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-- worked for a startup that fabricated 80% of users - raised 3 million - i couldnt figure out why even though user growth was insane - support requests low - p

-- worked for a startup that fabricated 80% of users - raised 3 million - i couldnt figure out why even though user growth was insane - support requests low - product was always broken - no product feedback etc - after 8 months - i dumped the emails of the users manually - full of skfljir@sdlfjd.rlkwjr - literally - many "emails" were just not even tlds - just junk - confronted the founder - was fired - told the investors - they shrugged - said hope he can find product market fit - strangest experience of my career -- JPM legal claim: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23570243/frank_suit.pdf https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23570243/frank_suit.p... - said they had 4.25 million users to sell it - then 4.265 million accounts generated - guess they actually had 250k accounts - yikes -- "The Frank engineer was not persuaded and declined to participate in the scheme, and instead said that he only would provide Javice with Frank’s actual list of customer accounts: fewer than 300,000 customer accounts as of July 31, 2021. "

jrochkind1 4y ago
> told the investors - they shrugged - said hope he can find product market fit Makes me think that investors are often kind of in on it too. Like in crypto, they know it's all smoke and mirrors, just hope that it can hold on long enough to find a bigger sucker.
godzillabrennus 4y ago
I know of a startup that bought another startup using an investment bank. The startup that was the acquiring entity later had the CEO charged with crimes related to a previous company they had founded and were CEO of many years ago. Media scrutiny kicked in on their then current venture the acquiring company and it turned out the company they bought had never conducted any business whatsoever with the clients they had publicly and repeatedly touted. When the acquiring company CEO took a plea deal and admitted to the crimes of their past they got leniency from the feds for their frauds. They didn’t serve a day in jail. They admitted they stole eight figures from their investors. Not one investor filed a lawsuit against them. I’ll never understand that.
raincom 4y ago
That's how spammers operate--creating domains on the fly. Many spammers own registries in disguise; that way, everything can be automated.
dx034 4y ago
I like that the engineer refused to do the job. The founder managed to get someone else to do it, but refreshing to see engineers stand up to bad business practices.
- csomar 4y ago
  There is legal liability with this (which can potentially include jail) with no upside (you don't get the upside in equity, just keep the shitty job). I'm surprised if there is an engineer who will comply.
  - dx034 4y ago
    Many would. If you're not rich enough to be able to afford being jobless, risking getting fired over a simple task is a very hard decision to make.
    - csomar 4y ago
      Then you must be a really bad engineer (both from being afraid to be jobless + from doing really bad math).
      - ohyes 4y ago
        People have different experiences with poverty. So, while I agree the risk assessment is bad, competent people do stupid things for bad reasons because of their personal history all the time

jrochkind1 4y ago

> told the investors - they shrugged - said hope he can find product market fit Makes me think that investors are often kind of in on it too. Like in crypto, they know it's all smoke and mirrors, just hope that it can hold on long enough to find a bigger sucker.

godzillabrennus 4y ago

I know of a startup that bought another startup using an investment bank. The startup that was the acquiring entity later had the CEO charged with crimes related to a previous company they had founded and were CEO of many years ago. Media scrutiny kicked in on their then current venture the acquiring company and it turned out the company they bought had never conducted any business whatsoever with the clients they had publicly and repeatedly touted. When the acquiring company CEO took a plea deal and admitted to the crimes of their past they got leniency from the feds for their frauds. They didn’t serve a day in jail. They admitted they stole eight figures from their investors. Not one investor filed a lawsuit against them. I’ll never understand that.

raincom 4y ago

That's how spammers operate--creating domains on the fly. Many spammers own registries in disguise; that way, everything can be automated.

dx034 4y ago

I like that the engineer refused to do the job. The founder managed to get someone else to do it, but refreshing to see engineers stand up to bad business practices.

csomar 4y ago
There is legal liability with this (which can potentially include jail) with no upside (you don't get the upside in equity, just keep the shitty job). I'm surprised if there is an engineer who will comply.
- dx034 4y ago
  Many would. If you're not rich enough to be able to afford being jobless, risking getting fired over a simple task is a very hard decision to make.
  - csomar 4y ago
    Then you must be a really bad engineer (both from being afraid to be jobless + from doing really bad math).
    - ohyes 4y ago
      People have different experiences with poverty. So, while I agree the risk assessment is bad, competent people do stupid things for bad reasons because of their personal history all the time