David Jeans
@DavidJeans2
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Senior reporter @Forbes covering AI, defense + national security. Co-author of WONDER BOY. djeans @forbes .com
New York, NY
Joined July 2011
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Pinned Tweet
The WONDER BOY paperback is here!
We're excited to share the story of Zappos leader Tony Hsieh, whose rise and fall told the quintessential Silicon Valley tragedy.
"Mandatory reading for anyone who is interested in big tech" - New Yorker
On sale here:
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NEW: They pump iron, chew nicotine and build weapons. Beloved by a16z investors and inspired by Palmer Luckey, they call themselves the Gundo bros, "unapologetic" Americans building defense tech companies in LA.
w/
@SarahNEmerson
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Exclusive: Rep. Mike Gallagher sent a letter to Elon Musk today claiming that SpaceX and StarShield are withholding internet access to US troops in Taiwan — and could be in breach of its “contractual obligations with the U.S. government.”
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Chris Kirchner lives like a billionaire CEO: mansions, a private jet, a Ferrari Superfast, and a bid to buy English football team Derby County.
But the glitzy facade has crumbled recently amid mounting lawsuits and claims of "fraudulent behavior."
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Last month a startup called Scalefactor approached me with an exclusive: its CEO would tell
@forbes
how Covid-19 had killed its business, despite raising $100M in 12 months.
It was a convenient explanation for a company with much bigger issues.
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Over the summer, the singer Jewel went to visit Tony Hsieh, the visionary business leader and CEO of Zappos, in Utah. What she saw unsettled her, and she wrote him a letter: “I need to tell you that I don’t think you are well and in your right mind."
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Binance had fled Malta and failed to set up in the U.K. when it set up a $7B payments business in Lithuania.
Now its leading executives are being accused of fraud.
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Chris Kirchner has been suspended as CEO of Goldman Sachs-backed tech startup Slync.
It follows a
@forbes
report last week that detailed claims he provided inflated revenue figures to the board.
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Exclusive: Just months after raising $100M, a startup that says it prevents fraud all-but-shuts down amid an SEC fraud investigation.
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It turns out that for years Scalefactor charged thousands of dollars for an AI-powered software tool that proclaimed to replace the traditional accountant. But in reality it used human accountants in Austin and the Philippines to do most of the work.
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BREAKING: FBI agents raided the Texas home of Chris Kirchner, the former CEO of the $240M Goldman Sachs-backed tech company Slync who was ousted amid claims of "fraudulent behavior."
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New: Sequoia and Bedrock led $85M investments into Mach Industries, a defense tech startup led by a teenager with a vision to make hydrogen weapons for the military.
A near-fatal accident is just the start of the company's issues:
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Exclusive: Payments giant Checkout has dropped Binance over money laundering and compliance concerns.
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Sam Bankman-Fried has been telling us what he was doing all along.
Now in hindsight, and at 50,000 feet above FTX's collapse, it all appears to make sense.
From
@SarahNEmerson
,
@richardjnieva
and me:
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The ultimate tragedy of Tony Hsieh's life occurred as he spiralled with drug addiction in 2020.
In this excerpt of WONDER BOY in
@forbes
, we document how his friends and family inked multi-million dollar deals in the final months before his death.
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Breaking: The CEO of NS8, a fraud prevention software startup, was arrested by the FBI today on fraud charges.
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Our book "WONDER BOY: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley" is out.
More than 150 people helped us piece together the life of a true visionary, whose story is as tragic as it is remarkable — and we are grateful to them today.
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NEW: This crypto company claims to be valued at $15B, and has been touted by megachurch leaders and celebrities like Patrick Mahomes, Drew Brees and Randy Jackson.
But the heady valuation is among several things that don't add up.
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Companies like Google and Facebook are forcing local governments to sign NDAs as they seek massive tax breaks for data centers that create few jobs.
Sometimes local officials don't even know which company they are awarding the tax breaks to.
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Helium’s crypto tokens were touted as supporting the best real-world use case of Web3 tech.
But as execs of the A16Z-backed startup promised “The People’s Network,” they scooped up most of those tokens at launch. Most users earn pennies today.
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Microsoft spent years building Teams into a Slack challenger. Now it's using its software suite to take on Twilio — a company it helped build.
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Breaking: Binance CEO CZ In Discussions To Step Down As Criminal Investigation Ends
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Amazon has been hit with another five lawsuits from current and former employees, claiming discrimination and retaliation.
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Incredibly excited for the upcoming release of WONDER BOY: Tony Hiseh, Zappos and The Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley, by
@AngelAuYeung
and me.
