10 ms·

SEC Charges Rothenberg Ventures in Fraudulent Scheme

176 points by ciscoriordan 8y ago

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
"Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement" [1]. Besides blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal, Rothenberg also invested "$5 million from Rothenberg Ventures' second and third funds in his own startup company, River Studios" [2]. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-160 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-160 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenberg_Ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenberg_Ventures
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > Besides blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal Can you talk a bit about where the line is between this being merely unethical as opposed to outright illegal?
  - dsr_ 8y ago
    If you're in charge of the company, you can authorize expenditures for anything that reasonably relates to the company's business, including attracting investors, retaining employees, or incenting them to succeed. It's reckless to spend all your money on parties, but not illegal. But if you authorize the company to spend money on something which is in itself illegal (cocaine or weed for the parties, hookers instead of strippers), that's illegal. And if you effectively direct the money to your own benefit (pay for your house's landscaping, new pool, pet grooming bill) that's not legal (among other things, it counts as taxable income and I bet you forget to pay on that).
    - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
      I think you left out this one: If you make invoices that say you've ordered soda for the programmers, but there are no deliveries of soda because the money for sodas went to your overseas numbered account, that's illegal.
    - paulddraper 8y ago
      Another place you could go wrong is if you try to hide your poor financial decisions by giving fraudulent reports to shareholders/SEC. (Example: Enron)
  - x0x0 8y ago
    From the sec complaint > Defendants at all relevant times were investment advisers within the meaning of Section 202(a)(11) of the Advisers Act [15 U.S.C. § 80b-2(a)(11)]. My personal guess: that law makes various actions (self-dealing, lying about what investment funds are being used for, non-arms-length transactions, etc) crimes instead of civil torts. Plus, you know, just plain fraud.
- mfringel 8y ago
  What does "dick move" mean to you, in this context?
- wmf 8y ago
  blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal I'm not an expert on this topic, but if a limited partner agrees to something like "2 and 20" fees doesn't that imply that the other 98% of the money is to be invested and not used for expenses? 2% management fee on $64M assets is only $1.2M which is pretty small considering the size of staff they had. It's less bad if the investors agreed to high fees, but it could still be embezzlement if the money was spent on personal stuff.
  - aml183 8y ago
    There is something called fund expenses. A GP can allocate part of the fund to pay towards expenses they deem to be fund expenses. For example, the audit would be classified as a fund expense. Most funds have an outside administration company that handles the money and approves/rejects these decisions.
  - qeternity 8y ago
    Many funds have "chargeable" expenses like research and travel. These come directly out of the fund and not the management fee. Source: former hedge fund trader
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
ProAm 8y ago
7 million sounds like a drop to settle for, plus likely a small fine.
- pwaai 8y ago
  yeah I've pretty much given up on the justice system. if you have money regardless of how you obtained it, the law always favor those with capital for the most part. Unless you try to fight back against government's monopoly on violence....drug traffiking being a major competition, it makes sense why harsh sentences are handed out for drug dealers while white collar criminals that inflict damage to millions of people all over the world gets a slap on the wrist.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > I've pretty much given up on the justice system The SEC can't bring criminal charges. They levy fines, usually limited to repaying the money one stole plus their administrative expenses, ban people from the industry and refer cases for criminal prosecution. Their point is to stop damage, not necessary punish it. The criminal process is more selective about what it attacks. It's where justice is delivered. As a result of due process, it's also much slower. I remember similar complaints in the months between the civil penalties for Holmes et al and the announcement of criminal charges. These things take time. Sometimes, the bar for criminality isn't met. That said, the most damaging parts of this to Rothenberg are (a) the bad publicity and (b) being barred from the industry. The latter is probably much worse than $7 million.
