Category Archives: Newsroom

Uncovering Fake

Posted on by

Forbes revealed earlier this week that the Wall Street giant is suing 30-year-old Charlie Javice, founder of Frank, and Frank’s chief growth officer Oliver Amar over claims that the pair sought to boost the fintech’s user numbers by creating 4.25 million fake accounts. The startup only had 300,000 customers, according to the lawsuit filed late last year in the U.S. District Court in Delaware.

“Javice first pushed back on JPMC’s request, arguing that she could not share her customer list due to privacy concerns,” the complaint continues. “After JPMC insisted, Javice chose to invent several million Frank customer accounts out of whole cloth.”

The suit alleges that Javice and Amar asked Frank’s director of engineering to create fake customer details after JP Morgan requested details on users as part of the takeover talk. After the engineer refused, Javice was then alleged to have paid a data science professor $18,000 to create millions of fake accounts using “synthetic data.” JP Morgan opened an investigation after test marketing campaigns to Frank’s users following the acquisition were “a disaster,” the suit says.

Forbes

According to some reports, an employee from JPM saw that the list contained exactly 1,048,576 rows, the maximum allowed by Microsoft Excel. Then JPM sent emails to all those in the list, many bounced back.

The question now is, why didn’t you do that during due diligence phase? The data room has been open to you for goodness knows how long and a simple test like that could have saved you USD 175m and your face.

The bigger question is, how do you even come up with the valuation of startups that do not have any assets, no tangible evidence that the business does really work? I remember talking to people doing due diligence, talking from a farm or in the middle of a plantation, or who just come out of a factory. Of course I couldn’t quiz them about the details but journos and due diligence workers must ask, how well do you even know the business? Does it even work/generate cash? Why do you base your valuation or important metric on the number of downloads or users? How much loans have you even disbursed and how much is the repayment rate? Have you watched the business cycle for several months? When are the lean months/period? Why?

I just had a conversation with a bunch of investors and one of them said his hobby is to sit in a restaurant, order food, observe the people, the customer turnaround, how the waitstaff operate…the entire day. For several days, months, etc. He does this for every business they are looking at.

We have a sister company that does due diligence/reputational investigation and they hire freelance journalists and other research professionals–to do the job on the ground because we’re good at that. We also have the inside knowledge/dirt–things that are super important but unpublishable–about companies and their owners after years of being on the ground. I was talking with one of the guys there and with their boss about some personalities or issues that are familiar to me as they had a lot of due diligence requests for this particular company from clients. They know their stuff. They know I know my stuff as well.

I had qualms about some business owners that I interviewed. I had talked to a founder of one tech company that on paper looked so good and would really attract a lot of ESG funds. But since this is just a bootstrapping company, I gave it the benefit of the doubt because what if this company becomes big? I quizzed the founder about how his business works. What is the thesis, why the world needs his company? What is it trying to solve? How are things quantifiable? How do you even give values to such intangible commodity? How does it generate revenue? Why should people use your product/system? Who are your competitors and what makes you different? Can others replicate your technology/system? I had the story published but I left the discretion to the reader if they want to check out this technology or not. I had quizzed the person beyond what was pushed in the press release.

Then I met him in Singapore and the PR kept pushing for this meeting. I talked to him and asked for an update since we last talked. He gave me a glowing account of the people he met, the offers he had, the partnerships he had forged, etc. etc. I asked him about the plans after getting the seed funding, which to me sounded so…ambitious. I took everything in stride and I told him I cannot write an update because I need to see for myself what the real progress he has achieved a year from now. I need proof of concept. I need real backers who had done their due diligence. I think that was the most responsible thing for me to do.

What were my red flags? He has a PR firm even before he has a real business, even before having a physical office in Singapore. Ok, granted that he is moving his business out of his home country but still…it left me uneasy.

I don’t know but I have a thing about having PR before a business is really proven.

So the biggest crime committed by media is that we tend to glorify the ubermensch-type of CEOs through listicles peddled by the likes of Forbes. The Forbes Under 30 had Frank CEO Charlie Javice on their list. This publication also had Harsh Dalal on their list and he turned out to be one big scammer. TechInAsia called out his bullshit because he could not substantiate claims and this publication kept doing their own investigation and published it. He has since been removed from the list.

I searched if we had his company in our database. OMG we did! I brought this up to our compliance team and legal department. After deliberations, we removed the story from our database.

It’s not far-fetched that we could be tricked by smooth-talking people, especially in Southeast Asia where you can conjure up crap from air and sell it like gold. I said always maintain that jadedness in you and not fall into that trap and spot bullshit. Know the sectors you’re covering.

I was reminded by this story I was editing about an Indonesian VC that was so inconsistent that I had to check all the websites (which they didn’t have), I had asked my contacts if they heard about this firm and the business that they claim to be operating, etc etc. I had news stories remotely related to his claims translated so I could understand what was that all about. Everything didn’t make sense and their LinkedIn profiles were laughable. I told my bosses I could not have this story published. That reporter who interviewed the company is no longer with us.

Another particular company stands out. It’s Solar Philippines and the local media has been publishing stories about this wunderkind, Leandro Leviste, who was in his early 20s at that time, was already a CEO of this renewable energy company. The reason why anybody was listening to him was because his mom was a senator. But after interviewing him one time, I found him to be a fluke. He had no substance. I did have one story about his company published and that deal did push through but then you know, I don’t want to…I simply didn’t believe him. I had sources telling me stuff about this company. After he had his company listed on the PSE, this story came out. The story was so powerful that the stock exchange made the company explain what the shit was all about.