Thanks to Publisher's Weekly for today's review: "Readers will have a hard time putting this down."
Wonder Boy: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley by Angel Au-Yeung, David Jeans. Read full review:
#PWROTD
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I’ve joined
@Forbes
! I’m very excited to get started with such a stellar tech team (from my bedroom office for now)
Also a shoutout to the team at
@trdny
who taught me the ropes of business reporting — I’ll sure miss them. For tips and everything else: djeans
@forbes
.com
News! We're very excited to welcome
@DavidJeans2
as a new reporter for
@ForbesTech
. David has done award-winning work on real estate tech at
@trdny
and investigations at into keyless cars at
@nytimesbusiness
. He'll be a great addition to
@Forbes
.
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Partners at Andreessen Horowitz, which has $7B for Web3 investments, held a fundraiser for Bronx congressman Ritchie Torres.
A few months later, Torres pressured an obscure industry group that threatened to derail a portfolio company.
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Jeff Bezos says during shareholder meeting that Andy Jassy will start as Amazon CEO on July 5.
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Breaking: Facebook will block its Australian users from sharing or reading news on its site
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Married billionaire Eric Schmidt launched a $100M startup with his girlfriend — a venture that has blurred his professional and personal life.
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Breaking: Rep. Mike Gallagher is taking a job at Palantir
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“I just couldn’t do it anymore.” For years, Adam Rogas was CEO of a company that sold fraud prevention software. Now he is accused of committing fraud and of pocketing $17.5 million from investors.
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Software billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is putting his money behind an effort to force Australia's largest power company to abandon coal.
Could America's climate-conscious billionaires be doing more?
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27 years after incorporating , Jeff Bezos said Andy Jassy will take over as CEO on July 5 -- at a time when the company is facing more regulatory scrutiny and employee activism than ever.
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New: Satya Nadella And Microsoft Are The Biggest Winners Of The OpenAI Meltdown — For Now
From me and
@richardjnieva
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Update: After this story was published, Flow's job board disappeared from the website.
Adam Neumann's company had been seeking web3 engineers who will help “redefine the economic experience of renters” by “leveraging new technology.”
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Shopify's soaring stock price has been great news for its public market investors. But for early investor Bessemer Venture Partners, which held a 26% percent stake at its 2015 before cashing out, the surge has amounted to a $22B stake that never was.
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Vishal Garg, the CEO of is taking leave effective immediately, a week after firing 900 workers on a Zoom and calling them "lazy."
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New: Serial entrepreneur Nathan Mintz is building a secretive defense company called CX2, and has secured funding from A16z's American Dynamism and Joe Lonsdale at 8VC — with a focus on electronic warfare.
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On Tuesday I got a loud invite from a PR agency for a virtual event headlined by George Clooney, Charlize Theron + dozen celebs...
Another email arrived this morning starting with: "I am so embarrassed to have to send this."
From
@AngelAuYeung
+ me
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One question during the FTX meltdown:
Who is Caroline Ellison, and how did she rise from Harry Potter stan to CEO of Alameda Research, at the crux of crypto's big crash?
w/
@SarahNEmerson
@richardjnieva
@DelRayMan
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Gusto, the HR software company, has secured a $175M funding round, valuing the company at $10B. With a string of acquisitions and new board members, the company is now on track for an IPO.
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NEW: Tether moved $37 billion of its reserves to an offshore bank called Capital Union in 2021 amid a settlement with New York regulators over claims that it had falsely misrepresented its assets.
w/
@SarahNEmerson
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After Google's $2.1B Manhattan building acquisition last month, we started looking at other metrics that illustrate tech's takeover of Manhattan.
It turns out there are quite a few:
w/
@giacomotognini
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has emerged as a breakout startup this year with a recent $4B valuation and an IPO in sight.
But behind his public fintech visionary persona, CEO Vishal Garg is trying to overcome a more tangled history.
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To recap
@Forbes
Binance reporting:
- CZ to step down as CEO
- New board to be announced
- Company will submit to third-party monitor
- Richard Teng being considered for CEO
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🚨More Breaking Binance:
Richard Teng A Top Contender For New Binance CEO As CZ Steps Down
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NEW: Chris Kirchner, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs-backed tech company Slync, has been charged with $67M fraud.
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Biden on AI: “Companies must tell the government about the large scale AI systems they’re developing...to prove they pose no national security or safety risk to the American people."
My dispatch from the White House today:
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NEW: The SEC has charged former Slync CEO Chris Kirchner with fraudulently selling $67M securities, more than $28M used for personal benefit, including the purchase of a private jet.
Updated story coming....
