What Does a Fraud Sound Like?

Earlier this week, I heard the news that Bitwise Industries had laid off every employee. In 2023, this is a natural part of the market cycle. Companies rise, and then they sometimes fall. The issue here is that that only four months ago, Bitwise announced that they raised $80M. Where did the money go? Well, after reading this article, it turns out that the founders could have been lying to investors the whole time, and the money raised likely has been going simply to pay off prior debt.

The reason I am bringing this up I actually interviewed the founder/CEO of this company, Jake Soberal, on my podcast over two years ago. And wow, did he fool me. He was pitching a too good to be true vision, but he made me and my listeners want to believe. I wanted him to be for real. Bitwise’s spiel was about “creating a bridge between humans from marginalized communities and stories of systemic poverty to skills and resources necessary to access opportunities in the tech industry.” Damn, it sure sounded good. But was it a front? We’ll find out in time.

In the article referenced above, they also mentioned the Fast story, which was led by Domm Holland. I’m not sure if I would consider that fraud, but they essentially burned over $100M in 2 years to create no value for the market. I also interviewed Domm as well on my podcast, well before he raised the massive rounds of venture capital. Similarly to Jake, Domm’s story sounded almost too good to be true. ALMOST. But in that interview, he just took me and my listeners for a ride. He just had an energy to him, as did Jake.

You may be wondering if I only interview these types of characters on my podcast, and I don’t. I have 900 interviews with all sorts of founders. But I do try to spot the big potential ones earlier than every one else. And in the early days, the difference between the ones who realize eventually their potential and build billion dollar companies and the ones who drift off course and maybe let their ethics drift as well, is closer than you might think.

I share this post because I think in order to get things right in the future, we need to learn from the past. And maybe…just maybe, if it sounds too good to be true, it very well could be.

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