  - smittywerben 8y ago
    > government's monopoly on violence Can I get a source on this?
    - CalChris 8y ago
      Max Weber. However, he stated it as Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Politics as a Vocation. http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/politicsasavocation.pdf http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/po...
philip1209 8y ago
Can somebody explain whether this can still lead to criminal prosecution? As I recall from the Theranos stuff - the SEC reached a similar settlement with Elizabeth quickly [1]. My understanding is that they want to protect the markets and get bad actors banned without years of trials. But then, the DOJ came in filed separate charges that will likely take much longer to prosecute, but have the potential for more severe punishment such as prison term. So - is this a sign that more significant trouble is coming for Rothenberg? [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41 [2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/theranos-founder-and-former-chief-operating-officer-charged-alleged-wire-fraud-schemes https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/theranos-founder-and-fo...
- pm90 8y ago
  SEC cannot prosecute criminal charges. What they can do is build a case and hand it over to DoJ/FBI for actual criminal prosecution (which as you said can take years). The taint of an SEC investigation is enough to scare away most investors from the entity though. Which is really helpful.
ajiang 8y ago
Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement. Fascinating, but not surprising, that it settled right away. I am curious whether the settlement details would be made available in any way.
- ciscoriordan 8y ago
  Whistleblower here. It took 25 months from when I reported the fraud until the settlement.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    Good job and thanks for sticking your neck out!
  - function_seven 8y ago
    I hope you were well compensated for going out on that limb. Thanks.
    - kirillseva 8y ago
      the whistleblower gets some significant % of settlement
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, would you do it again? Has there been any damage to your professional life?
    - jboggan 8y ago
      Article is about the whistleblower/commenter above. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-09/he-blew-the-whistle-on-a-silicon-valley-highflier-then-came-the-blowback https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-09/he-blew-t...
dang 8y ago
There's also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804063, which has a bit more background info.
jakelarkin 8y ago
I wonder if this precocious racket will pay out over Rothenberg's lifetime vs. just banking his pedigree and network on some boring low risk career track. He's currently ahead a few million but his reputation is toast.
- harryh 8y ago
  I keep a file on my Dropbox titled "Where Are They Now?" for exactly this purpose. Whenever I get curious about this sort of thing I add their name, a brief description, and the date to a list. I don't just do it for "bad" people, but for all sorts of people that become notable for one reason or another. For example I (somewhat) recently added David Hogg & Emma González to the file. I'm hoping that it will prove to be interesting reading in 10-20 years.
  - owens99 8y ago
    Please share this in 5-10 years :) Always interested in this kind of analysis. Even if it's just your opinion/anecdotes.
  - siruncledrew 8y ago
    This is a great idea!
ilaksh 8y ago
I think if you steal millions of dollars you should go to prison. And a fraud like this should have the same type of punishment as other types of theft.
- hashrate 8y ago
  > I think if you steal millions of dollars you should go to prison Not in corporate America
aphextron 8y ago
I went to Founders Field day in 2016, and I have to say from the vibe of that event this doesn't surprise me at all. It was literally like being in an episode of Silicon Valley. I do worry what this means for their incubator program though. They've been one of the few funds willing to throw a lot of dumb money at VR projects that just sound cool, and I'm all for that.
rahimnathwani 8y ago
I'm curious to know: - Does the firm and/or the individual have enough money? i.e. will the settlement, once paid, make investors whole? - Why does stealing $7 three times get someone a life sentence, but stealing $7MM once get zero jail time?
- slapshot 8y ago
  The SEC only has authority to levy civil fines. They issue a fine, and then hand the case over to the US Attorney's Office (and often state attorney generals' offices), which then build a criminal case. Stay tuned. This may not be over yet. (A good comparison is the Fyre Festival, which led to both civil and criminal charges: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-arrested-for-fraud/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcf... . ) Edit: Theranos was another where the SEC acted first, then the criminal case came next. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/15/17469332/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-criminal-charges-fraud https://www.vox.com/2018/6/15/17469332/theranos-elizabeth-ho...
