
A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud - sxates
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/01/technology/a-silicon-valley-dream-collapses-in-allegations-of-fraud.html
======
calcsam
Daniel Tunkelang, the advisor mentioned, is trying to find new homes for the
Python developers, so they don't get kicked out of the country. Message him if
you're hiring.

[https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505](https://twitter.com/dtunkelang/status/771148199427989505)

------
wrong_variable
I have some issues with this sort of doxxing.

In fact unless a court decision is made I think it technically unfair to the
company and their employee the way the mob has brought out their pichfork.

We have only heard the story from one person - and it makes the company and
its CEO look like Satan's spawns - which in my experience never is 100% true.

Having said that, I am always a little unnerved browsing LinkedIn - you have
CEOs, CFOs, Management always complaining about their employees, and employees
doing cringy asskissing :( It makes me deeply sad what LinkedIn has turned
into, LinkedIn just gives employers more power.

On the other hand I have noticed that HN, reddit are places where Labour (
employees ) come to complain.

Its just an interesting trend where two social networks exists - one for the
capitalists and one for labor.

~~~
sanderjd
We have now heard one story from one person and read corroboration of that
story from a professional news organization along with some new information in
the form of interviews and requests for comment from the principals involved.
That isn't "doxxing", it's news.

I use both LinkedIn and HN quite a lot and don't really see what you mean
about the capital/ labor split between the sites, for what it's worth.

~~~
wrong_variable
I think its just my feed of subscribing to terrible people :(

------
scott_s
Reading a NY Times article that quotes a HN thread is my through-the-looking-
glass moment of the month.

------
throwaawweay
My money is on this being a Visa scam company bringing Chinese nationals over.
The poorer ones probably got screwed, while the ones who paid (400k from one
of his employees???) have probably vanished into the country.

(I have nothing against the Chinese, or immigrants in general, I'm an
immigrant myself, and I feel terrible for the innocent victims who have lost
money, jobs, and for many, their american dream)

~~~
tootie
The only thing that makes no sense is why they hired Penny Kim. The business
was seemingly imaginary, the only employees were the CEO's bros and his H1Bs.
If the business was some sort of front, why hire a veteran marketing leader to
publicize your scam operation? Especially someone who was not in on the scam
and was highly likely to rebel? My money is on the CEO being a genuine
egomaniac who thought he could will a legitimate business into existence with
enough personal charm.

~~~
readitmeow
The business wasn't imaginary. The tech was real. The CTO and devs have been
building since December 2015. He misrepresented the runway claiming to put in
2 million when he only had 400k to put in. That's why in the CTO's comment, he
said he didn't understand what was the end game, why accelerate into a brick
wall?

It made no sense why he hired so many people when he didn't have the money
too.

------
eropple
This seemed pretty likely to me the second I saw bouncing between tech/analyst
positions and "CEO of mines in Asia and South America" on his LinkedIn (when
he was mid-thirties at the latest?). There is only so far one can push it
before all thered flags go up.

~~~
spitfire
Actually the "CEO of mine in south america" thing isn't so far fetched. Except
you have to know that a "mine" can be a 5 acre plot of land dredging up mud to
feed into a processing machine.

Friends of mine do it each year. So technically they "own a mine in south
america".

It's still bullshit puffery though. But you can do it for $20K.

~~~
jonathankoren
I'll see your bullshit puffery, and raise you.

I'm part owner of an NFL franchise, and it only cost me $250.

~~~
bdcravens
Green Bay?

