The Silicon Valley company we now know to be WrkRiot, formerly known as both 1for.one and JobSonic, has now been publicly outed following a Startup Grind/Medium post earlier this week by one of its recently terminated employees implicating the CEO in a variety of misdeeds not the least of which was the emailing of forged Wells Fargo wire transfer receipts alleging payment of back wages to a group of employees. Former CTO Al Brown, identified as "Charlie" in the original and now viral post by former marketing director Penny Kim, has now come forward and confirmed most of Kim's story on Business Insider because he likely feels screwed over as well.
In particular, he confirms the story about the fake wire transfer receipts which Kim alleges were taken from an example receipt easily found on Google, and likely doctored with PhotoShop.
Kim had referred to the company only as Startup X, saying that she merely wanted to write a cautionary tale for other prospective startup employees, after she was fired for filing a wage claim after not receiving a paycheck. She says she was ultimately paid her wages, but not her promised signing bonus or severance.
And Brown admits to having been duped himself, telling Business Insider, "I'm out $230,000 plus expenses from April and back pay. I got pretty hurt here."
Brown also told his full side of the story Monday on Hacker News.
The CEO in Kim's story, whom she referred to as "Michael," has been identified by Brown and others as one Isaac Choi not to be confused with this Isaac Choi who also is a tech entrepreneur and who notes on his LinkedIn profile that he is not that Isaac Choi. On WrkRiot CEO Isaac Choi's CrunchBase profile, he offers this bit of wisdom under "Personal Details":
A believer in Maslow's hierarchy of needs believing that there the world currently must focus on the needs of each and every individual in the world and not the wants of everyday life.Currently the advancements of technology have made the world lazy and slow, confusing everyone of what they need and what they want.
The company's website and social media presence have disappeared since the story came out Monday, but according to a post on CrunchBase, WrkRiot received $1.13 million in seed funding from two investors, one of whom is Choi himself, the most recent round being $130,000 on August 1, 2016. But at this point, given all this negative publicity and Kim's tale of financial troubles, we can probably assume that the company is circling the drain or has already ceased operations. Brown said that all he knew was that the company still had employees and was operating up until this week.
TechCrunch picked up the story of Choi's exposure yesterday, noting that following Kim's post, "Several other company advisors and employees have since come forward to share their own (largely negative) experiences with WrkRiot and its founder, Isaac Choi."
And they point out that this is not just a cautionary tale for people applying to work at startups, especially now that "Medium has become a clearinghouse for tech employees to air their grievances and hold employers accountable." They write, "It’s also a warning signal for founders: Don’t mess with your employees’ money, or they’ll expose you on Medium."
Previously: Spurned By Silicon Valley Startup, Dallas Woman Pens Viral Cautionary Tale