So I have a colleague who has like 8 YOE. He is working at a seed stage startup where I also work. We have a very lean team.  He joined a big MNC back in December but continued to work with us alon...

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So I have a colleague who has like 8 YOE. He is working at a seed stage startup where I also work. We have a very lean team.

He joined a big MNC back in December but continued to work with us alongside. I got to know in February that he's working two jobs. I didn't share it with the team because he was leaving by mid April types.

Owing to closing FY, I started noticing weird things where the database was manually altered. After a lot of investigation, I found that this colleague was messing with DB and making him small amounts of money since 2022. 4 months after he joined us!

Our founders still don't know about his working at  the other company. Not sure if I should share it with the founders now. He got fired yesterday for financial fraud from our company.

Colleague working two jobs and committed fraud in ours

Software Engineer

Colleague working two jobs and committed fraud in ours- Grapevine

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

What's the craziest reason someone got fired?

Here's mine at my previous job. A collegue of mine was fired for smoking weed in the bathroom. He got back to his laptop and he was high as fuck, I am pretty sure he didn't even understand why he was getting fired.

Software Developer

I was speaking to an ex-colleague and he mentioned how my previous employer, a lending startup, has been intentionally over-reporting disbursal numbers and under-reporting delinquencies in portfolio.

They conveniently chuck the NBFC partners who dare to ask questions and instead catch new fish. During my time I saw sales staff committing rampant frauds and making money on the sides from users. The founders conveniently turned a blind eye till there was new business coming in. They've seemingly moved on to the next level now.

The founders have top pedigree and already come from well off families. Makes me wonder how many such skeletons are buried across startups and what leads to such behaviour. Especially in the wake of what we saw with GoMechanic, Zilingo etc.

Frauds at startups

Business Operations

In a shocking turn of events, a former employee at MoEngage, while serving their notice period, reportedly downloaded over 1,000 files, including confidential pitch decks, proposals from active deals, and sensitive product documentation, onto their personal device. This individual allegedly shared the stolen data with a competitor they were preparing to join.

As a result, this competitor has started appearing in all of MoEngage’s deals, armed with insider information, and MoEngage is facing unprecedented losses against them. The IT team at MoEngage flagged this alarming activity, and the former employee is now facing legal prosecution.

How low can you stoop for a company?

The employee is in for a world of pain  
  
 But the company probably did something to piss the employee off so bad, no one jeopardizes their career like this unless it was something personal

Generalist

Sales

I have been talking to a few companies, across different size bands.
Only Indian startups seem to obsessed with full week WFO/Micromanagement.

A few years back, startups were known for being more flexible, now it just seems to be the reverse.

Why are Indian startups so obsessed with Micromanagement? i.e. WFO

I know a lot of folks will not agree, but when it comes to accountability (+ some integrity), the vast majority are really really behind. Those who show some are stomped up on as well.  
  
 The only way to get over this might be to micromanage. I'm not in support of it, but I myself have been seeing a change around me because of some people, a few others will also have to suffer from micro-management. Yes, it's not easy on me/my mind, but the work is moving a bit more.  
  
 I've seen this at a lot of places. I usually trust others with things, but the results have more often disappointed me. Now, I just delegate only of it's really required.

Product Manager

Founder

It can be either a strange workplace policy, an altercation with a manager or absolutely anything else.

What's the most toxic incident you've come across at your workplace?

Consultant

I know sometimes we refrain from saying too much about our company. But exes can usually be talked about, since there's not much holding back.

Maybe it helps someone else avoid a mistake you did, or gain a new learning :p 

Shoot.

What's a secret from a previous workplace you worked at? 🤫

Not my workplace, but true story. 
  
 giant american retail company (assume it's W*) hires one giant indian IT services company (assume it's H*) for some maintenance work now this H* company has offload this work to small Indian IT services company (assume it's M*) which has a employee named R* who's one assigned to actually do the work but R* is smartass he's scouting internet for freelancer to fix the issues. He gets one junior guy P* to work for few thousand rupees and shares his credentials, vpn provider etc and our P* now messes up , in the whole scenario there's no safety lot's of mess total grey zone. 
  
 From knowing this incident, I'm like no one gives any fucks about anything, only if people weren't so bad.

Backend Engineer

Corporate Strategist

Recently I was talking to a girl who was working a startup in BLR. She left the startup with some horrendous experiences. This startup was working from a startup hostel in BLR. Things she told me shook me. She was dating the founder.

So this founder who claims to be on his 2nd startup dates his own employees and then blackmails them.
The average age of his employees is 24. All these girls that he dates are not above 23/24

Apparently this guy has 2 court cases against him. One for fraud and one for a rape case. Both of them are not easily found online. He uses VC money to keep in under the hood.

The fraud case is about his first startup which was a stolen idea apparently. 

This guy’s whole life is fake.
He claims to be an IIT Madras dropout, but he's from some local college. 

There are rumours that one of the girls he dated tried to kill herself because he allegedly filmed them.

He also does not pay salaries for months to his employees but compensates by giving them expensive gifts.

He claims his parents are IAS officers but we checked and they are not. 

His last startup was around around AUTH and current one is around Fintech

Girls and boys stay away from working with such shady startups.

Tinder Swindler of BLR

Interesting, the whole story is about unknown man with unknown startup. Thanks for such an insightful post.

How is the work culture at Zepto in terms of WLB etc? Also any chance of layoffs or is it doing good compared to instamart and blinkit?

Work culture at Zepto

Suppose if you feel that you are being considered for a job or you get that sense of sure selection by the org, and you have no much proper information about the org in the internet. Will you find current working employees of that same company on LinkedIn and slide into their DMs to know about the org, team, ceo?

Stalking employees on Linkedin for company information

DevOps Engineer

My senior  just got fired for questioning  his low appraisal from company.The guy literally build all the backend ,infrastructure and all. From which they are making money.
Management  said _ we don't have work for you here.And then when he said ok fine iam quitting  they didint even give him 2 months notice period. 
He was asked to leave that day only.

The Management is not even giving him 4 yr experience  letter . Telling  he didint serve notice period. 

His stack are angular, php,llm models.
One of the smartest guys I have met.

So group if u guys have a refrel please reply.

He is expecting  from 14_20lacs.

Colleague working two jobs and committed fraud in ours

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