
CEO of Banjo admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth - jbegley
https://onezero.medium.com/ceo-of-surveillance-firm-banjo-once-helped-kkk-leader-shoot-up-synagogue-fdba4ad32829
======
banjo_throwaway
I know two people who took jobs at Banjo. Both of them quit within months
because the place was so incredibly toxic. Second hand info, so take with a
grain of salt:

The CEO tries to run the company like a personality cult. Everyone was
expected to be available 24/7 to respond to his demands. He liked to demand
things on Friday night, weekends, or holidays to test people's loyalty. My
friend was told he had to schedule his weekend activities with the company
because everyone was on call all the time (he wasn't devops).People who didn't
drink the kool-aid were filtered out quickly.

Banjo is also extremely aggressive with NDAs and threatening legal action
against employees who speak out. Their Glassdoor page has been flooded with
extremely dubious glowing reviews and I've watched many of the negative
reviews slowly disappear over time for some reason.

The CEO recruited both of my friends with some grandiose stories, including
the same story about being close friends with Zuckerberg. I don't know if he's
actually close to Zuckerberg, but the Banjo CEO has been telling many people
in Utah that he and Mark Zuckerberg are close friends, at least as a
recruiting hook.

Banjo was already unpopular in Utah because they were awarded some very
questionable state surveillance contracts. The state of Utah has already
paused the contracts. As a Utah resident, I really hope this is the end of
Banjo's involvement with Utah's surveillance.

~~~
cultus
Wow, an abusive, toxic person both then and now. It's funny how such people
often rise to the top through bluster, despite being objectively bad at their
jobs.

~~~
canadaduane
I've thought a lot about this. I think there is actually a form of
manipulation / abuse that makes a leader objectively GOOD at their job. They
become successful, wealthy, etc. That said, that form of leadership has costs.
I think there are other modes of leadership that can be even better (cf.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teal_organisation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teal_organisation))
and that's what many company cultures are trying to cultivate.

~~~
weare138
> _I think there is actually a form of manipulation / abuse that makes a
> leader objectively GOOD at their job._

Based on my experience, I'm more inclined to think the inverse it true. Those
types of leaders are actually pretty bad at their jobs but appear subjectively
good through manipulation and abuse.

~~~
twomoretime
Some people are motivated better by reward. Some people are motivates better
by fear of punishment.

~~~
orestarod
> Some people are motivated better by reward. Some people are motivates better
> by fear of punishment.

Some people just want a fair trade of labor provided in exchange for money.
All sane people, actually. Save the motivation bs for the army.

------
forgot_user1234
When reached for comment, Patton wrote:

"32 years ago I was a lost, scared, and vulnerable child. I won’t go into
detail, but the reasons I left home at such a young age are unfortunately not
unique; I suffered abuse in every form. I did terrible things and said
despicable and hateful things, including to my own Jewish mother, that today I
find indefensibly wrong, and feel extreme remorse for. I have spent most of my
adult lifetime working to make amends for this shameful period in my life. In
my teens, I dropped out of school, lived on the streets, ate out of dumpsters
and raised money panhandling. I was desperate and afraid. I was taken in by
skinhead gangs and white supremacist organizations. Over the course of a few
years, I did many things as part of those groups that I am profoundly ashamed
of and sorry about. Eventually, I was able to get myself away from this world
while serving in the United States Navy. This turned my life around. While
serving my country, I worked with law enforcement agencies in hate group
prosecutions and left this world behind. Since then, I have tried and failed
to completely accept and come to terms with how I, a child of Jewish heritage,
became part of such a hateful, racist group. One thing I have done, through
therapy and outreach, I have learned to forgive that 15 year old boy who,
despite the absence of ideological hate, was lured into a dark and evil world.
For all of those I have hurt, and that this revelation will hurt, I’m sorry.
No apology will undo what I have done. I have worked every day to be a
responsible member of society. I’ve built companies, employed hundreds and
have worked to treat everyone around me equally. In recent years, I’ve sought
to create technologies that stop human suffering and save lives without
violating privacy. I know that I will never be able to erase my past but I
work hard every day to make up for mistakes. This is something I will never
stop doing."

~~~
fortran77
Can someone verify that he actually has a "Jewish mother?"

~~~
romwell
Claiming to have a Jewish mother (and thus being considered Jewish by pretty
much everyone else, regardless of how you self-identify) does it for me.

You call yourself a Jew? You're welcome.

There are way more people shunning their Jewish identity, but I've never met
someone _pretending_ to be Jewish.

