36 Year Old Man Accused of Scamming $1.5 Billion
Вставка
- Опубліковано 2 сер 2024
- In the world of startups the phrase "fake it till you make it" is well known. But what happens when you take this concept too far. Abraham Shafi was the founder of the social media site IRL. Him and his company is accused of faking 95% of their users after raking in $1.5 billion in investments. In this episode, we take a look.
Outro track: open.spotify.com/track/2ny4UL...
ColdFusion/ Burn Water Music: @ColdFusionmusic
ColdFusion Podcast:
/ @throughtheweb
ColdFusion Socials:
/ coldfusion_tv
/ coldfusiontv
/ discord
/ coldfusiontv
Research: @ThenWhatHappens - Наука та технологія
Correction: The "war-torn Cairo" statement was from a GQ magazine profile written on Shafi. It appears that there was no war in Egypt during the 80's. So either Shafi lied to GQ magazine to embellish the story of his upbringing or GQ magazine made up that fact. Either way it was a faulty source that made it into the video so apologies for that and I wanted to correct the record.
Dude, love your stuff but you can't make up a fact. It's either a fact or it's not. They can make it up, they can claim it, etc.
@@andrewdunbar828🤓👆
Egypt was recovering from the 1973 war (and previous wars)
@@retrocatalog That's correct. It's great that he's clarifying himself. But the semantics is important in this case since he's a really good journalist and has the opportunity to not propagate the notion that made up stuff are also facts.
Can you share the GQ magazine article? I'd love to know more. I love these stories.
The crazy thing is, one million users is nothing to scoff at. With the right leadership and realistic investor expectations, such a platform could have had a healthy future. It might not have been the next Facebook, but it could have found its niche and provided long-term income for a small team of developers.
I was thinking the same. But with so many apps, perhaps the value of each user has been substantially diluted.
when it starts off a scam, it was never meant to succeed
The total number of users vs number of active users are usually vastly different. Investors look at Monthly Active Users, which companies tend to inflate with bots to boost investments and advertising revenue. It's hard to detect if they're blended well. He was just too greedy.
what came first - real 1 mil users or bots, which lured 1 mil at the first place? ;) . People like, what ever is popular, before they get it.
@@kaspartamburthe latter for sure
Everyone forgets that Facebook in 2004 had the same spammy start as Gather: taking the contacts of all new users and sending spamming emails about how so and so was using Facebook and wanted to add you to your friend list. Remember? Once you joined, it asked if you wanted Facebook to send invitation emails to your contact list, and regardless of whether you accepted or denied, it still took the info and sent the emails. For the longest time, someone told me FB had to be malware due to this practice.
True, I remember that. Hopefully this sort of thing will not become standard practice. Come on, just don't annoy people... that's common sense..
I remember a social media startup called Xuqi doing the same in 2003
So right!! I remember getting spam from FB all the time!
… sounds like a great law suite😮
In 2004 there were not many apps or even any social media activities via internet. People were curious about Facebook, so they were more forgiving. Now the internet, and by extension our mobile phones, are saturated by apps. Stolen ID and internet scams are more prevalent. People are less patient and less forgiving.
I ran a startup and in year 1 we had a hefty amount of investors looking in. I spent close to a year trying to frame the company as something they'd want - but I never lied. Eventually, and ironically, I realized that if I stopped spending all that time trying to impress investors, rather, focus on growing the business, it might actually become something they'd want. I declined the year 1 investments, and in year 5, I was lucky enough to be acquired. Fake it never makes it.
What was the start up about?
Are those real investors or VC managers?
I see Cold Fusion, I click.
Same
This is the Way.
Yeah
Same
Me too
No hyperbole, this is one of the best channels on UA-cam.
Absolutely!!! One of the the few channels I actually enjoy on this platform.
💯
Lol easily 😆
As much as I like CF, he should have done some research to find out the last time Cairo was war-torn before taking it at face value, especially from this guy. Though I do appreciate that he owned up to the mistake in his comment
I think Zuck becoming a billionaire at such a young age has led others to think that all they need is a functional algorithm (preferably written on window glass) and they, too, can be wildly rich and powerful.
Zuck got where he is because the CIA wanted him to. Shadow Government makes success where others fail.