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    And other times criminal charges comes first. For example, SEC investigated Bernie Madoff multiple times, but the it was the FBI that decided to act, based on a criminal complaint. Sentence: 150 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
    - jhabdas 8y ago
      In this case should one be allowed to request a death penalty? Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment?
      - lmm 8y ago
        > should one be allowed to request a death penalty? If prison conditions are bad enough for someone to even consider that, that's a damning indictment of the prison system. > Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment? Certainly not unusual, and jail doesn't seem inherently cruel, if we believe some people are enough of a danger to society that they need to be kept out of it. (Of course some particular jails might be cruel). (I'm using the British English meaning of "jail"; I'm aware that in US English the term has a technical meaning)
gumby 8y ago
They seemed like clowns to me (including calling to ask us to come pitch, setting up a time, and then forgetting about it when we showed up). Seeing them at industry events they didn't seem like they knew what they were doing. So how did they get LPs?
- sulam 8y ago
  They were only managing $64M, that's not exactly significant.
- patio11 8y ago
  So how did they get LPs? I don't know what the pitch was prior to "I turned $100k invested in Robinhood into $20 million of paper gains" but I think I have a pretty good idea of the conversation after.
AndrewKemendo 8y ago
I had two meetings with Rothenberg in 2016 before their troubles started and the whole vibe of the place seemed off. The people who asked me to come in were "partners" who I had good conversations with, but when I came in it was only interns who took the meetings. Now, that's not crazy in the valley, but what is crazy is that the interns had no connection with the partner, had no idea the meeting was going to happen, no background on our company and absolutely no technical or market knowledge around Augmented Reality, which is what they claimed to be experts in. This was in both cases. After the blow up at the end of 2016, I received an email from yet another "partner" in 2017 asking to meet up. I asked them if anything had fundamentally changed and this was the response: "In many ways, everything has fundamentally changed haha. If you're available though, I'd love for you and your co-founder to join us for a Warriors game next week. We're still waiting on the other series to wrap up, but we expect to have a home game Monday night. We have a box at Oracle Arena, and it would be great if you guys could come along." So clearly they had no problems throwing money around. Seems nothing changed. Really sad honestly.
tlrobinson 8y ago
The "0 lawsuits filed" stat on his website now seems a bit foreshadowing 150 Investments Made 175 Limited Partners 5 Years of Experience 0 Lawsuits Filed http://mikerothenberg.com/ http://mikerothenberg.com/ Maybe he can post a "Days since last SEC action" sign in the office.
- backuptape8 8y ago
  From the page's title: > The Actual Mike is not quite the virtual Gatsby Jay Gatsby was a criminal. Of course he says he's "not quite the virtual Gatsby." But he's still essentially likening himself to a fictional criminal.
  - CalChris 8y ago
    Jay Gatsby was a criminal. That's gray. It's hinted and perhaps likely that he was a bootlegger. As that was legal before prohibition and after, it's hard for me to morally judge him a criminal what with his character never having been charged and convicted of any crime.
    - oh_sigh 8y ago
      Agreed. I also never understood why Al Capone has such a bad stigma when he was really just a run of the mill tax evader.
      - jwc1 8y ago
        I think there's a great deal of evidence to suggest Capone was more than a run of the mill tax evader even though all they nailed him for was tax evasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Saint_Valentine's_Day_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Saint_Valentine's_Da... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit#Al_Capone's_empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit#Al_Capone's_emp...
        oh_sigh 8y ago
person_of_color 8y ago
Sounds fun! Anyone move to IC engineer to tech VC without being part of a startup exit?
tomc1985 8y ago
Did he really leave lorem ipsum text under his testimonials? Cause google translate returns garbage... blah blah blah "Nam mourning for the Playstation notebook" ... what?
jhabdas 8y ago
%s/Rothenberg/Rothstein/g

