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I'd called out fraud (blatant lying in investor updates) at a VC backed startup where I was a technical co-founder, once. I emailed all the investors and presen

I'd called out fraud (blatant lying in investor updates) at a VC backed startup where I was a technical co-founder, once. I emailed all the investors and presented all the evidence to them. They decided to not rock the boat and keep my charlatan co-founder. So, I left. Now, the company is slowly bleeding to death.

buran77 6mo ago
> Now, the company is slowly bleeding to death. There are thousands of companies where the shady practices are rewarded, the companies thrive and make money for the investors. So the investors are incentivized to reward this behavior just on the chance that they are rewarded back. Whistleblowing sinks those chances and the investors and VCs know it. It doesn' just take away the money, it even takes away the plausible deniability. They put a lot of effort to absolutely punish any whistleblower to discourage the rest. Anything for a dollar. and this is probably all you'll ever need to know about almost every VC out there. Beyond the witty "I'm rich so I'm smart" blog posts and tweets, they're very much just the "anything for a dollar" type of people.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
junofan 6mo ago
To be fair, I’m not sure blatant lying in investor updates alone constitutes fraud. There needs to be harm (or the intent thereof) AFAIK. The other party needs to be using that information to make a decision. If you give me a dollar and then later I tell you I’m actually Beyonce, is that fraud? Or am I just a lying sonofabitch?
- ikidd 6mo ago
  It's encouraging future investment on a false pretext. I'd say that's fraud.
- brookst 6mo ago
  If I give you a dollar and you say it’s being spent wisely, Beyonce loves the product, you’re about to land Taylor Swift as pro bono public ambassador… yeah that’s fraud.
- woadwarrior01 6mo ago
  Lying in investor update was merely the tip of the iceberg. There was lots more, fabricating customer traction pre-investment, paying oneself back-pay for months spent twiddling thumbs pre-investment (before I was involved), etc. My lesson from the whole kerfuffle was that investors (at least the ones I’d dealt with) prefer hustle over integrity and execution abilities.
  - zipy124 6mo ago
    This makes sense because investors in startups just care that they aren't left holding the bag. As long as they aren't the final fool in the buy in chain, they don't care.
soc2fraud 6mo ago
if they touch the federal government, feel free to ping me. I can walk you through how to report to people who will actually do something about it and do so anonymously

buran77 6mo ago

> Now, the company is slowly bleeding to death. There are thousands of companies where the shady practices are rewarded, the companies thrive and make money for the investors. So the investors are incentivized to reward this behavior just on the chance that they are rewarded back. Whistleblowing sinks those chances and the investors and VCs know it. It doesn' just take away the money, it even takes away the plausible deniability. They put a lot of effort to absolutely punish any whistleblower to discourage the rest. Anything for a dollar. and this is probably all you'll ever need to know about almost every VC out there. Beyond the witty "I'm rich so I'm smart" blog posts and tweets, they're very much just the "anything for a dollar" type of people.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

junofan 6mo ago

To be fair, I’m not sure blatant lying in investor updates alone constitutes fraud. There needs to be harm (or the intent thereof) AFAIK. The other party needs to be using that information to make a decision. If you give me a dollar and then later I tell you I’m actually Beyonce, is that fraud? Or am I just a lying sonofabitch?

ikidd 6mo ago
It's encouraging future investment on a false pretext. I'd say that's fraud.
brookst 6mo ago
If I give you a dollar and you say it’s being spent wisely, Beyonce loves the product, you’re about to land Taylor Swift as pro bono public ambassador… yeah that’s fraud.
woadwarrior01 6mo ago
Lying in investor update was merely the tip of the iceberg. There was lots more, fabricating customer traction pre-investment, paying oneself back-pay for months spent twiddling thumbs pre-investment (before I was involved), etc. My lesson from the whole kerfuffle was that investors (at least the ones I’d dealt with) prefer hustle over integrity and execution abilities.
- zipy124 6mo ago
  This makes sense because investors in startups just care that they aren't left holding the bag. As long as they aren't the final fool in the buy in chain, they don't care.

soc2fraud 6mo ago

if they touch the federal government, feel free to ping me. I can walk you through how to report to people who will actually do something about it and do so anonymously