I feel your pain, man. I was involved years ago with a group of individuals in a different industry. We were working on some advanced machine learning stuff. I

I feel your pain, man. I was involved years ago with a group of individuals in a different industry. We were working on some advanced machine learning stuff. It was really cool, and the tech was going somewhere. We were getting market interest too from some big players. I ended up cutting and walking away. Basically I burned several years of work in the process (I designed almost all the tech), and was left with debts that I'm just now getting rid of. Getting away from the folks I was working with was worth more to me than any of the possibilities that were on the horizon. I also had a strong feeling that if it was a success that I would see none of it, so there was a bit of plain old self-interest too. "All hat and no cattle" is pretty good. The one guy running the whole thing was, I think, a pure psychopath. I was actually afraid of him for a while, thinking that he might come some night and kill me and my family. He was charismatic as hell and really, really good at projecting an aura of limitless success and at getting people interested, but nothing ever panned out. He was surrounded by slimy opportunists and clueless followers. I was one of the latter for a while. He had a way of stroking your ego and making you feel powerful, when really you were just being used. Since then, I now have a real sense for such people and such arrangements and can sort of smell them. Like you, I can't really describe it. It's a bit of too-good-to-be-true and a bit of too-slick and a bit of... some ancient animal threat response. I've never been to Vancouver or met any of the principals involved in this story, so I really can't comment directly. But your "sense" may indeed be accurate. I sure know that smell now. Unfortunately, the startup world and the larger tech industry is absolutely crawling with these reptiles. My advice? Just steer clear. You can't really do much else. You can't go around badmouthing people, as it just makes you sound like a jerk and could also attract legal harassment. Surround yourself with people who aren't slimy, and avoid even those who are unfortunate enough to be in the orbit of slimeballs. All you can really do for people like them (and like I was years ago!) is to wait and hope they come to their senses. If they are your friends, you might be able to tell them or hint at them... but it's really just as bad as when someone you know is dating someone awful.