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SEC charges YouPlus and CEO with defrauding investors

93 points by chmaynard 6y ago

vkou 6y ago
> According to the complaint, Shamim falsely told investors that YouPlus earned millions of dollars in annual revenue and had more than 100 customers, including Fortune 500 companies. When one investor pressed Shamim for information substantiating those claims, Shamim allegedly provided the investor with falsified bank statements in an effort to conceal the fraud. The scheme allegedly unraveled in late 2019 when Shamim confessed to certain investors that YouPlus had in fact earned less than $500,000 and obtained only four paying customers from the company’s inception in 2013. Seems to be just regular run-of-the-mill fraud. Fake it till you make it is something to direct at your customers, or at your product's implementation, not at people who are giving you their money, who are protected by the SEC. I assume that the firm will never be able to make a positive return for its investors, which is why they invoked the nuclear option.
- elliekelly 6y ago
  > Seems to be just regular run-of-the-mill fraud. I’m surprised the DOJ hasn’t charged them with a crime yet. The money the SEC is seeking has to be long gone right?
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > I’m surprised the DOJ hasn’t charged them with a crime yet. When both civil SEC charges and criminal charges by DOJ emerge out of the same act, the former is often well ahead of the latter, so, when civil charges are filed without concurrent criminal charges, one shouldn’t read too much in to it. Though, as a reply points out, that separation does not actually apply in this case. EDIT: corrected error of ordering pointed out in a reply, and expanded somewhat for clarity of intent.
    - kbenson 6y ago
      So, since DOJ criminal charges awe usually well ahead of SEC civil charges, that means we probably won't see them? Or did you mix up some of the ordering there (as the wording makes it look like maybe you were trying to say we might see DOJ charges eventually because they take longer).
    - etimberg 6y ago
      From the article > In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California today announced criminal charges against Shamim.
necubi 6y ago
The glassdoor reviews are fun: > Advice to potential investors and partners - check all numbers from CEO - it’s easy and you will be surprised. > Facts about Youplus: > - 4+years old - has no users and never had traction in both USA and India - change of direction every 2-4 weeks - no one cares about results > CEO has a lot of energy and love to pitch whatever in his head to everyone in the office for hours in endless meetings. What he completely lacks is a solid vision, execution and just a common sense. His ego is tremendous — he despises other people’s opinions and if he asks for your opinion the only expected answer is “Awesome!”. > Youplus is a toxic place to be for everyone with a self-respect. (from October 2018) > First of all they do not pay on time > You can get fired in a second because they don't need you anymore > Promises are not kept most of the time (from Jun 2017)
- darkhorse13 6y ago
  CEO honestly sounds like my ex-boss. He would literally waste hours of our time on useless pitches and expect us to clap at the end.
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    Like basically trying to do a Steve Jobs new product announcement internally before the products were developed?
    - darkhorse13 6y ago
      Pretty much. I think the main issue with people like this is that their product visions keep on changing. So it becomes almost impossible for the tech team to execute properly.
      - tossmeout 6y ago
        I worked for a CEO who did this once (the frequently-bombarding-the-team-with-new-ideas thing, not the expecting-applause part). He was a good guy, and talented in many areas, but he wasn't a great product leader. He would let his excitement for some new idea take hold of him, and he would share it with everyone without first taking the time to sit down and reconcile how the feature fit into the rest of the app, what problems it solved, possible alternative solutions to that problem, the cost and complexity of implementing the feature, how the feature should be prioritized, etc. This stuff and more is what sets good product people apart from mediocre product people. The problem is that it's all invisible and optional, so mediocre product people aren't even aware they're not doing it, and thus it's easy for them to believe they're great product people when they really aren't. At some point he got the message that he needed to stop disrupting the team with these frequent ideas, so he switched to writing them out in gigantic Google Docs that he'd send to people. At least that was async, so it was less interruptive than him stopping at your desk, but it was still super time-consuming to read his docs. Eventually the entire team started ignoring them.
adrr 6y ago
Curious why the investors didn’t do any diligence like requiring an audit as a condition for funding. We saw the same thing with Theranos.
- tossmeout 6y ago
  Standard for investments in tech startups, no? Although I'd assume less standard for biotech startups like Theranos.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > why the investors didn’t do any diligence like requiring an audit This is an unusual ask. Founders forging bank statements simply isn’t common enough to merit it.
  - adrr 6y ago
    At a previous company, we had it as a requirement for the round. Didn't bother us because our book were clean and our growth wasn't fabricated. Company had a successful exit by an acquisition . At the current startup i am at, we do yearly audits that we share with our investors. We have nothing to hide and our growth is real. If company doesn't want to do an audit, they are hiding something. Founders forging stuff is more common than you think. I've personally seen shady accounting at two startups like fake contracts were nothing of value was exchanged but saw the revenue booked. One of the startups was a vendor to homestore.com were the CEO went to jail cooking the book but we were never investigated being a private vc backed company. Though investors did fire the founders and executive team after they forced an audit. SEC prosecuting these cases is quite rare with privately held companies. This is the second case that i know of.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- tw1912112 6y ago
  I think this founder particularily has history of exits, atleast on his LinkedIn. They might be just buying the story more than the details?
whoisjuan 6y ago
Honestly the investors are morons. Who doesn't do due diligence before investing? This communication says that the CEO only produced the false bank statements when he was pressed about it. Seems like somebody snapped out of it, did the due diligence that should have done in the first place before signing a check, and realized that this was all smoke and mirrors.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  I'd go even deeper Did they see the product in action? A concept? Or all they saw was powerpoint and empty words I agree, it's fraud, but I sincerely believe there's a point where "don't blame the victim" stops making sense. > to have developed a machine-learning tool to analyze videos on the internet Ah yes of course.
- itsoktocry 6y ago
  >Who doesn't do due diligence before investing? Theranos managed to suck in billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Tim Draper and Larry Ellison, executives at Safeway, the Walton Family and others. All without working technology or a single peer-reviewed paper regarding their work. It happens all the time, and is happening as we type this. How?
tw1912112 6y ago
What is the mentality here? SV investors are quite accomodating of people investing in building a decent product even if it's not making any revenue or isn't being adopted fast. Why lie?
irjustin 6y ago
Sadly in most cases like these, the money's largely gone and very little is left to make any 'round' of investors whole (usually the latest round comes first). A number of comments are asking why the investors do due diligence in checking the numbers. Before Series A (i.e. seed, seed+, bridge), asking for audited financials is quite uncommon. The startup investment space largely works on trust, honesty, and speed. It also works on 'stamps of approval', previous ventures, accelerators (500, YC), investor networks (gain one, you gain a few others by association). It's easy to say, they should always ask for diligence/auditing, but that slows things down in a space where speed to delivery means something. Less time you can spend on fundraising the better and even w/o diligence you can spend way too much time fundraising. Not saying it's perfect, but it's the side of the double edge sword that's in play. If defrauding happens too much then enough bad eggs will have ruined the pot and audited financials will be required as a general practice.
davidbrennerjr 6y ago
I think it's wrong to rationalize what YouPlus CEO did to investors by saying he was like so many other people in startup culture; his actions don't represent silicon valley. I wish more people would call out startups like YouPlus when they take money from investors for the business they don't have and for the technology that only exists inside their heads.