Yea i keep telling them, You need the blessing of the lizard people first
Funny thing is that zuck scammed the people out of facebook.
Well you have silicon valley, right now everything in our world right now is based & driven around tech so people are going to focus on tech.
He's just a puppet figurehead it's what's behind it controlling it, like everything else these days.
"Eventually people are gonna find out" - That's not what I am getting from this stuff. I am getting the message that these companies don't do their due diligence and would be remarkably easy to fool with a slightly more intelligent scheme.
To a point, but eventually you have to start coming up with numbers beyond self-reported CCU. Investors will eventually start going “Okay, so, how is making money on this going?” Either you need users to pay, or you need to make money through advertising, and there’s enough cynicism about the effectiveness of online ads that they know how to see if they’re getting any bang for their buck.
You’re definitely right, though, that there’s a real lack of due diligence with these investors, though. Kinda feels like a lot of these platforms have giant question marks around how they’re planning on actually making a profit with their new hot app, because the endgame for so many of them is just “get bought out by a megacorp before things collapse”.
Nah, it's not so much that the investors are easy too fool, but rather that they want to be the first to jump on what they perceive to be a big opportunity. It's FOMO, which we're all subject to.
I lost a couple hundred on SAFEMARS and NFTART token, after making more than $1K on a $100 dollar gamble on SAFEMOON. 😂
FOMO is what made me want to gamble on the first two coins after my experience with SafeMoon.
I'm almost certain that's basically how all big tech success up until now has functioned.
But they know the tricks (they built their way up pulling the same tricks) and they ain't about to let some foolhardy new bloods in on their watch.
You just described every person that's been scammed by random crypto "to the moon" investors
For every one that gets through there's probably thousands that don't so from a percentage standpoint, they're doing their due diligence for sure. It's just that the ones that get through are magnified. It's kinda like the Forbes thing where they say Forbes promotes frauds but 99% of the people that make these 30 for 30 lists are legit, less than one percent might be rotten, that's a good rate. No one can be perfect.
1. Create some social network, 2. Fill it with bots 3. Sell it to some Investors.... 4. I mean what can go wrong
hey Twitter did it too. nobody blinked an eye.
That pesky SEC wouldn't stop asking questions!
investors are soo greedy and cash strapped, they would jump on anything that moves.
probably pay a fine thats a small percent of the money made from the scam, live wealthy forever
@@m.o.n.d.e.g.r.e.e.n no, no. A small fine is for banks and hedgefunds, if you scam the rich investors, you will be burried.
Put the phone down, go outside for a walk, say hi to the shopkeeper and the elderly lady walking her dog. Hold the doors open for someone coming behind you; help a child or elderly person across the street. This epidemic of loneliness, narcissism and anti-social behavior can be solved by just putting the phone down. You don't need an app to be a human being.
Underrated comment
The solution to most problems people have are what they perceive as "boring"
great!
I feel you
I stop using facebook, its been 7 months now.
Well said!
There is an old saying when dealing with these types.... believe nothing of what they tell you and only half of what they show you. They are born liars.
Everyone knows - when your company is threatened by a subordinate with incriminating internal information, the best course of action is to immediately fire them.
To give you some perspective on how bad how many bots are on IRL Elon Musk‘s main argument when trying to pull out of buying Twitter, is that 20% of its users where bots
Do you think Softbank ever actually checks up on these companies or do they just write them a blank check?
i think they are doing money laundering through these projects, there is no way even for a big big bank like them to be fine after 3 to 4 consecutive disasters like that, they should be bankrupt by now
I was legit searching for SoftBank comments 😂😂 they just cant catch a break!
How does a bank not research before buying those rugs. How on earthy they got rug pulled every six months or so.
They just need one successful investment to make up the losses for all the bad ones. So I guess they are just throwing shit at the wall hoping something would stick.
@@99bits46 Firms like SoftBank or genereally most venture capital firms currently throw money at every "next big thing" because it mostly pays in the long run. One big hit and all of these "few hundred millions" are forgotten. If their investements earn them stakes in one of the new big tech platforms they might be worth billions, that makes up for a lot of these missed shots. Softbank has major stakes in quite a few big firms because of their approach. They own the chip manufacturer ARM, they were part of the IPhone launch in Japan, they have shares in multiple robotics firms and own Boston Dynamics, they are also the 2nd largest shareholder of T-Mobile. And a lot of their money comes from an initial investement in the then "small" chinese Alibaba which turned into massive profit... their approach is very risky and ethically questionable, but it mostly worked for them for a long time, even though it seems like they lost their instinct in the last few years.