~~~
jonathankoren
It is -- and _can be_ \-- the only one.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers,_Inc).

~~~
fencepost
HN is stripping the last "." out of the URL, but it's required for the link.

The organization named is the corporate entity that owns the Packers; there
are >350k share owners and it's structured such that nobody can own more than
4% of the shares. It's grandfathered into the NFL rules which for the last 30
or so years have limited ownership groups to no more than 32 people, at least
one of whom must own a >30% share.

------
SEJeff
This reminds me of my last job, where the karma gods smiled upon me and not so
much for another guy.

I've always written my resume somewhat uniquely for SEO[1] and happen to work
quite heavily in the Linux space. At the time several years ago, my resume was
on the first or second page google search results for something along the
lines of "linux system administrator" and variations.

The stars must have aligned as some poor schmuck thought he'd spruce up his
resume by copy & pasting lines verbatim from the first 4-5 good Linux resumes
he found via google. Unfortunately for him, one of them was mine. Also
unfortunately for him, I'm known as a very technical interviewer that doesn't
take any bs.

So besides the fact he wasn't qualified from a technical perspective for this
position, I decided to see what he'd do. I stopped him mid interview and
pulled up my resume on my phone. I handed it to him and asked him to read a
few lines. Then I asked him to read a few lines that were verbatim from his
resume. His face lost all color and he shuddered. There is simply no way I was
buying that he and I both came up with the following 3 lines in a row:

    
    
        * Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used keepalived for auto-failover
        * High performance computing, benchmarking, and kernel tuning. Constant review of upstream kernel activity
        * Maintenance and engineering on a from scratch Linux distribution in support of high volume electronic trading
    

Amongst two or three additional ones, it was too much of a cooincidence. He
swore that the recruiter had doctored his resume and that the recruiter was a
liar. I gave him a shot at doing tech for the rest of the interview. However,
I turned it up to 11 and was visibly agitated at this point that he'd stolen
from my work trying to market myself. Now I'm normally extremely friendly in
interviews, but teched him so hard it hurt my brain. He failed miserably.

We told his recruiter the story and said if it was true we were going to
immediately stop doing business with that recruiter and his company. He
quickly and happily forwarded us every single email from that candidate
clearly showing they'd done nothing other than rearrange the styling and put
their awful logo on it. The recruiter decided to stop working with this
candidate as well.

Moral of the story: Don't steal people's resume, they work hard making it and
that is dishonest. Don't lie to technical people about your technical skills.
It will ruin your future career prospects.

[1]
[http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm](http://www.digitalprognosis.com/resume.htm)

~~~
whamlastxmas
You sound like a huge asshole. You knew going into this you wouldn't hire him,
yet you wasted his time anyway. You make it sound like he plagiarized a book
you wrote and was trying to sell his own. He found people that worded their
resume really well and decided to use it for his own. It's not like there's
some sanctity to the wording of resumes. Get over yourself.

~~~
SEJeff
Correction, he wasted my time, but interviewing for a position he wasn't
remotely qualified to perform. Honestly is the most important trait in any
team member. How do you not see this?

~~~
whamlastxmas
Because job listings are overwhelmingly asking for more than they mean. "10+
years experience" means "a couple years if we like you". "CS degree or similar
required" may as well not be there on the listings that have it. The
responsibility of figuring out whether they're qualified is yours, not the
candidate's. How the hell is he supposed to know what your needs are? You
should have figured this out in an email or quick phone screen.

Additionally, you're a terrible interviewer if someone is failing miserably.
There is no valuable data to use from this situation. Turn it down until they
stop failing, and see how far it can be pushed. I'm sure you know this, but
decided to be a prick instead.

There's nothing dishonest about using wording from someone else's resume. If I
did it and someone asked about it, I'd definitely say "I saw how someone else
phrased it and found it really good, so I used it too" and obviously wouldn't
put it down if it wasn't true. This guy probably would have said something
similar if you didn't throw it in his face and make him so uncomfortable.

~~~
danso
The unfairness of job listings -- much like the unfairness in getting
published -- doesn't excuse plagiarism.

~~~
whamlastxmas
The concept of it being amoral to plagiarize a resume is laughable. He's not
creating some original piece of writing or trying to demonstrating his writing
abilities. He's not submitting some piece of writing as part of his job
responsibilities or for any sort of publication.

He's conveying facts on a piece of paper that is handed to, at most, a few
dozen people, who glance it at for about 20 seconds and then never see it
again. He's not even implicitly claiming that everything on his resume is 100%
unique, because more than half of resumes use the same structuring, wording,
and general descriptive approaches. I thought this was common sense until your
comment.