BREAKING: FBI agents raided the Texas home of Chris Kirchner, the former CEO of the $240M Goldman Sachs-backed tech company Slync who was ousted amid claims of "fraudulent behavior."
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View Inc. raised $2B on the promise that its smart glass would be the best thing since air conditioners.
But after SEC fraud charges, an abysmal post-SPAC share price and layoffs, the company is fighting to stay alive.
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Scoop: OpenAI's investors are scrambling to reinstate Sam Altman in what would be an incredible return.
w/
@alexrkonrad
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Cloud software startup Coder is used by the Airforce and major banks. It just raised $30M at a $200M val from investors including the CIA.
Its 3 founders are all under 22.
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Startup CEOs often make profitability claims to journalists when their companies are private.
But we found that 1 in 4 of the largest companies to IPO since Jan 2019 -- UiPath, Lyft, Palantir, Oscar Health, others -- told the SEC a different story.
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Amid *2020*, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella is calling for a "referendum on capitalism."
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We are grateful to those who shared with us their stories of Hsieh. Fred Mossler, who worked along Hsieh since the beginning of Zappos, summed up his life: “Tony’s journey was to improve the human condition.”
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.
@TripActions
, a $4B corporate travel management startup backed by
@a16z
, lost 95% of revenue as a result of Covid-19. Now, new investors are betting the company can weather the pandemic with a $125M lifeline.
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NEW: Alexandr Wang, the CEO of ScaleAI, had for years said his $7B company was a major defense contractor.
Behind the scenes, Wang also pushed through a contract to work with Chinese social media giant TikTok — ignoring natl security concerns from execs
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"Wonder Boy ... is a gripping, uncomfortable read."
Grateful to
@nytimes
and
@EllenBarryNYT
for reviewing of our book about Tony Hsieh's rise and fall — which is out today.
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There's more to the story behind the Razzlekhan moniker.
We report a tragic portrait of Heather Morgan, the woman charged with laundering billions of dollars of bitcoin with her husband.
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Pentagon leaders have repeatedly said it needs Silicon Valley to defend against foreign aggression, particularly from China.
But after a $2M fellowship program was cut this month, tech leaders told Forbes there's “a lot more talk than there is action.”
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‘Elon Is Watching’: Twitter Employees Panic On Musk’s First Day As Owner
w/
@Ali_Lev
@JohnPaczkowski
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"Exceptional reporting...it should be mandatory reading for anyone who is interested in big tech."
Thanks to
@jaycaspiankang
for his
@NewYorker
review of WONDER BOY: Tony Hsieh, Zappos, and the Myth of Happiness in Silicon Valley
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The Customs Border Protection agency is equipping thousands of agents on the Mexican border with body cameras for the first time.
It follows years of calls from civil rights groups for more accountability at the agency after immigrant deaths. w/
@Immelty
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Sweetgreen joining AllBirds, Peloton + others in the club of unprofitable VC-backed companies who said they were profitable.
Thinking we should start a live tracker to fact check pre-IPO profit claims, building on this list:
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Sarah Cannon had been trying to invest in Slack-competitor
@NotionHQ
for 18 months, without luck.
Coronavirus happened, they changed their mind, and she agreed to lead a $50M funding round at a whopping $2B valuation. From me and
@alexrkonrad
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Tony Hsieh was surrounded by sycophants who extracted millions of dollars from his fortune in the final months of his life.
Here
@AngelAuYeung
and I discuss our book, WONDER BOY, on Hsieh’s meteoric rise and tragic end for
@Forbes
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ScaleFactor is shutting down, employees have severance, and investors were given cash back. So why all this fuss? The startup embodied the "fake it til you make it" mentality until it never did get things right.
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Update: Sam Bankman-Fried has been denied bail and remanded in Bahamian custody until February.
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New: a group of ad execs privately lobbied Linda Yaccarino to resign as CEO of X following Elon Musk’s recent activity.
w/
@JohnPaczkowski
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One name emerged repeatedly in the SEC's Binance lawsuit: Guangying "Heina" Chen.
A Forbes investigation has revealed the story behind one of CZ's most trusted confidants, who controlled more bank accounts than any other executive at the crypto giant.
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Satya Nadella's pursuit of TikTok — a deal that could be worth $40 billion — could rewrite Microsoft's history of bad acquisitions and cement its role as a dominant player in the online ad business.
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As Las Vegas memorializes its lost tech visionary Tony Hsieh, anger is brewing toward those who were with the Zappos CEO in his final months in Utah, where his mental and physical health spiraled.
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Long before the tech unicorn era — and Zappos made him a household name — Tony Hsieh sold his first his company at age 24 for $265M.