I love hearing about scammers getting what's coming to them. Feels like justice
tbh, they are only following what our 'leaders' do on a daily basis so it's no wonder we have pricks like this that come up with inventive ways to part a fool and their money.
imo, we should be working from the top down first!!
That said, I agree with your sentiment
:)
justice is just a scam word, created by governments ;)
I love hearing about big investors getting what's coming to them. Feels also like justice. hahahahaha
@@alexandruanghel What?
Feels like justice, smells like teen spirit
The access to contacts is exactly what Quora used to do back in 2010-ish. Pretty sure Facebook tried to do the same too
They are only the ones who got caught. They are also not in the 1-10% who are protected from exposure and scandal.
Or that were able to erase all evidence of wrongdoing after becoming successful
Yep, one of the many who got caught in the "Fake it" part before they could get to the "make it"
Im just saying those investors need to respect game and except they got played. Also, who tf invest 1.5 billions with out doing any research, some could say they didnt deserve that money
By "protected" you mean they have hired people to ensure they use legal loop-holes or legal scarcity to avoid any trouble until laws catch up to end their grace period; kinda like most successful start-ups?
_“Fake it til you make it”_ is nothing new. It has just gone into the high-tech world of apps. In 1990, when I worked as a Reagent Production Planner at a start-up in vitro diagnostic test medical device company, I developed a spreadsheet that predicted when an average new customer would burn through their initial batch of reagents and start ordering more. Since we used a contract Reagent Manufacturing company, I had to know when to book "floor time" to produce the reagents. This worked well for about a year, then newly added customers didn't order more reagents. After three months I took this finding to our President and CFO. A week later the VP of Marketing and Sales was fired. This VP was padding the instrument sales figures by creating new customers, but shipping the hardware to himself at a self-storage site. We survived as a company, did our IPO, and were bought out by a larger company in the mid-2000s for more than one, but less than 10 billion USD.
Wonder where the VP is now! Selling used cars? It has always looked to me like this industry trades extreme growth and fake growth and lack oversight of it's people. Sales can be like that , but is hard to fake when you're selling a physical product like yours: you KNEW customers would need replacement in a few months, and when it didn't happen, that's the FLAG (often ignored) that you and your company needed to see.
Always do the hard work. It took Bezos 7 years before Amazon started to see any real progress. Shortcuts will always catch up with you in the end.
But he did have a lot of money to keep it going, never forget that.
@@marcdraco2189 That is another skill/planning
Larry Ellison took a bunch of shortcuts and in fact he was supportive of Elizabeth Holme's schemes. I think startup founders incur into these schemes because they have worked for other successful people
@@LuisSierra42 I didn't know that, but it's interesting to consider that most of these schemes (well, many) certainly DO produce numbers and even reward the early investors well while jiggering the ones that get in late... That reminds me of some bloke called Ponzi.
Jeff Bezos has ALWAYS been in The Club of inverted gender benders. They support each other.
Never heard of this app before this episode. What I am really amazed is at the stagering amount of money being put out...
8 billion peeps in the world and they had maybe 1 million active users... if the users were distributed evenly across the globe, you would need to know 8,000 peeps to know 1 user of the platform.
because they thought it was the latest thing with the kids. Should have asked their kids about it lol
Just for perspective, that kind of money is enough to do any one of the following in India:-
Fund the Indian Space Program for one year
Build an Indian designed Generation III+ Nuclear Reactor Power Plant
Buy an Indian Destroyer
Build a Metro rail network in a minor city
Fund the development of a new fighter jet for the Navy
Fund three Indian General Elections
Build the Home for India's richest man
I mean this is not the kind of money you get scammed out of if you have any self-respect as an investor.
He would have gotten away with it too if he used AI generated images instead of stock images.
there would be too many people with extra fingers
I doubt AI generated images was that advanced at that point
And if it weren't for those meddling kids.