~~~
cafard
I believe it does happen.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binjamin_Wilkomirski)
is not clear whether the subject lied about being Jewish or simply lied about
his upbringing, but I'd guess the latter.

~~~
cafard
oops: I'd guess the former.

------
z9e
Ouch. I'm sure this will destroy him financially and his reputation, but what
if he actually turned his life around and is completely ashamed of this past?
I don't want to come off like I support his past whatsoever, because I don't,
but I feel there's no forgiveness left in our society to give people like this
a second chance.

I guess I just believe people can change for the better and I want to
encourage that more, rather than seeing people shunned after trying to become
better and potentially being a danger to society once again as a result.

~~~
weeksie
It's lunacy. I have no idea about the man or who he is but 30-odd year old
incidents should never ruin a person's career. This reeks of moral panic.

~~~
holler
I agree with that, but would you extend that sympathy to e.g. people running
for political office?

~~~
jeltz
Yes? I do not see why that would be different.

~~~
holler
I also agree, but it's a crazy world we live in and I don't know if most
people feel the same when it's pointed towards a political opponent. We think
the current President did questionable things in his past, but imagine what
kind of dirty laundry will be revealed looking farther out into the future in
the age of total & instant information... The entire life of future
politicians from the time they were wearing diapers through adulthood will be
documented in HD, geographically tracked, word-for-word. It will be
interesting!

------
aeqas
It's hard to judge someone for doing something stupid at 17 when there's
adverse influences around them. But Damien Patton wasn't 17 when he did this-

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bgky/banjo-ai-used-
secr...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z3bgky/banjo-ai-used-secret-
company-and-fake-apps-to-scrape-facebook-twitter)

That should be illegal. Are there not any laws against this?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>But once users logged into the innocent looking apps via a social network
OAuth provider, Banjo saved the login credentials, according to two former
employees and an expert analysis of the apps performed by Kasra Rahjerdi, who
has been an Android developer since the original Android project was launched.
Banjo then scraped social media content, those two former employees added. //

CMA (UK)/CFAA (USA) both make unauthorised access a crime, so, yes there are
laws against this.

------
contemporary343
"Typos on records connected to Brown and Armstrong’s case — first a
misspelling of Patton’s first name, Damien, as “Damion” in an initial
affidavit of probable cause; then, in subsequent filings, spelling Damien as
“Damian” — have helped prevent the discovery of Patton’s full biography for
the past 30 years."

How remarkably lucky for him.

It is striking that such luck, and second chances, are rarely afforded young
men of color who find themselves on the other side of the law in this country.

~~~
illumin8
Agreed. This hate crime was committed 1 month from his 18th birthday. A
defendant that wasn't white would have been tried as an adult and thrown in
jail for years.

------
augustt
What a moving redemption arc! Going from guerilla acts of racism to making a
company that aids in institutional racism.

------
aspenmayer
This just in:

Utah Attorney General suspends state contract with Banjo in light of founder’s
KKK past

[https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/04/28/utah-
attorne...](https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/04/28/utah-attorney-
general/)

Discussion on HN

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23012144)

------
ceilingcorner
Tough situation. I can understand him trying to hide the mistakes in his
youth. I certainly wouldn’t want to be haunted by whatever idiotic things I
did or said as a kid, although they definitely were nowhere near what this guy
was doing.

Admitting such things _before_ building a career would instantly be a non-
starter. I also think as a society we have to acknowledge that rehabilitation
and forgiveness needs to be possible, especially for mistakes we make as kids.
The mob seems to want people like this to be disappeared, which is unfortunate
for a country so influenced by Christianity, in which forgiveness is a prime
value.

On the other hand, this guy seems to have really been a subscriber to some
bad, dangerous ideas, and more importantly, he doesn’t seem to have done much
to atone for it. Donating to the synagogue, getting involved with the
community or somehow seeking forgiveness by acknowledging his mistakes would
have been better than just hiding it.

He didn’t need to do anything public that would dig up the past either: I
imagine he could have donated or helped the synagogue in an pseudonymous way.
Certainly the people he hurt would be far more willing to defend his
rehabilitation now if he had done so.

~~~
robocat
> I imagine he could have donated or helped the synagogue in an pseudonymous
> way

How do you know he hasn’t donated anonymously?

> Certainly the people he hurt would be far more willing to defend his
> rehabilitation now if he had done so.

I think “I did some donations” would be perceived as self-serving, or would
simply be cynically attacked.

Your comments feel would be damned either way.