@AngelAuYeung
and I spoke to many who knew Tony for this exclusive excerpt in
@FastCompany
from our new book, WONDER BOY, out next Tuesday.
'Tony and Sanjay were doing their darndest to keep the culture together, and I believe they both struggled.'
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Exclusive: FTX secretly sent a $50M loan to the parent company of Deltec — the mysterious offshore bank that has become a key financial partner for major crypto clients.
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UPDATE: CZ agrees to step down as CEO of Binance, plead guilty to anti-money laundering charges.
Breaking: Binance CEO CZ In Discussions To Step Down As Criminal Investigation Ends
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New: Vishal Garg is back as CEO at Better, a month after firing 900 employees on a Zoom call, and then deriding them as "lazy."
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Before he was arrested, Sam Bankman-Fried was supposed to appear before Congress today.
Here's a list of all the people and things he planned to blame for FTX's demise, and his current situation:
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Andy Jassy built a $50 billion enterprise as CEO of AWS. His new role is the clearest sign yet that Amazon’s future is in cloud, not e-commerce.
1
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New: Prominent non-profit Black Girls Code is in turmoil after a months-long leadership dispute led to the ouster of its CEO Kimberly Bryant, and allegations of bullying on its board.
2
18
31
The ecommerce-builders —
@Shopify
,
@Wix
, others — are booming as offline businesses move online.
@IndexVentures
has led a $28M funding round into
@gatsbyjs
, another firm to add to the mix, now valued >$200M. For
@Forbes
2
5
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NEW: Sam Bankman-Fried sold the Bahamas on a crypto vision fueled by lavish donations — charity now seen as another ill-use of allegedly misappropriated billions.
Here's my dispatch with
@SarahNEmerson
from Nassau:
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17
29
NS8, the Las Vegas-based fraud detection company that imploded after its CEO was arrested on fraud charges, has filed for bankruptcy.
2
9
30
NEW: California-based AI chip company Blaize had raised $200M but was running out of capital, and struggling to raise more.
Now it's going public via a SPAC backed by Middle Eastern investors — amid US scrutiny of semiconductor sales to Gulf nations.
9
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New: Buzzy crypto unicorn Helium was dealt another blow yesterday after Binance announced it was delisting some trading pairs.
Binance told
@Forbes
it reviews digital assets ensure "a high level of standard" and delists tokens "to protect our users."
9
11
22
.
@groove_co
, a startup that helps sales people close deals remotely — in lieu of the pre-COVID-19 coffee or lunch meeting — just closed a $12M funding round backed by Capital One, the firm tells
@forbes
.
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.
@sequoia
and
@benchmark
have doubled down on Amplitude, startup that tracks user behaviors, raising $50M at a $1B valuation. For
@forbes
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A federal judge held bonds in Apple and Microsoft when he was assigned a case brought against them in DC in 2019. Instead of recusing himself, he bought more bonds in the companies on at least 12 occasions.
Then he dismissed the suit.
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This is so cool: Our biography of Zappos' Tony Hsieh, WONDER BOY, is named one of FT's best books of the year.
"A tragic cautionary tale of how money genuinely cannot buy happiness."
Order your copy here:
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Hollowed-Out Books, Fake Passports And Burner Phones: What Led To The Feds Raid On The Crypto Couple
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Amazon will pay $62 million to settle claims it short-changed its delivery drivers on tips for years — a practice it only stopped once the FTC said it was investigating.
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Last year,
@Forbes
reported that Kirchner had misrepresented Slync's finances to the board and led a flashy lifestyle — a private jet, red Ferrari, and $$ sponsorship deals — while his employees went unpaid for months.
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The bonkers story of the New York couple accused of laundering billions in bitcoin continues:
Hollowed-Out Books, Fake Passports And Burner Phones: What Led To The Feds Raid On The Crypto Couple
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Amazon's cloud business has long been its golden goose. After three high-profile AWS outages in December, its goodwill with some customers may be at risk.
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Adam Rogas told me last week "I did not walk away with the company's money." This morning he was arrested by the FBI in Las Vegas and is now facing fraud charges that carry up to 20 year sentences.
Breaking: The CEO of NS8, a fraud prevention software startup, was arrested by the FBI today on fraud charges.
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New:
Before their arrests Tuesday, crypto couple Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein led a life as wannabe tech luminaries.
We figured out where they've been, and some clues they left along the way.
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I spoke with 15 former ScaleFactor employees and executives who described a startup that used aggressive sales tactics and prioritized chasing capital instead of building software that fell far short of what it promised. When customers fled, executives obscured losses.
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