Why are they all of these reports focusing so much on age of the offender? Why does 30, 36, 37, matter so much?
@@jmfs3497hahaha I came to comment that!!
A lot of these startups don't even seem to care about "making it." The goal is rather "fake it till you can pull the rug."
*looks at thumbnail* oh no, they caught Coffeezilla!
The jig is up, Coffee!
My heart bleeds for these million users who will “have to find some other way of meeting their friends in real life”. 😢
Lets go sign in an save the poor man 😢
Facebook
Oh they make 60 dollars revenue per person per month? What? How?
Start a GoFundMe to help them?
I would say… “my heart pumps piss for these million sad users “
I did the math and it would seem that at 36 years of age the 1.5 billion would be about 59 dollars per minute of his life or conversely this would also be enough for about $1600 one time cash payment per lonely person. Of course l actually did the math by simply guessing.
Man... Masayoshi Son literally cannot get a break...he's in like every single one of your scam stories...it's kinda impressive
To be fair, WeWork isn't a scam, just a low-tech traditional business with a fancy marketing campaign. I feel for people who invested in them thinking it was some new high-tech way to do real estate, but it's not like the company was hiding its fundamentals.
He has been like this since 1998. Had 1 massive hit and 100's of losses
@@herogebrial that's how you do venture capital, you find 1 diamond in the rough of 100s of other failures and that 1 diamond makes you enough money that the other losses dont matter
That thumbnail made me think that was coffeezilla for a sec
A new cold fusion scam artist video is just the way to start my day! From here in anchorage Alaska, keep up the amazing work!
Hello and sorry from your friendly neighbours to the East! How’s your summer been up there this year?
Moose’s tooth!
He had a million real users. That's amazing already. I wish I had a million users on my website.
Right? A million users is fantastic. If he charged a monthly subscription from his users, that would be millions of dollars in monthly revenue. I wish I had a million users on my website too lol. Btw what's your website?
yeah, but he said he had 20+ million
The order of magnitude is totally different
@@AdaAdaAdannaif he charged a monthly subscription he probably wouldn’t still have a million users. Especially when the majority of his real users were young people who don’t have a lot of disposable income. People want apps for free these days for the most part.
$0.10/mo or $1/yr would be incredible!!
@@artsmith103exactly. 1$ a Yr per user, even in ads would make a million and after costs maybe he could have still made a lot I think
0:00 Introduction and background of Abraham Shafi, creator of In Real Life (IRL)
1:36 Shafi's early career and first app, Gather
2:40 Creation and success of IRL
4:48 IRL's rise to unicorn status and pivot during pandemic
5:18 Discrepancies in IRL's user metrics and ensuing investigation
7:19 Dissolution of IRL and ongoing legal cases
8:31 Similarities with other high profile fraud cases
9:34 Examining the culture of 'faking it till you make it'
10:07 Conclusion and final thoughts on startup fraud
Table of contents powered by PodcastAI✨
Are these AI generated timestamps?
@@OnTheThirdDay Yes they are. They were generated in a few seconds.
@@GetPodcastAI I just saw your ad video on your channel.
Is there a way to do the table of contents without uploading the video file but instead sending a url?
This is something I was thinking was possible but didn't know existed.
How much is a subscription?
@@OnTheThirdDay Twenty dollars, which should largely cover a weekly podcast - we don't support URLs, but good idea.
I think we are getting better at detecting fraud while its getting easier to commit fraud
Possibly with the latter accelerating away from the former in the context of tech startups and investing
Loving the “Rogues Gallery”. More of this please!
I replay your videos about starts every couple months, favorite ones are the theranos and enron videos.
Just starting the video, but I noticed that you said that in the 80s his father fled "war-torn cairo".
There were never any wars in Cairo in the80s (or since) so I am wondering what you are referencing.
Once a Fraudster Always a Fraudster. He will never stop.Over time I've come across more and more of people trying to get rich quick. This is nothing. Can you imagine a hacker using AI to assist him or her or even a group of hackers. But we have to think ahead and develop AIO to assist detect fraudster and make their lives help. As the World pivots so will society and right now everything is on a reset since Covid. Thanks again for another great exposure Dagogo.
am i the only one who listens to cold fusion videos to sleep… his voice is just so pleasing
you'll only get sleepy if you are not interested in the topic although I do feel an intense sense of peace because of the music selection and the way he speaks
The algorithm has chosen "Drachinifel" as my remedy for insomnia.
