "linux system administrator" and variations. The stars must have aligned as some poor schmuck thought he'd spruce up his resume by copy & pasting lines verbatim from the first 4-5 good Linux resumes he found via google. Unfortunately for him, one of them was mine. Also unfortunately for him, I'm known as a very technical interviewer that doesn't take any bs. So besides the fact he wasn't qualified from a technical perspective for this position, I decided to see what he'd do. I stopped him mid interview and pulled up my resume on my phone. I handed it to him and asked him to read a few lines. Then I asked him to read a few lines that were verbatim from his resume. His face lost all color and he shuddered. There is simply no way I was buying that he and I both came up with the following 3 lines in a row: * Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used keepalived for auto-failover * High performance computing, benchmarking, and kernel tuning. Constant review of upstream kernel activity * Maintenance and engineering on a from scratch Linux distribution in support of high volume electronic trading Amongst two or three additional ones, it was too much of a cooincidence. He swore that the recruiter had doctored his resume and that the recruiter was a liar. I gave him a shot at doing tech for the rest of the interview. However, I turned it up to 11 and was visibly agitated at this point that he'd stolen from my work trying to market myself. Now I'm normally extremely friendly in interviews, but teched him so hard it hurt my brain. He failed miserably. We told his recruiter the story and said if it was true we were going to immediately stop doing business with that recruiter and his company. He quickly and happily forwarded us every single email from that candidate clearly showing they'd done nothing other than rearrange the styling and put their awful logo on it. The recruiter decided to stop working with this candidate as well. Moral of the story: Don't steal people's resume, they work hard making it and that is dishonest. Don't lie to technical people about your technical skills. It will ruin your future career prospects. [1] http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm

daftcunt 10y ago
You sound like a cunt.

tptacek 10y ago

Proper title: A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud.

jmspring 10y ago

Gold rushes bring in the fraudsters. @honkhonkpants response, I take it tongue in cheek. Born and raised here. There is a lot of good that does happen, the Valley used to be more balanced (tech, manufacturing, ag, etc)... In the 10+ companies I've been at, I could see one as having been fraudulent, that was mostly at the non-founder level pushing work overseas for kickbacks. His career has since stalled. When things are easy and fast and loose, study the gold rush or any other similar history, these things will happen. Today, it's sad that those backing people like this don't use all the tools at their disposal to do deep do diligence. It seems like if you tell the right story, have people skills, and the surface isn't scratched, you can end up with a seed round that isn't warranted.

scott_s 10y ago

Reading a NY Times article that quotes a HN thread is my through-the-looking-glass moment of the month.

joshmn 10y ago

Incredibly curious about this Chinese firm. Are they talking something like BrandYourself, or more... whatever that makes it? If anyone has any leads/ideas, I'd love to hear them. Again, just incredibly curious.

readitmeow 10y ago
There's no chinese firm. It's chinese students with OPT visas who needed sponsors to get into the H1B lottery and now they risk getting deported if they don't find another sponsor within 90 days (probably less since they used some of the clock to find this current position)

zaidf 10y ago

WrkRiot CEO's entire resume fraudulent (nytimes.com) Somewhat misleading title. The article itself only mentions the resume once. For example, it doesn't provide examples of the fabrication. If you read the original post. there is little new info. aside from revealed identities.

manigandham 10y ago
It does provide 3 examples of organizations that don't seem to exist or have stated they have no records.
Dramatize 10y ago
The places he claimed to work at say they have no record of him. Another business can't be found.

calcsam 10y ago

Daniel Tunkelang, the advisor mentioned, is trying to find new homes for the Python developers, so they don't get kicked out of the country. Message him if you're hiring. https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505 https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505

NearAP 10y ago

I'm curious - did NYTimes amend the title of their article? I'm asking because the title of this post on HN doesn't correspond to the title on NYTimes and I was under the impression the submission guideline here says to use the 'original title'. In addition, I read the NYTimes article before I saw this posting on HN and while the NYTimes article questioned 3 items on his resume, I can't conclude his entire resume is fraudulent since the article neither contained the full resume nor did it list all the companies/schools on his resume.

dang 10y ago
It looks to me like the submitter broke the HN guidelines by rewriting the title when it was neither misleading nor linkbait. (The submitted title was "WrkRiot CEO's entire resume fraudulent", and we've since changed it to the NYT headline.) Not 100% sure, though, because NYT has a habit of changing its headlines. Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" is one of the site rules here. Please follow it, and especially please don't rewrite titles to make them more dramatic.

sunshinemafia 10y ago

Finally a poster I like: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-trust-isaac-choi.jpg http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-...

dang 10y ago
We've banned this account for breaking the HN guidelines. Personal attacks aren't allowed here, nor this kind of mob behavior.

sunshinemafia 10y ago

An interesting poster created a year ago: http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-trust-isaac-choi.jpg http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i-w600/keep-calm-and-don-t-... Who is Isaac Choi? And why is Peter not trusting him?

throwaway349000 10y ago

They shouldn't be here in the first place when wages for American engineers have been stagnant for decades.

dang 10y ago
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317 and marked it off-topic.
- throwaway349000 10y ago
  It was perfectly on-topic. The OP was appealing for assistance in extending the visas of immigrants who arguably never should have been granted those visas in the first place, which I pointed out.