~~~
ceilingcorner
Now would be the time to mention that he’s been donating to the synagogue for
X years. If donations are too cold and abstract, then starting an organization
that fights hate, or somehow getting involved seems doable. He is a wealthy
person and had the resources for it.

------
Konohamaru
Yes, people deserve second chances. No, they can't become C.E.O.'s because
C.E.O.'s are effectively unelected government officials of the United States
and the same criterion that says it's a bad idea to let him run for president
means it's a bad idea to have him continue being C.E.O.. It's not like "bad
man become good and pays back debt to society as a small-time business owner"
because of the power differential. Interesting story though.

But if you deny people second-chances, then said criminals have no incentive
to make amends. If they cannot make amends due to it being absurd, then
society should be prepared to reduce them to menial slavery... because that's
the only other way to prevent them from continuing the bad behavior (given
that society made it impossible for him to move on from the past).

I have discovered that there are exactly three objectively unforgivable
offenses:

1\. Inducing another human to despair thereby depriving him of a right to a
future.

2\. Accusation with the intent of marring another human's soul with eternal
guilt.

3\. The deliberate and intentional reduction of another human being to
slavery.

Notice that being a murderer isn't one of them.

~~~
Gollapalli
>because C.E.O.'s are effectively unelected government officials of the United
States

This is a really, really interesting take on it. I happen to agree, but if
they're public officials, then how do we square the absolutely massive
incentives to action at the expense of the public good?

------
SiempreViernes
Unwalled: [http://archive.is/gvYP4](http://archive.is/gvYP4)

------
aazaa
The panopticon-as-a-service product Banjo is hawking right now is way more
disturbing than the past rantings of the company's founder.

~~~
anthuswilliams
I don't know if this is better or worse in that respect, but I have been
following Banjo since 2017 and I'm pretty convinced that the product Banjo is
hawking is basically vaporware[1], and that Banjo is actually in the business
of defrauding state and local governments (and Softbank of course, but that
goes without saying).

If you look at the press releases and publicity Banjo has released as well as
the talks Damien Patton has given, their big success story stems from a trial
run in 2013 where the Utah CPS ran a simulation of a child kidnapping and
Banjo identified the probable location of the (simulated) kidnapper. Since
then, there has been nothing.

Meanwhile Patton's message has continually evolved in perfect lockstep with
the hype cycle, from mass shootings to the opioid crisis to, these days, some
mysterious power to provide predictive security while still protecting
individual privacy.

[1] He probably has a reasonable social media/text analytics product with some
geographic aggregation. But it's hard to separate from the promises because no
one has actually seen it.

------
rexreed
Another instance of Softbank investing in toxic management and people with
past or current criminal behavior. Clearly management team due diligence isn't
relevant to their investing strategy.

------
anorphirith
I think softbank largely made up for it by giving free millions to wework's
Israeli Adam Neumann. It really shows their lack of due diligence on both
cases.

------
throwaway23019
It's not every day that you read such an article about a person you know and
worked for more than a year.

I'm not excusing any of his behavior in youth, although I believe he feels
very bad about it, but the person I know has definitely evolved from the
distorted personality described in the article. It is possible, please see
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSH5EY-W5oM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSH5EY-W5oM).

The time I worked at Banjo was a great experience and still think he's one of
the most skilled founders I've ever met. Great sales skills and tech chops. I
was an immigrant and have always been treated with respect. At the same time
it isn't surprising for me to read a comment like the other one on here about
working at Banjo: with such a strong personality at the head of the company it
can be like that for some, but I wouldn't consider it very different from
other SV realities like FB or Amazon.

Sad that he participated in those crimes, and hope this becoming public can
bring him to give back more to the community.

------
werber
This makes me think of the movie The Believer.

------
e5india
It's so _interesting_ how these surveillance/data-gathering companies
(Palantir, Banjo, Anduril) are founded by right-wing types. Professed small
government libertarians building that very same government's intelligence
apparatus for profit. It's exactly this double-speak on government and
individual liberty that makes minorities distrustful of conservatives.

~~~
erdos4d
Small-government libertarians in my experience are really ok with big-defense.
They are the sort who fund NSA and it's incessant attempts to vacuum up all
internet data, spy on all people, etc. They rarely understand that those same
powers might be turned against us all as easily as flipping a switch. It is a
blindness that has always baffled me, especially since we have more proof
everyday that that switch has already been flipped.