Yes, you are the only one👍🏼
No, you're not. My boss is not very happy though.
Reason that scammers keep scamming: investors feel a guarantee by the government and partake in moral hazard by failing to perform the most basic due diligence.
I have lived in Cairo for generations and never heard the term “war-torn Cairo” … shame on you
**Non-expert opinion**
1. Money has been greatly devalued- With Credit Cards and technology, money is just numbers on a screen instead of tangent currency.
2. A great number of banks are barely staying afloat and are always seeking that investment that will get them out of the hole.
3. Greed- Some people will be greedy and cut corners trying to make money.
4. Rich and famous- Society praises celebrities and millionaires and places them on a higher pedestal. Some people crave that level of attention and will stop at nothing to attain it. Even if it is short-lived.
5. Lack of consequences- When convicted of fraud most people serve (in my opinion) a relatively short sentence compared to the level of fraud committed and are really good at hiding their assets. After the sentence, they come back to society with plenty of money or assets still available to them to live a comfortable life.
A combination of some or all of the above
Always great to watch your videos - great content! I've always question myself why do investors make such a sloppy due diligence in first place. It happens so often, is it just the pure greed of being the first to invest in a new innovation or sth else?
Well durning boom times unethical behaviour can go under the radar while investors are jumping on to every opportunity because if they don’t their going to miss out on the next best thing
Great job! I like the new, shorter format occasionally! 👏👏
Greed Greed & more Greed. The scary thing is that there are probably more scamming and getting away. Fake it till you make it was a cool mantra but is now coming back to bite us.
Never mind faking user numbers, how are the investors not checking before investing money? If I would have money invested with Softbank or any of them I would hold them responsible, how about due dilligance?
Put all these people in jail.
Very informative video on online scams. Other than an imposter, online shopping and investment scams, that are on the radar these days by the Federal and state level authorities, these types of social media frauds or scams also need attention, and users should perform appropriate due diligence of these types of social channels before joining such platforms and sharing their information. Due diligence i guess should be performed by user as well of the companies and social media platforms who have no established history as a preventative measure to avoid scam and loss of their confidential information.
To answer your end question , I think it's both. There's more ways than ever to commit fraud and more ways to detect it as well. People trying to scam others or the system out of money will never stop . We must all be skeptical of the next big thing . We also must be diligent in our research of the next big thing coming at us .
Unbelievable to me that rich people still getting tricked out there money in 2023
bcause “greed is GOOD!” 😂
Coldfusion at its best!! 💯
Hey ColdFusion I remember your Note 2 video from years ago amazing how far you have come 👍🏻 your videos are very professional with excellent production quality 👏🏻
going for "fake it till you make" approach is not totally bad at all. some get away with it. and that's the thing, making it after you fake it is considered a success thing that's why it's very tempting for them to try. accumulating enough confidence is enough for you to bite the bait.
Exactly
'fake it till you make it' is a plain awful mindset, only a 'get rich quick' american could have come up with that
Depends on what do you mean by "fake it". Projecting unearned confidence is fine, falsifying numbers is a crime. Even the former is dangerous, because you can lose credibility fast. But it's also necessary, because building a company takes time and if investors get cold feet and pull out, it's game over. Even if your company really would have been the next Apple.
It reminds be of better call saul the older brothers smarter then the younger brother .
but he learns what to say to people and how to say it that sound legal .
but works just with in the law untill he get greedy.
and then it there down fall.
now where sauls business card with his phone number on i better call saul 😊for his words of wisdom
I would rather get paid for conducting interviews, and a book deal based on my success. People willing to pay you to tell them about your failures. If it becomes a learning experience for the readers, and listeners. The additional revenue stream is justified, and the awareness gained is value that good reviews can uncover.
These scam stories are always so interesting.
I can't wait until he makes one on the flu shots going around a couple years ago.
Both. Future startup gurus should be warned. If you do something bad, Dagogo & Cold Fusion will know all about it.
Thank you for this, episode 2....I am waiting for this.