93 points by chmaynard 6y ago

vkou 6y ago

> According to the complaint, Shamim falsely told investors that YouPlus earned millions of dollars in annual revenue and had more than 100 customers, including Fortune 500 companies. When one investor pressed Shamim for information substantiating those claims, Shamim allegedly provided the investor with falsified bank statements in an effort to conceal the fraud. The scheme allegedly unraveled in late 2019 when Shamim confessed to certain investors that YouPlus had in fact earned less than $500,000 and obtained only four paying customers from the company’s inception in 2013. Seems to be just regular run-of-the-mill fraud. Fake it till you make it is something to direct at your customers, or at your product's implementation, not at people who are giving you their money, who are protected by the SEC. I assume that the firm will never be able to make a positive return for its investors, which is why they invoked the nuclear option.

elliekelly 6y ago
> Seems to be just regular run-of-the-mill fraud. I’m surprised the DOJ hasn’t charged them with a crime yet. The money the SEC is seeking has to be long gone right?
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I’m surprised the DOJ hasn’t charged them with a crime yet. When both civil SEC charges and criminal charges by DOJ emerge out of the same act, the former is often well ahead of the latter, so, when civil charges are filed without concurrent criminal charges, one shouldn’t read too much in to it. Though, as a reply points out, that separation does not actually apply in this case. EDIT: corrected error of ordering pointed out in a reply, and expanded somewhat for clarity of intent.
  - kbenson 6y ago
    So, since DOJ criminal charges awe usually well ahead of SEC civil charges, that means we probably won't see them? Or did you mix up some of the ordering there (as the wording makes it look like maybe you were trying to say we might see DOJ charges eventually because they take longer).
  - etimberg 6y ago
    From the article > In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California today announced criminal charges against Shamim.

