

The Talented Ms. Hornstein: How Shirls Fooled The Valley - kine
http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/28/talented-shirley-hornstein/

======
citricsquid
Pretty reasonable photoshops. The sad thing is so many people like this exist
and more and more are starting to exist, the internet makes it very easy to
pretend you're someone you're not and manipulating people that want to get
something and think you have it (connections) is even easier.

I'm surprised she hasn't done the customary purchasing of Twitter followers,
that seems to be an oh-so common way to artificially inflate your supposed
value to the world.

What I don't understand about people like this is if you have the skills to
manipulate people into thinking you're connected to important people and get
jobs because of it then you can use those skills "legitimately" (in the sense
that you're not lying to the people you work with).

oh and also the headline seems pretty sensationalist, it seems she tricked a
few no-name startups (ones without a reputation of being important) and got
caught making claims of associations with others, although I think what would
be most interesting would be "Zaarly" to explain whether she was a good
"consultant" or not, not that it ultimately matters at all.

~~~
jwwest
I actually met her at a YC backed startup where she was doing something with
marketing.

She struck me as incessantly annoying with name dropping and...how should I
put this? Valley fangirl-ism? It was obviously that something was a little
off, but wow, did this article strike me by surprise.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I also met Shirley at the Zaarly crawl when they stopped at our startup. Had
pretty much the exact same experience, tons of name dropping, ridiculously
overenthusiastic and yeah, valley fangirlism is a great term for it. I knew
exactly who they were talking about when I read the title. The valley is a
weird place.

------
richardjordan
This is all kinda sad really. The tech media is pathetic and the same
publication "exposing" this unfortunate waste of space (who wouldn't have been
able to pull the wool over the eyes of any company that had the self
confidence to reference check instead of jumping on every potential hire who
can name drop) is largely responsible for the phony tech-celeb culture that's
invaded the valley in recent years.

It's a serious business what we do here in Silicon Valley. Sure we can enjoy
our work, but most of us are committing our lives and livelihoods to working
hard at what we do. The trivial nature of the media covering the tech industry
right now, the desperate need for people to feel they have some sort of
celebrity cachet because of what we do, and the fact that too many people
watched the Social Network and want to pretend that's their life, is just a
sorry state of affairs.

Word gets around about people like this. It's really not necessary to post an
article on TechCrunch like you're exposing some mastermind criminal. Well I
suppose it is if the generation of journalists currently staffing the tech
press is really just taking umbrage that someone else with scant
qualifications wants to run around the valley acting like they are somebody
when they've not created anything themselves.

Yeah, this article just reminds me of the sorry state of media coverage of our
industry.

------
atom-sf
This is a throw-away account. I've meet Shirley a handful of times, through
mutual friends and founders here in SF.

Every time we hungout, she would tell elaborate stories of meeting so and so,
or being friends with Sean Parker, or Justin Timberlake. Almost immediately,
the first time I meet her, I was super skeptical; always felt like something
was really off with her.

She mentioned she knew the founders at Dropbox, and even said that she had
stock in Dropbox and sold it, and made quite a nice sum of money. Again, all
the while I was super skeptical.

It is kind of sad that this information had to be released in such a public
way on TechCrunch. In fact, I am not sure it is TechCrunch worthy.

At any rate, the valley, and SF are a much smaller place then people think,
word get's around, so be yourself, stay honest, and be humble.

~~~
fakeer
_I am not sure it is TechCrunch worthy._

It is very much TC worthy. TC is no holy land. They themselves have used the
medium to wash their dirty laundry in public, more than once.

------
tokenadult
"One of my sources told me: 'If nothing else, I’ve learned a valuable life
lesson — don’t trust anyone until they deliver.'"

But of course. And this is why hiring procedures should generally be based on
work-sample tests rather than on reviews of resumes (which may just be a
tissue of lies) or impressions after personal interviews (which may also be
full of lies). Research shows that neither biographical data about job
applicants (e.g., resumes) nor the performance of job applicants in interviews
does as well as work-sample tests in finding workers who do good work.

Full references can be found for these facts in my FAQ post on hiring
procedures,

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4270768>

last posted in complete form about a month ago here on HN.

~~~
learc83
I know some studies that showed work sample tests to be effective, also showed
general intelligence tests to be effective in positions where the employee
would be trained in new skills.

It's difficult to pull off because of possible discrimination claims, e.g., IQ
tests are racially biased, but it can be done if you can demonstrate a
business need.

I wonder if there are any examples of businesses that only hire people over a
certain score on a general intelligence test?

~~~
Mvandenbergh
McKinsey has a basic problem solving test as a screen before the structured
interviews. I found it very easy, but it screens out a surprisingly high
number of people.

I know that several other strategy consulting companies do use intelligence
screen based on progressive matrix tests as part of their interview process,
but my only experience there is European (but with American companies) and I
don't know if they use it in the US as well.

------
melvinmt
I've worked next to Shirley for a couple of months in NextSpace last year. She
was a nice girl who was doing some marketing work for Zaarly back then. She
actually was one of the first organizers of the successful Zaarly Startup
Crawls. To accomplish such a thing, you _have_ to be connected. So there may
be some fluff to it, but it's certainly not all air.