The main problem is that these are they that got caught. I believe that FB and G probably did the same thing and it allowed them ongoing access to capital that they would have otherwise not gotten. This gave them an advantage so that it wasn't the best tech that won the race, just the cheats. You can make this case simply by looking at the evolution of the code of each of the aforementioned companies and their competitors that were superior and yet somehow could not afford to play the game.
Nah those companies were legit popular. When google and FB came out, they blew up quick. They also didn’t have much competition then. The internet was still kind of new. I remember hearing about IRL and wondering how was it so highly valued - I was the target market and never heard of it, no one was talking about it. I knew something fraudulent was going on.
@@Cherrypi393 G and FB were widely publicized, but, popular is a stretch if we are talking about inception. Somehow, despite lackluster performance, they became the premier companies even though others were better. The others didn't get the same access to capital and therefore they didn't remain as popular as they couldn't afford the PR limelight.
Mate I've really appreciated the level of depth of some of your past videos but how can you have covered the VC/tech space for this long and not understand that a $1.5 billion valuation (which isn't even accurate) =/= $1.5 billion in investments
Great as always, Dagogo. Thanks.
There's more fraud in Silicon Valley startups because of technological stagnation. Investors are desperate for ROI and it gets more and more difficult to judge if something actually creates value, because all the low-hanging fruit are gone.
3:00 "According to IRL, the best way to solve loneliness epidemic is with another social media app" 🤣🤣🤣 Has anything more GenZ ever been said before?
Never fails to be entertaining and informative as always ColdFusion
Cold fusion on point
I like the way you seem to conduct thorough research. Well done!🎖🎖🎖
😂😂Softbank never catches a break
Needs criminal investIgation. Nobody makes this many mistakes not on purpose. Scammmers.
Soft bank needs a blue pill. To be hard bank
I've been in a few start-ups, and I agree that things are usually strongly exaggerated to inflate value. If you are conscientious it eventually destroys your soul. I've always felt "but we have a good thing going here, so why the used car salesman tactics?" Maybe I've just been unlucky.
Friends of mine have also pitched ideas for startups to me that clearly were no more than frauds, and wanted me to join them. I guess I've not been careful enough about who I associate with.
तू भावा एक नंबर आहेस. तुझा रिसर्च आणि तुझं कंटेंट खूपच भारी आहे. मुद्दाम मराठीमध्ये टाकलं आहे.
Man great video as always. But hearing your track with the Burial Shell of Light sample at the end was unreal, amazing song
How many apps do we think the world can support. People are already walking around bumping into each other, staring at their phones.
smell the coffee
Majority of people are mindless indulgers. And the younger generation is the worst.
@@jamie6387 lemme guess you're different
So many scamers these days man... Just like this chick did with her app with all the fake useres who scammed j.p. Morgan that was very similar
Had that exact same thought
To be fair JP Morgan deserves to get scammed because they rejected me for a job a few years back
@@sirtrollalot7762 hopefully the woman in question sees this and uses it in her defence.
@@sirtrollalot7762 With your 10 years of experience trolling, how could they not see the potential.
They're about to have to be bailed out by the Feds. They have no cash. Just watch these interest rates over the next year - we are just getting started@@sirtrollalot7762
I love how he played that "Hit List" at the end 🤣🤣🤣 Great video, as always!!!
As soon as the investment section started I know Soft Bank was gonna show up 😂😂😂😂
Absolutely random, but when you said "If SoftBank sounds familiar, it's because they've been in the news for having one bad investment after the other", I had to give a chuckle. In the anime Tiger & Bunny, the superheroes are sponsored by real life companies and the main character, "Tiger"/Kotetsu, is sponsored by SoftBank and wears the actual logo on his suit (I'm seriously curious how the heck this anime negotiated all of this). But (and this is a huge spoiler), I think he loses the sponsorship when he is demoted from an A rank hero to a B rank (and by season 2 or 3, I don't think he's able to be a hero at all with his declining powers). So, I suppose one could say he was a bit of a bad investment 😅
Most anime are sponsored anyway, they just let their sponsors appear in the anime as, this would be my guess.
With how many collectibles were released för T&B, and Bandai being behind it, it is not surprising they were able to negotiate this.
@@HasekuraIsuna Hm, true, true.
There was no war in Egypt in the 80s or 90s
Was thinking that, what war is he on about?