Calling this plagiarism is like saying the sentence "By using our Services,
you are agreeing to these terms" in a terms of service is plagiarizing whoever
wound up writing that first. It's ridiculous.

~~~
danso
Then you have a differing opinion from me and SEJeff on what is needed to
create a good résumé. If all it required were a reciting of simple facts, then
presumably the candidate would not need to have copied from SEJeff. I don't
have to look at other people's work when writing the school I attended or year
that I graduated, or number of years that I have in some skillset.

Perhaps you think that it wasn't actual plagiarism? That it could've been
coincidence, or that SEJeff's phrasing is so routine that it doesn't count as
something with real investment of thought? Have you tried Googling it?

 _" Re-implemented the global dns/ldap setup for higher availability. Used
keepalived for auto-failover"_

[https://www.google.com/search?q="Re-
implemented+the+global+d...](https://www.google.com/search?q="Re-
implemented+the+global+dns%2Fldap+setup+for+higher+availability.+Used+keepalived+for+auto-
failover"&oq="Re-
implemented+the+global+dns%2Fldap+setup+for+higher+availability.+Used+keepalived+for+auto-
failover")

There are exactly 5 results, 2 of them which originate from this current
discussion. That's just one of the bulletpoints, nevermind the same 3 in the
same order.

For reference's sake, the odds that Melania Trump didn't plagiarize the
following sentence from Michelle Obama -- _values that you work hard for what
you want in life that your word is your bond and you do what you say_ \-- is
about one in a trillion [0]

[0] [https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/07/19/we-ran-melania-
trum...](https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/07/19/we-ran-melania-trumps-
speech-through-a-plagiarism-checker/)

------
smb06
There was extensive discussion on this topic here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12394679)

Now it seems like the CEO faked his past work experience as well.

~~~
akcreek
This might be the thread you were looking for (with 500+ comments):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12379518)

~~~
GuiA
And my claim to fame! If someone had told me posting on HN would get me quoted
in the NYT...

------
jmspring
Gold rushes bring in the fraudsters. @honkhonkpants response, I take it tongue
in cheek. Born and raised here. There is a lot of good that does happen, the
Valley used to be more balanced (tech, manufacturing, ag, etc)...

In the 10+ companies I've been at, I could see one as having been fraudulent,
that was mostly at the non-founder level pushing work overseas for kickbacks.
His career has since stalled.

When things are easy and fast and loose, study the gold rush or any other
similar history, these things will happen. Today, it's sad that those backing
people like this don't use all the tools at their disposal to do deep do
diligence. It seems like if you tell the right story, have people skills, and
the surface isn't scratched, you can end up with a seed round that isn't
warranted.

------
samfisher83
I guess you fake it until you make it? Obviously not the same thing but when
reddit originally started didn't the founders use bots to submit stories.
Theros got billions. Kind of sucks for the H1Bs they might lose their visa.

~~~
uberdog
"Fake it 'til you make it" is more about pretending to have confidence before
you really have it and less about falsifying your past in a way that's easy
for someone to fact check.

~~~
joshmn
Let's not forget Biz Stone "faked [his] way into Google"[0]

[0]
[http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/](http://www.wired.com/2013/04/fakeit/)

------
winteriscoming
From what I have read on Kim's blog and other articles, this appears to be
more a case of the CEO Choi being an immature and incompetent individual who
started out to earn some big bucks but couldn't handle failures and ended up
creating one fraud after another. To me it doesnt look like he started the
company with the intention of committing some grand scam.

~~~
brockhaywood
Except he appears to have started with fraud, given that his LinkedIn etc
misrepresents his past work experience.

------
zaidf
_WrkRiot CEO 's entire resume fraudulent (nytimes.com)_

Somewhat misleading title. The article itself only mentions the resume once.
For example, it doesn't provide examples of the fabrication.

If you read the original post. there is little new info. aside from revealed
identities.

~~~
Dramatize
The places he claimed to work at say they have no record of him. Another
business can't be found.

------
hkmurakami
With the promise of great riches, come the fraudsters.

Sad.