~~~
asdff
Because what small government really means is eliminating social safety nets
and publicly beneficial programs, and focusing on protecting corporate profits
above all else.

~~~
erdos4d
This exactly.

------
paulie_a
So an admitted Nazi might lose his shitty and unceative startup for wanting
genocid

Let me find the world's tiniest violin.

To take a page from southpark. He fuck off

------
zynkb0a
What is the significance of SoftBank financing this business?

~~~
fortran77
It shows they don't vet their CEOs very well.

~~~
koheripbal
You expect them to go through 30-year old records on their creditors? Have you
ever gotten a loan that required interviews with the people you went to high-
school with?!?!

~~~
rsynnott
If a company's investing 100m in a company where directors likely need
security clearances etc (I mean, I don't know if they do, but given the
industry I would assume so), then, er, yeah, I'd expect a pretty thorough
background check.

~~~
koheripbal
...and they probably do do a background check - one that he would have PASSED.

------
jdkee
Yuck. Why is there so much discussion about this cretin?

------
paypalcust83
I think there are three problems with the title:

1\. Clickbait exploitation.

2\. Conflating people who have sought redemption from past deeds with those
who are jerks for other reasons.

3\. Social fascism isn't the proper response to actual fascism. Throwing
people away, instantly and permanently, walks like a duck and quacks like a
duck. If people "can never change" when they clearly have, this isn't the sign
of a decent, functional, nuanced, or tolerant society in touch with the
meaning of words or self-awareness.

~~~
cultus
It's pretty obvious that this new account is not arguing in good faith, but
I'll take a stab anyway.

1\. It's a literal description of what happened. He admitted to being a neo-
nazi terrorist.

2\. He has not sought redemption in any meaningful way, but has instead
started a surveillance company. That his conduct has continued to be abusive
just shows it is a permanent lack of moral character.

3\. I think you might need to adjust your definition of fascism. The "social
fascism" you describe dilutes the word of all meaning, which is probably your
intent.

He helped commit a terrorist act at the age of 17, and continued to be
associated with Nazis for some time after. A tolerent and open society means
that we cannot tolerate these kinds of people running surveillance companies
with government contracts. The reasoning should be obvious. See also, Popper's
paradox of tolerance.

------
sweden
Thank goodness the title mentions it is Softbank backed, otherwise I would
have missed some good Softbank bashing.

~~~
dang
It's really hard to come up with neutral titles for a story this inflammatory.
I changed it from the article's main title in the hope that it would have less
of a less extreme effect on the thread
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011234](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23011234)).
But I missed the fact that the subtitle also included a different sort of
flamebait.

One consistent lesson of moderating an internet forum is that titles dominate
discussion virtually completely.

------
ciabattabread
Why the hell was this post flagged?

~~~
pigs
I rarely visit HN anymore because of shit like this, but I decided to check
back over here to see what everyone had to see. not surprised

~~~
ciabattabread
I guess we have to wait for the arstechnica writeup so it can get posted and
discussed.

------
hn_throwaway_99
Interesting story that the ethnically Jewish CEO was a neo-Nazi.

~~~
paulie_a
Well Hitler was Jewish

~~~
throwaway2048
No, he wasn't

~~~
stephenhuey
He’s referring to the idea that Hitler may have been a quarter Jewish. Not
sure where this study from 10 years ago ended up:

[https://www.history.com/news/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-
had...](https://www.history.com/news/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-had-jewish-
and-african-ancestors)

There were a lot of articles about that and here’s a recent one:

[https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-
was...](https://m.jpost.com/diaspora/study-suggests-adolf-hitler-was-a-
quarter-jewish-597966)

~~~
throwaway2048
Questionable evidence that his grandmother might have had an illegitimate
child with a Jewish man is a long way from "Hitler was jewish"

Not to mention this is standard ahistorical conspiracy theory fare.

~~~
stephenhuey
It’s fine to point out it’s questionable. Both of you were just throwing at
one-liners with no substance like you’re fighting on a playground. I rarely
downvote and thought about downvoting him but I decided to search to see what
he might be talking about. You didn’t even look at my links, otherwise you
would’ve known the first one was talking about a DNA study. Yes, as far as I
can see it was very much up in the air, but I don’t think I should be
downvoted for explaining what he was referring to.

~~~
koheripbal
> Both of you were just throwing at one-liners with no substance

Welcome to HN - the new Reddit.