I love the use of Burial at 10:23
Good work. Thanks for sharing it. ✌️
Great video again dear boy. Fake it till you make it is a terrible thing but it seems confined to high-profile, high-tech stuff in America (by and large). Where I live investors are a LOT more careful with their cash.
The lesson here is that humans are very easily blinded by greed.
Many lessons. Another is how eager humans are to believe what they want.
Most people have no idea how much extra money is sloshing around in investors pockets, thanks mostly to capital gains taxes being capped at 15%. The losses due to these scammers are a tiny chunk of the pie. For many investors, actualized losses are a good tax deduction or simply a rounding error.
Exposing a scam like this literally takes 5 seconds of research. I don’t know how these investors got scammed
Our generation is problematic 😢 I'm afraid for the future
Make it until you make it, period.
💯
As usual, very interesting! Thank you!
It's called greed.
I thought it was CoffeeZilla at first glance
It’s all to do with wanting more and be on top. I’ve been witnessing someone I know who’s been faking it for years and finally it seems she’s making it now.
@@fluxonitebruh
Forgetting the queen - Ruja Ignatova lol
They're just aping their big brothers, the major corporations, who also have no respect for laws or ethics. And they know that once a company gets big enough, paying for lawbreaking just becomes part of the cost of making yourself ever richer.
It will never cease to amaze me how easily people like this can swindle investors and even get away with it sometimes, like Vivek Ramaswamy receiving billions for a biotech company that lost everything almost overnight because the drug they bought was absolutely useless. I think they even got "evaluated" at a peak value of 3.3bn with like 8 employees including two of his immediate family members.
Glad you mentioned that. That guy is definitely a malignant narcissist. It's so obvious to me...wish others could see that.
I think the investor side of things is also rife with gaming the system, the whole process stinks
This is so sad, I love the idea of IRL and hope someone pulls something similar off😢 we need more grass touching
We have such apps, MeetUp for example
You mean some young startup wunderkind is completely lacking in morals or scruples? I simply can't believe it.
Scamming will always happen since there is so little accountability for fraud. Until people start getting hefty prison sentences and having all their personal funds confiscated, scamming will just become more rampant. Look at influencers shilling crypto scams left and right. Have any of them faced any REAL consequences besides being publicly shamed for 5 minutes?
It is much easier to scam people. Especially tech investors in the US are throwing money around, hoping that one of the hundreds investments will be the next big thing. People also realised scamming people has very little consequence and if successful you will make so much money, you won't ever need to think about it again. If you get caught, the worst case is a couple years prison.
The system is not working properly imo.
Hey Dagogo, just want to say, your content is amazing man! The narration! Editing! Brilliant! 👏👏
So sad that the love of money turns some ppl.into thieves......looks like he reaped what he sowed
Dont be antisemetic.
Can you cover the story of the 1million dollar fraud/scam that had happened in the country of Singapore quite recently?The world needs to know.😮
"Only" 1 million users would still value the company at around #20-30 million which is is not too shabby.
I'm a simple man I see a cold fusion video I watch a cold fusion videos.
Due diligence is not difficult to do, lesson here is entire VC and tech bubble is based of hype and not fundamentals. Time and again frauds of this scale prove that no one is really doing proper background check before putting their money in anything and everything in hopes of making 100x their investment.
Most of these investors are too incompetent to know what they should be checking
Facebook did the same thing. I'm surprised nobody remembers this. There was not a single day that I did not receive a Facebook spam email message asking me to join or that someone invited me.
SEC or the US senate should investigate META for fraud even if it happened in the past. Then we will know if US politicians are greedy and easily bought..
Fb is the biggest time waste.
You'd think by now Softbank would call it a day on funding startups.
1:00 99% of these first commenters are not real too😅 this should be illegal
It make me wonder what apps we have now that successfully faked it till they maked it.
Maybe all of them did it at some point
"maked"?
Be real ?
Not many. This guy didn't even have a unique idea, piggyback off Zuck
Over the years of seeing so many different cases like this or close. The messed up part if not many thing is at least one main one and that’s one’s planing on doing this end up getting the money/funding vs the ones that really should get the funding have the hard road.
As if they rather pick the ones that end up bad.
10:00 "I'm putting a team together...."