I'm actually astonished by how low TechCrunch has sunk by calling her out like
that and ruining her future career.

~~~
RyJones
I don't think TechCrunch ruined anyone's career.

~~~
politician
I'll bet it shows up pretty high in Google search results given that it's been
linked from HN.

~~~
46Bit
Worked out pretty well for some people in the past.

------
creamyhorror
In reality, I think people like her are less dangerous/harmful than the amoral
snakes who do know how to lie and manipulate convincingly, and cover their
tracks. Ms. Hornstein made herself a relatively easy target of suspicion, what
with the photoshops and outsize claims; it almost sounds like she had
delusions of grandeur. Compare that to sociopaths who deceive intelligently
and play dirty games to climb up - they're much harder to catch or stop.

(Not defending her, I just find her actions a little too transparent to worry
about)

------
ori_b
Who is this, and why should I care?

There are dozens of unimportant people lying on their resumes. Why is this one
newsworthy?

~~~
joezydeco
Maybe because it landed her in Forbes?

~~~
citricsquid
Slight tangent: Forbes now takes contributor submissions which are
(frequently) worthless fluff pieces, as is the one she is in. It's not by a
Forbes staff member, I think they're really killing their branding with the
contributor idea. Every time I see a forbes link now I have to make sure to
check if it's just someone that applied to submit articles or actual Forbes
staff.

~~~
joezydeco
That's good to know...and also very disturbing at the same time. Thanks.

------
untog
Does anyone know what she actually _did_ at these companies? By which I mean,
it appears that she misrepresented herself in order to gain consulting work
(which Zaarly appear to have confirmed), but I'm interested to know the nature
of this consulting work.

Was it to secure further funding? It would be pretty hilarious if she was in
fact successful at her job on the back of the same lies that got her hired in
the first place. The Photoshops are definitely a little weird, though.

~~~
ajsharp
> Was it to secure further funding?

Lulz.

IIRC she planned a few events for us around SF. As soon as we figured out she
was a fraud, she was gone. As far as I could tell, her role at Zaarly served
her more than it served us.

------
te_chris
So tech crunch is now officially the new ValleyWag? As one outside the valley
circle-jerk I can't work out whether I'm laughing at this article or
moderately disgusted by it.

~~~
fakeer
jm2c. Guess you laughed at the article first and then felt disgusted about it
(the laugh I mean).

------
joewee
This is a symptom of a very common problem in the startup world that even I am
guilty of...not checking references!

This woman isn't a college graduate. She should have references.

This is how I use linked in: before hiring someone pull up their linked in
profile and see if you have any mutual connections. Then reach out to those
mutual connections privately and ask their opinion of the person. If its a
sensitive hire you can say something like "Hey, I met XXX at a dinner party,
couldn't really get a read on them, what do you think about them?"

~~~
__________
"What impressed my most was their ability to think on their feet and their
integrity. Why, I'm pretty sure they'd almost never work for a liar, or
someone who cares much about gossip one way or the other. Though it surprises
me you met them at a dinner party; X usually doesn't have much time or love
for sniffing butts. Anyway, why do you ask?"

~~~
joewee
Reference: a person to whom inquiries as to character or ability can be made

Key being character AND ability.

------
wslh
The photoshop stuff is very "funny" but I don't know how different it is to
other kind of initial traction tricks. For example sites creating fake users
and conversations to gain traction. Here she tried to gain traction from a
personal perspective.

Gaming the system is what many startups do everyday.

------
Jun8
(Coming from a nobody reading HN at night this might be ironic, but) She seems
to be a nobody++ type person that is all too common in circles where people
are loosely coupled and you can fake/social-engineer your way in. BTW, I
totally understand inflating your impact on projects and even a little bit
getting creative with titles on LinkedIn to make oneself more important. But
Photoshopping yourself? To Timberlake? If it were pg I'd understand, but this
is just sad.

~~~
notJim
> If it were pg I'd understand, bit this is just sad.

Wat. pg photoshopping himself onto a photo with JT is less sad how?

~~~
rdl
I think Jun8 meant that photoshopping yourself onto a photo with pg is less
pathetic than photoshopping yourself onto a photo with JT. pg = actually
relevant to startups, and it's highly plausible for someone (especially
someone working for YC companies) to meet him and potentially take a photo
with him. I'd sort of assume some slight endorsement if a consultant 1) knew
who pg was 2) met him and got a photo, whereas a photo with JT is just
Hollywood celebrity namedropping. (Ashton Kutcher, who is a legitimate tech
investor in his own right, is different)

(unless you were jokingly misunderstanding this for comedic effect)

~~~
ricardonunez
JT did invest in myspace. Does it count?

------
mukaiji
Here's another interesting Silicon Valley case... <http://www.quora.com/Whats-
the-deal-with-Larry-Chiang>

------
ricardonunez
I'm guessing this was her mantra "Fake it till you make it".

------
se85
lol, what a pathetic person.

I laughed when I saw the photoshops.

I pity the fool, her career in technology is most certainly over at this point
now that the cat is out of the bag.

------
googoobaby
[http://gawker.com/5938904/notorious-silicon-valley-fraud-
shi...](http://gawker.com/5938904/notorious-silicon-valley-fraud-shirley-
hornstein-is-making-friends-at-gop-convention)