~~~
dang
Please read
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
to the end.

~~~
koheripbal
It doesn't seem to be working. ...much like the Reddit guidelines.

------
bobobob420
This was so long ago and he hasn’t killed anyone or done any thing of the sort
since then. Who cares ? It is up to the system to deal with him

~~~
ttaahh
"the system" has given life sentences to people for marijuana charges while
people who literally helped a hate group shoot at minorities go free. The
system is broken, and i assure you, plenty of people care

~~~
bluthru
>"the system" has given life sentences to people for marijuana charges

No it hasn't.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
[http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/life-prison-selling-marijuana-
peo...](http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/life-prison-selling-marijuana-people-new-
pot-laws-forgot) (after a 5s google) suggests you're wrong.

------
sergiotapia
People can change, and he was a kid from an abusive home per the article.

~~~
eropple
As the article repeatedly states, Patton proceeded to continue his association
with white supremacist groups during his time in the U.S. Navy. Shockingly,
white supremacist does not stop white supremacisting. Film at 11.

~~~
sergiotapia
"I had known some of the Skinheads there from prior rallies in Tennessee and
because of not knowing anybody there, I ended up meeting with them and hung
out with them for some time," he said.

Isn't it human nature to reach for familiarity when in new places? You're
reaching.

~~~
eropple
Human nature to reconnect with Nazis? I dunno--if I had a friend who was self-
avowed _hostis humanis generis_ they would by definition no longer be my
friend.

But this is your schtick, so continue to perform it.

~~~
sergiotapia
"my schtick"? Jesus, you can't talk about stuff online anymore.

------
ciabattabread
Better hope the algorithm he programmed isn’t racist.

[https://onezero.medium.com/how-tech-algorithms-become-
infect...](https://onezero.medium.com/how-tech-algorithms-become-infected-
with-the-biases-of-their-creators-d19756352dc9)

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
Society will generally forgive people of the things they do while young, even
heinous things, provided they’re open and remorseful about what happened. But
when you hide it there’s usually an opposite effect. Seems this founder is
about the learn about that the hard way.

~~~
sasasassy
Why not hide it? If you did something very stupid at 17, something of which
there is public record for everyone to find with a background check, do you
still have to go around telling it to everyone for the rest of your life?

You have paid for your stupidity and life goes on. In this case life has
certainly moved on and it doesn't seem like he is secretly creating a 4th
reich in his free time.

Of course if you can do something easy to hide it like spelling your name
better great. It has been a long time, but some people don't seem to
understand this and seem to want criminals to be punished forever.

Why bother about this?

~~~
bluntfang
>Why not hide it?

Integrity.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _Patton was charged with — and pled guilty to—acts of juvenile delinquency
> in connection to the incident_

Edit: as the getaway driver. Seems like a strange charge to bring up for the
incident.

~~~
throwaway5752
*On the evening of June 9, 1990 — a month before Patton turned 18 — Patton and a Klan leader took a semi-automatic TEC-9 pistol and drove to a synagogue in a Nashville suburb. With Patton at the wheel, the Ku Klux Klan member fired onto the synagogue, destroying a street-facing window and spraying bullets and shattered glass near the building’s administrative offices, which were next to that of the congregation’s rabbi. No one was struck or killed in the shooting. Afterward, Patton hid on the grounds of a white supremacist paramilitary training camp under construction before fleeing the state with the help of a second Klan member."

Paragraph 6 in the linked article.

------
rvz
> He says he became a self-taught crime scene investigator and then learned to
> code. Eventually, Patton helped build the digital infrastructure of what
> would become Banjo, a company that, in the past decade, has raised nearly
> $223 million, according to the investment data-sharing platform SharesPost,
> from prominent venture capital firms such as SoftBank.

Interesting and somewhat horrifying. Maybe SoftBank failed to do some due
diligence here and have essentially funded a CEO with direct connections to
the KKK. I can only see Banjo's next chapter going through three options:

* Option 1: Softbank cares enough and ends their investment in Banjo and the CEO stays on.

* Option 2: Trial by Twitter will pressure Banjo CEO to resign and everyone's happy.

* Option 3: Nothing happens.

Help me write the next chapter in which option is likely.

~~~
drongoking
"Direct connections to the KKK" ? Did you read the article or his statement?
He was 17 and fell in with white supremacists after/during an abusive
childhood. If you want to dispute this account, fine, let's hear it. If you
want to claim Banjo is otherwise an evil company, OK, it may be, but that's a
separate point. But claiming that this episode as reported constitutes a
direct connection to the KKK, and implying it's ongoing, is off the mark.

~~~
iron0013
He literally was the getaway driver for a synagogue shooting by a kkk member.
I’m not sure it’s possible to be more directly connected to the kkk than that.