176 points by ciscoriordan 8y ago

"Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement" [1]. Besides blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal, Rothenberg also invested "$5 million from Rothenberg Ventures' second and third funds in his own startup company, River Studios" [2]. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-160 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-160 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenberg_Ventures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenberg_Ventures

throwawaymath 8y ago
> Besides blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal Can you talk a bit about where the line is between this being merely unethical as opposed to outright illegal?
- dsr_ 8y ago
  If you're in charge of the company, you can authorize expenditures for anything that reasonably relates to the company's business, including attracting investors, retaining employees, or incenting them to succeed. It's reckless to spend all your money on parties, but not illegal. But if you authorize the company to spend money on something which is in itself illegal (cocaine or weed for the parties, hookers instead of strippers), that's illegal. And if you effectively direct the money to your own benefit (pay for your house's landscaping, new pool, pet grooming bill) that's not legal (among other things, it counts as taxable income and I bet you forget to pay on that).
  - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
    I think you left out this one: If you make invoices that say you've ordered soda for the programmers, but there are no deliveries of soda because the money for sodas went to your overseas numbered account, that's illegal.
  - paulddraper 8y ago
    Another place you could go wrong is if you try to hide your poor financial decisions by giving fraudulent reports to shareholders/SEC. (Example: Enron)
- x0x0 8y ago
  From the sec complaint > Defendants at all relevant times were investment advisers within the meaning of Section 202(a)(11) of the Advisers Act [15 U.S.C. § 80b-2(a)(11)]. My personal guess: that law makes various actions (self-dealing, lying about what investment funds are being used for, non-arms-length transactions, etc) crimes instead of civil torts. Plus, you know, just plain fraud.
mfringel 8y ago
What does "dick move" mean to you, in this context?
wmf 8y ago
blowing investors' money on lavish staff events, which is a dick move but not necessarily illegal I'm not an expert on this topic, but if a limited partner agrees to something like "2 and 20" fees doesn't that imply that the other 98% of the money is to be invested and not used for expenses? 2% management fee on $64M assets is only $1.2M which is pretty small considering the size of staff they had. It's less bad if the investors agreed to high fees, but it could still be embezzlement if the money was spent on personal stuff.
- aml183 8y ago
  There is something called fund expenses. A GP can allocate part of the fund to pay towards expenses they deem to be fund expenses. For example, the audit would be classified as a fund expense. Most funds have an outside administration company that handles the money and approves/rejects these decisions.
- qeternity 8y ago
  Many funds have "chargeable" expenses like research and travel. These come directly out of the fund and not the management fee. Source: former hedge fund trader
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

ProAm 8y ago

7 million sounds like a drop to settle for, plus likely a small fine.

pwaai 8y ago
yeah I've pretty much given up on the justice system. if you have money regardless of how you obtained it, the law always favor those with capital for the most part. Unless you try to fight back against government's monopoly on violence....drug traffiking being a major competition, it makes sense why harsh sentences are handed out for drug dealers while white collar criminals that inflict damage to millions of people all over the world gets a slap on the wrist.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I've pretty much given up on the justice system The SEC can't bring criminal charges. They levy fines, usually limited to repaying the money one stole plus their administrative expenses, ban people from the industry and refer cases for criminal prosecution. Their point is to stop damage, not necessary punish it. The criminal process is more selective about what it attacks. It's where justice is delivered. As a result of due process, it's also much slower. I remember similar complaints in the months between the civil penalties for Holmes et al and the announcement of criminal charges. These things take time. Sometimes, the bar for criminality isn't met. That said, the most damaging parts of this to Rothenberg are (a) the bad publicity and (b) being barred from the industry. The latter is probably much worse than $7 million.
- smittywerben 8y ago
  > government's monopoly on violence Can I get a source on this?
  - CalChris 8y ago
    Max Weber. However, he stated it as Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. Politics as a Vocation. http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/politicsasavocation.pdf http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/class%20readings/weber/po...

