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Comment by throwaawweay | Hacker News Reader

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)

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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.

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.

They did have a room full of H1B visa holders doing the tech. It sounds like those guys got scammed hardest just on the face of it, it'd be awful if they also got scammed out of money for visas.

If your goal is to vanish into the US, you don't need $400k to do it.

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