necubi 6y ago

The glassdoor reviews are fun: > Advice to potential investors and partners - check all numbers from CEO - it’s easy and you will be surprised. > Facts about Youplus: > - 4+years old - has no users and never had traction in both USA and India - change of direction every 2-4 weeks - no one cares about results > CEO has a lot of energy and love to pitch whatever in his head to everyone in the office for hours in endless meetings. What he completely lacks is a solid vision, execution and just a common sense. His ego is tremendous — he despises other people’s opinions and if he asks for your opinion the only expected answer is “Awesome!”. > Youplus is a toxic place to be for everyone with a self-respect. (from October 2018) > First of all they do not pay on time > You can get fired in a second because they don't need you anymore > Promises are not kept most of the time (from Jun 2017)

darkhorse13 6y ago
CEO honestly sounds like my ex-boss. He would literally waste hours of our time on useless pitches and expect us to clap at the end.
- saalweachter 6y ago
  Like basically trying to do a Steve Jobs new product announcement internally before the products were developed?
  - darkhorse13 6y ago
    Pretty much. I think the main issue with people like this is that their product visions keep on changing. So it becomes almost impossible for the tech team to execute properly.
    - tossmeout 6y ago
      I worked for a CEO who did this once (the frequently-bombarding-the-team-with-new-ideas thing, not the expecting-applause part). He was a good guy, and talented in many areas, but he wasn't a great product leader. He would let his excitement for some new idea take hold of him, and he would share it with everyone without first taking the time to sit down and reconcile how the feature fit into the rest of the app, what problems it solved, possible alternative solutions to that problem, the cost and complexity of implementing the feature, how the feature should be prioritized, etc. This stuff and more is what sets good product people apart from mediocre product people. The problem is that it's all invisible and optional, so mediocre product people aren't even aware they're not doing it, and thus it's easy for them to believe they're great product people when they really aren't. At some point he got the message that he needed to stop disrupting the team with these frequent ideas, so he switched to writing them out in gigantic Google Docs that he'd send to people. At least that was async, so it was less interruptive than him stopping at your desk, but it was still super time-consuming to read his docs. Eventually the entire team started ignoring them.

adrr 6y ago

Curious why the investors didn’t do any diligence like requiring an audit as a condition for funding. We saw the same thing with Theranos.

tossmeout 6y ago
Standard for investments in tech startups, no? Although I'd assume less standard for biotech startups like Theranos.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> why the investors didn’t do any diligence like requiring an audit This is an unusual ask. Founders forging bank statements simply isn’t common enough to merit it.
- adrr 6y ago
  At a previous company, we had it as a requirement for the round. Didn't bother us because our book were clean and our growth wasn't fabricated. Company had a successful exit by an acquisition . At the current startup i am at, we do yearly audits that we share with our investors. We have nothing to hide and our growth is real. If company doesn't want to do an audit, they are hiding something. Founders forging stuff is more common than you think. I've personally seen shady accounting at two startups like fake contracts were nothing of value was exchanged but saw the revenue booked. One of the startups was a vendor to homestore.com were the CEO went to jail cooking the book but we were never investigated being a private vc backed company. Though investors did fire the founders and executive team after they forced an audit. SEC prosecuting these cases is quite rare with privately held companies. This is the second case that i know of.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
tw1912112 6y ago
I think this founder particularily has history of exits, atleast on his LinkedIn. They might be just buying the story more than the details?

whoisjuan 6y ago

Honestly the investors are morons. Who doesn't do due diligence before investing? This communication says that the CEO only produced the false bank statements when he was pressed about it. Seems like somebody snapped out of it, did the due diligence that should have done in the first place before signing a check, and realized that this was all smoke and mirrors.

raverbashing 6y ago
I'd go even deeper Did they see the product in action? A concept? Or all they saw was powerpoint and empty words I agree, it's fraud, but I sincerely believe there's a point where "don't blame the victim" stops making sense. > to have developed a machine-learning tool to analyze videos on the internet Ah yes of course.
itsoktocry 6y ago
>Who doesn't do due diligence before investing? Theranos managed to suck in billionaires like Rupert Murdoch, Tim Draper and Larry Ellison, executives at Safeway, the Walton Family and others. All without working technology or a single peer-reviewed paper regarding their work. It happens all the time, and is happening as we type this. How?

tw1912112 6y ago

What is the mentality here? SV investors are quite accomodating of people investing in building a decent product even if it's not making any revenue or isn't being adopted fast. Why lie?

irjustin 6y ago

Sadly in most cases like these, the money's largely gone and very little is left to make any 'round' of investors whole (usually the latest round comes first). A number of comments are asking why the investors do due diligence in checking the numbers. Before Series A (i.e. seed, seed+, bridge), asking for audited financials is quite uncommon. The startup investment space largely works on trust, honesty, and speed. It also works on 'stamps of approval', previous ventures, accelerators (500, YC), investor networks (gain one, you gain a few others by association). It's easy to say, they should always ask for diligence/auditing, but that slows things down in a space where speed to delivery means something. Less time you can spend on fundraising the better and even w/o diligence you can spend way too much time fundraising. Not saying it's perfect, but it's the side of the double edge sword that's in play. If defrauding happens too much then enough bad eggs will have ruined the pot and audited financials will be required as a general practice.

davidbrennerjr 6y ago

I think it's wrong to rationalize what YouPlus CEO did to investors by saying he was like so many other people in startup culture; his actions don't represent silicon valley. I wish more people would call out startups like YouPlus when they take money from investors for the business they don't have and for the technology that only exists inside their heads.