philip1209 8y ago

Can somebody explain whether this can still lead to criminal prosecution? As I recall from the Theranos stuff - the SEC reached a similar settlement with Elizabeth quickly [1]. My understanding is that they want to protect the markets and get bad actors banned without years of trials. But then, the DOJ came in filed separate charges that will likely take much longer to prosecute, but have the potential for more severe punishment such as prison term. So - is this a sign that more significant trouble is coming for Rothenberg? [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41 https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2018-41 [2] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/theranos-founder-and-former-chief-operating-officer-charged-alleged-wire-fraud-schemes https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/theranos-founder-and-fo...

pm90 8y ago
SEC cannot prosecute criminal charges. What they can do is build a case and hand it over to DoJ/FBI for actual criminal prosecution (which as you said can take years). The taint of an SEC investigation is enough to scare away most investors from the entity though. Which is really helpful.

ajiang 8y ago

Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, Rothenberg and Rothenberg Ventures agreed to settle the charges. The settlement is subject to approval by the federal district court for the Northern District of California which would determine the amount of disgorgement and civil money penalties. Rothenberg also agreed to be barred from the brokerage and investment advisory business with a right to reapply after five years. An SEC order imposing the bar will be instituted following court approval of the settlement. Fascinating, but not surprising, that it settled right away. I am curious whether the settlement details would be made available in any way.

ciscoriordan 8y ago
Whistleblower here. It took 25 months from when I reported the fraud until the settlement.
- munk-a 8y ago
  Good job and thanks for sticking your neck out!
- function_seven 8y ago
  I hope you were well compensated for going out on that limb. Thanks.
  - kirillseva 8y ago
    the whistleblower gets some significant % of settlement
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, would you do it again? Has there been any damage to your professional life?
  - jboggan 8y ago
    Article is about the whistleblower/commenter above. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-09/he-blew-the-whistle-on-a-silicon-valley-highflier-then-came-the-blowback https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-09/he-blew-t...

dang 8y ago

There's also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804063 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17804063, which has a bit more background info.

jakelarkin 8y ago

I wonder if this precocious racket will pay out over Rothenberg's lifetime vs. just banking his pedigree and network on some boring low risk career track. He's currently ahead a few million but his reputation is toast.

harryh 8y ago
I keep a file on my Dropbox titled "Where Are They Now?" for exactly this purpose. Whenever I get curious about this sort of thing I add their name, a brief description, and the date to a list. I don't just do it for "bad" people, but for all sorts of people that become notable for one reason or another. For example I (somewhat) recently added David Hogg & Emma González to the file. I'm hoping that it will prove to be interesting reading in 10-20 years.
- owens99 8y ago
  Please share this in 5-10 years :) Always interested in this kind of analysis. Even if it's just your opinion/anecdotes.
- siruncledrew 8y ago
  This is a great idea!

ilaksh 8y ago

I think if you steal millions of dollars you should go to prison. And a fraud like this should have the same type of punishment as other types of theft.

hashrate 8y ago
> I think if you steal millions of dollars you should go to prison Not in corporate America

aphextron 8y ago

I went to Founders Field day in 2016, and I have to say from the vibe of that event this doesn't surprise me at all. It was literally like being in an episode of Silicon Valley. I do worry what this means for their incubator program though. They've been one of the few funds willing to throw a lot of dumb money at VR projects that just sound cool, and I'm all for that.

rahimnathwani 8y ago

I'm curious to know: - Does the firm and/or the individual have enough money? i.e. will the settlement, once paid, make investors whole? - Why does stealing $7 three times get someone a life sentence, but stealing $7MM once get zero jail time?

