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Former Snapchat Employee Presses To Unseal Allegedly Doctored Usage Statistics (latimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the doctor-who dept.

In early January, a former Snapchat employee named Anthony Pompliano filed a lawsuit against the company claiming they reported false growth numbers to investors in an effort to inflate its valuation. Today, Pompliano's attorney asked a judge to unseal court filings that purportedly show the misrepresented usage of its app. Los Angeles Times reports: The specific details remain redacted until a ruling on whether they constitute trade secrets protected from disclosure. Snap described the allegations as "preposterous" in a Los Angeles County Superior Court filing in January, weeks before the Venice company held one of the largest initial public offerings in U.S. history. The company pointed out Pompliano filed a similar lawsuit against Brighten Labs. That Los Angeles startup fired Pompliano months after Snap. His move to go public with a dispute contractually bound to take place secretly in arbitration is a publicity stunt designed to pressure Snap, the company's attorneys said in January.

14 comments

  1. Allegedly Doctored by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no "allegedly" about it. It's standard practice for every single social/dating service to have fake accounts, bots, and otherwise bullshit numbers.

    1. Re:Allegedly Doctored by ark1 · · Score: 1

      Very true, when your primary metric is number of "active" users. There is a lot of incentive to game the system. something that can be easily accomplished.

    2. Re:Allegedly Doctored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure, you gotta bootstrap your user base with fake stuff to make it look popular. But, is it standard practice to lie to investors too?

    3. Re:Allegedly Doctored by sexconker · · Score: 1

      Sure, you gotta bootstrap your user base with fake stuff to make it look popular. But, is it standard practice to lie to investors too?

      Yes. Welcome to capitalism.

      If Snap really believed the claims were bullshit they'd come out with the numbers publicly. Every investor they courted would have extra faith in Snap. Investors that were skeptical of the numbers will look at Snap again. Investors who thought the numbers were true but weren't worth an investment would still think that.

    4. Re:Allegedly Doctored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly how would a publicly traded company go about lying to their customers without lying to their investors?

    5. Re:Allegedly Doctored by geekmux · · Score: 1

      Sure, you gotta bootstrap your user base with fake stuff to make it look popular. But, is it standard practice to lie to investors too?

      No, of course not. Everyone knows you bootstrap your user base with fake stuff in order to throw those numbers in the garbage and tell investors the truth.

      Give me a fucking break. The entire action of bullshitting statistics is to feed a very specific purpose 99% of the time, public or private.

    6. Re:Allegedly Doctored by thomn8r · · Score: 1

      Goodhart's law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    7. Re:Allegedly Doctored by adosch · · Score: 1

      Agreed 100%. That's is pretty standard tactic I think anymore. I even giggled at similar boasted numbers about Wish about over 150 million users, best yada yada yada on an audio ad the other day, yet I don't even know a SINGLE real person who uses it or had heard of it --- not to say it's not used in other geographic areas, but it goes to show how a company can boast millions of users in some overnight sensational movement.

      I'm still had on this, though: What's there to gain from this annoucement? Snap is valued at $33 billion, so good luck fighting that, in the sense of being shewed away like a dog looking for table scraps.

      This honestly just sounds like a I-left-my-last-employer-on-bad-terms-so-now-its-time-to-poo-poo-on-them event. Have fun with that.

  2. Growth Hacking? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, so is that what 'growth hacking' is? I always wondered...

    1. Re:Growth Hacking? by FatdogHaiku · · Score: 1

      No, 'growth hacking' is taking a razor knife to the new, strange lump growing on one's neck...
      Kidding aside, no one should do that, ever.

      --
      You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
  3. He should have filed as a John Doe by kriston · · Score: 1

    He should have filed as a John Doe unless he plans on changing career fields. This isn't the tobacco industry in 1996.

    --

    Kriston

  4. At least one party to this dispute is lying by Bruce66423 · · Score: 1

    Much of the problem is that people get away with lies. Quite how we stop this being the case remains unclear - though getting politicians' spokespeople to promise to resign and never work in the industry again if they are proved to have lied might help.

    How do we ensure lying is effectively punished?