~~~
vinayan3
It's really sad. I grew up in the Bay Area and felt like the propensity for
fraud was very low if not non-existent. I guess it's not like that anymore or
maybe it never was and I've been lucky to work for and with people who don't
commit fraud.

~~~
hkmurakami
Same. Grew up in the Peninsula and I feel like things have really spiraled out
of control.

------
tptacek
Proper title: _A Silicon Valley Dream Collapses in Allegations of Fraud_.

------
joshmn
Incredibly curious about this Chinese firm. Are they talking something like
BrandYourself, or more... whatever that makes it?

If anyone has any leads/ideas, I'd love to hear them. Again, just incredibly
curious.

~~~
readitmeow
There's no chinese firm. It's chinese students with OPT visas who needed
sponsors to get into the H1B lottery and now they risk getting deported if
they don't find another sponsor within 90 days (probably less since they used
some of the clock to find this current position)

------
NearAP
I'm curious - did NYTimes amend the title of their article? I'm asking because
the title of this post on HN doesn't correspond to the title on NYTimes and I
was under the impression the submission guideline here says to use the
'original title'. In addition, I read the NYTimes article before I saw this
posting on HN and while the NYTimes article questioned 3 items on his resume,
I can't conclude his entire resume is fraudulent since the article neither
contained the full resume nor did it list all the companies/schools on his
resume.

~~~
dang
It looks to me like the submitter broke the HN guidelines by rewriting the
title when it was neither misleading nor linkbait. (The submitted title was
"WrkRiot CEO's entire resume fraudulent", and we've since changed it to the
NYT headline.) Not 100% sure, though, because NYT has a habit of changing its
headlines.

Submitters: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or
linkbait" is one of the site rules here. Please follow it, and especially
please don't rewrite titles to make them more dramatic.

------
honkhonkpants
"... but who expects fraud in Silicon Valley?"

lol, wut? Anybody who has been here more than an hour is who expects fraud in
SV. The first job I had in SV ended in a joint SEC/DOJ prosecution and jail
time for multiple executive officers. Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are
endemic in this area.

~~~
marvindanig
> Lawlessness, scams, and dishonesty are endemic in this area.

And homelessness. I was disappointed to see hundreds of helpless homeless
people, some in horrible mental state, right there on streets in the middle of
huge ivory towers that SV thumps its chest on. It's such a shame!

And with young kids coming out of those glass doors flashing gadgets and
gizmos at each other, with that certain bay area flair … I mean the collective
blindness of the place felt only surreal.

It's a personal thing but I guess my family will never be at home in the bay
area.

~~~
tsunamifury
You can judge, but SF goes further than any city I've seen to provide services
to the homeless. So much so that it's a mild weather Mecca to many. So you can
turn up your nose and go back home to a city that likely ships them here or
"takes care of it" so you don't see it -- but you are being naive. The poor
will always be with us, and we are judged by how we treat them.

~~~
Finbarr
Have you been outside of the US? Coming from Europe, SF is utterly shocking.
I've never seen anywhere else like it. Government provides a lot of support
for low-income and homeless people in EU.

~~~
chrischen
Part of the reason there are so many homeless in SF is because the SF
government and local charities provide food and shelter. The tourists handing
out money doesn't help with attracting them. Much of the panhandling money is
used for drugs, as basic needs such as food and shelter are already covered by
the government and nonprofits. If you really want to help them, volunteer at a
homeless kitchen or directly donate to them.

I walk by the local drug dealers in the Tenderloin every day, and all the
clientele I've seen are homeless people.

~~~
soufron
Wow that's some serious reactionnary stupid stuff. You are pretending that
these people are homeless because the State provides for them? Man, you are
such a model person for this new techno-aristocracy.

------
throwaway349000
They shouldn't be here in the first place when wages for American engineers
have been stagnant for decades.

~~~
dang
We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12403317)
and marked it off-topic.

~~~
throwaway349000
It was perfectly on-topic. The OP was appealing for assistance in extending
the visas of immigrants who arguably never should have been granted those
visas in the first place, which I pointed out.