slapshot 8y ago
The SEC only has authority to levy civil fines. They issue a fine, and then hand the case over to the US Attorney's Office (and often state attorney generals' offices), which then build a criminal case. Stay tuned. This may not be over yet. (A good comparison is the Fyre Festival, which led to both civil and criminal charges: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-arrested-for-fraud/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcf... . ) Edit: Theranos was another where the SEC acted first, then the criminal case came next. https://www.vox.com/2018/6/15/17469332/theranos-elizabeth-holmes-criminal-charges-fraud https://www.vox.com/2018/6/15/17469332/theranos-elizabeth-ho...
- paulddraper 8y ago
  And other times criminal charges comes first. For example, SEC investigated Bernie Madoff multiple times, but the it was the FBI that decided to act, based on a criminal complaint. Sentence: 150 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Madoff
  - jhabdas 8y ago
    In this case should one be allowed to request a death penalty? Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment?
    - lmm 8y ago
      > should one be allowed to request a death penalty? If prison conditions are bad enough for someone to even consider that, that's a damning indictment of the prison system. > Wouldn't 150 years in jail be considered cruel and unusual punishment? Certainly not unusual, and jail doesn't seem inherently cruel, if we believe some people are enough of a danger to society that they need to be kept out of it. (Of course some particular jails might be cruel). (I'm using the British English meaning of "jail"; I'm aware that in US English the term has a technical meaning)

gumby 8y ago

They seemed like clowns to me (including calling to ask us to come pitch, setting up a time, and then forgetting about it when we showed up). Seeing them at industry events they didn't seem like they knew what they were doing. So how did they get LPs?

sulam 8y ago
They were only managing $64M, that's not exactly significant.
patio11 8y ago
So how did they get LPs? I don't know what the pitch was prior to "I turned $100k invested in Robinhood into $20 million of paper gains" but I think I have a pretty good idea of the conversation after.

AndrewKemendo 8y ago

I had two meetings with Rothenberg in 2016 before their troubles started and the whole vibe of the place seemed off. The people who asked me to come in were "partners" who I had good conversations with, but when I came in it was only interns who took the meetings. Now, that's not crazy in the valley, but what is crazy is that the interns had no connection with the partner, had no idea the meeting was going to happen, no background on our company and absolutely no technical or market knowledge around Augmented Reality, which is what they claimed to be experts in. This was in both cases. After the blow up at the end of 2016, I received an email from yet another "partner" in 2017 asking to meet up. I asked them if anything had fundamentally changed and this was the response: "In many ways, everything has fundamentally changed haha. If you're available though, I'd love for you and your co-founder to join us for a Warriors game next week. We're still waiting on the other series to wrap up, but we expect to have a home game Monday night. We have a box at Oracle Arena, and it would be great if you guys could come along." So clearly they had no problems throwing money around. Seems nothing changed. Really sad honestly.

tlrobinson 8y ago

The "0 lawsuits filed" stat on his website now seems a bit foreshadowing 150 Investments Made 175 Limited Partners 5 Years of Experience 0 Lawsuits Filed http://mikerothenberg.com/ http://mikerothenberg.com/ Maybe he can post a "Days since last SEC action" sign in the office.

backuptape8 8y ago
From the page's title: > The Actual Mike is not quite the virtual Gatsby Jay Gatsby was a criminal. Of course he says he's "not quite the virtual Gatsby." But he's still essentially likening himself to a fictional criminal.
- CalChris 8y ago
  Jay Gatsby was a criminal. That's gray. It's hinted and perhaps likely that he was a bootlegger. As that was legal before prohibition and after, it's hard for me to morally judge him a criminal what with his character never having been charged and convicted of any crime.
  - oh_sigh 8y ago
    Agreed. I also never understood why Al Capone has such a bad stigma when he was really just a run of the mill tax evader.
    - jwc1 8y ago
      I think there's a great deal of evidence to suggest Capone was more than a run of the mill tax evader even though all they nailed him for was tax evasion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Saint_Valentine's_Day_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone#Saint_Valentine's_Da... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit#Al_Capone's_empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Outfit#Al_Capone's_emp...
      - oh_sigh 8y ago

person_of_color 8y ago

Sounds fun! Anyone move to IC engineer to tech VC without being part of a startup exit?

tomc1985 8y ago

Did he really leave lorem ipsum text under his testimonials? Cause google translate returns garbage... blah blah blah "Nam mourning for the Playstation notebook" ... what?

jhabdas 8y ago

%s/Rothenberg/Rothstein/g