Meanwhile, this guy, Joseph Calata, was just out of this world that I never interviewed him. Good thing because he was such a character (and he even invented his own cryptocurrency as payout for his minority shareholders when they got delisted 🤦‍♀️). In the end, the SEC had Calata Corp delisted in 2017 after being found to have violated 29 PSE rules. Calata even threatened to sue my friend for writing facts, things that the PSE already stated were questionable. I put the blame on the investment banks that had been the underwriters of this company’s IPO.

GUYS, DID YOU EVEN DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE???

But again, it all boils down to the banks’ (JPM and those local ibankers underwriting these questionable IPOs) desire to close a deal. Because there’s this intense pressure to chase deals so due diligence takes a back seat.

So now I do think the first line of defense is the media. If you stop glorifying these under 30 wunderkinds, then you’re doing the world a favor. Do your job of asking the right questions!

Discontent brews

Posted on by
Another bookmark in the works. Art and photo by CallMeCreation.com

I just got off from Microsoft Teams after chatting with my colleague in Japan for more than an hour about our colleague (L) who just resigned. You see, I held a farewell call for her during our team’s weekly call. Then after that I sent an email to APAC editorial mailing list about the Kudoboard for her, announcing her resignation.

Anyway, my MS Teams chat went from one topic to another and my colleague (N) was ranting about xxx and yyyy. He threatened to leave and told my manager about in February 2022. His former manager, M, who left us in March last year for some consulting firm, told him to stay in journalism. He said he sensed M misses journalism. M told him that in hindsight, her years with our company wasn’t so bad at all compared to her current company now where she is managing director.

It was a matter of the grass is always greener on the other side, I guess.

I told N that I also feel that discontent sometimes when I feel like the company is being unfair to me. L and I had been chatting as well and she was sending me names of companies that are hiring. I was looking at the job descriptions and nothing excited me. She said, maybe you would like to try something new. I said, I think I’m happy with journalism. And if I want to try something new, it would be data journalism/analytics that’s why I’m going to enroll in a training program for data analytics. Besides, none of the job openings are remote.

OMG, I didn’t realize that remote working is so important to me now, like it’s on top of my criteria. 🙀

During this chat with my Japanese colleague, N, we were talking about our angst about certain things. Then I sent him a photo of me (actually, my laptop) with a swimming pool in the background (the one I took after Christmas). He couldn’t believe I could work by the poolside or by the beach. I said whenever I feel shit about my job, I look at photos like this and tell myself that being able to work anywhere, according to my pace and comfort level, is something I cannot quantify yet. That flexibility as a single parent is very important, I just realized. Being able to turn off my Outlook or ignore it during the weekends is critical that most of us take for granted.

Even though being a journalist means you are always “on”, I can still afford to tune out when I need to.

Being at home to see my children and cook for them is precious. My kids always drag me out of my room to have proper meals with them at the table. It’s important to them.

L told me to just go through interviews, just to see what’s out there and how I compare against industry. Yes, she makes sense. But deep inside I feel it’s too exhausting and would just be wasting my time doing all that when I’m not ready to jump yet. I would know if a job description will click within me.

N said, you are doing good. You are where you’re supposed to be.

I don’t know how to turn off the confusion sown inside my chest. I don’t know how to quiet it down.

I don’t know. This disquiet is fueled by this desire to earn more so maybe if the company grants me the 8-point agenda I sent my bosses, maybe the noise will die down?

Twin A’s bookmark artwork. ❤️ Photo by CallMeCreation.com

This morning my thought was “If only I could just continue creating like draw/paint and make things with my hands, maybe I won’t be having this anxiety every Monday morning…”

Again, I don’t know where or how to reach that happy compromise.

The art of writing

Posted on by

I’m obsessed with stationery since elementary. I don’t know what it is about writing that has gotten me hooked on it. Maybe because I often lived inside my head and the only way to get myself out of it is through writing.

I’m talking about the physical aspect of writing, you know, the pen and paper kind. Writing on a computer makes it efficient and but pen and paper makes the act deliberate and in a way, calming. I used to doodle a lot in my notebooks back then, drawing embellishments on pages, writing with different fonts, making artistic signage.

My handwriting is bad nowadays because I scribble roughly as I am always in a rush. But when I am just taking down notes during conferences, my handwriting is neat. My colleague was amused that i also have schematic diagrams in my notes.

I loved sending letters as well. I wrote an article about the lost art of letter writing for 2bU!, Philippine Daily Inquirer when I was still in college. I kept penpals then, both girls or boys. Not everything had to be romantic, you know. I kept in touch with my cousins via letters even though we can call each other on landlines (no cellphones then). I sent friends greeting cards.

This documentary by NHK World shows the reason why I spend too much time in Japanese stationery stores. The care and obsession they have with pens, paper, and coloring materials make their products one of the best out there in the market. The markers like Uni, Pigma Micron, and Copic are the choice of artists worldwide. Pilot has always been my favorite pen.

Now I want to have those glass pens shown in this documentary ❤️. I haven’t started with calligraphy pens and fountain pens because I know I will be spending a lot of money on them once I get hooked. A lot of writers have this loving relationship with their pens and paper. My former colleague has a Lamy obsession and he spends so much money on fountain pens and expensive notebooks. Butch Dalisay is a known collector of vintage fountain pens.

I haven’t visited Kinokuniya at Mitsukoshi in BGC yet because 1) I haven’t had time yet; and 2) I may just get disappointed with their current offerings because I was told there is not much yet to see there.

Oh dear, don’t let me add calligraphy into my things to do…

Speaking of writing, I wrote a long email to my bosses as I want to proceed now with the offboarding process for my colleague who has just resigned. My manager told me to submit to HR to process it and she asked what do I suggest for staffing/hiring. I guess London didn’t want to make a counter-offer because how can they match a salary jump of more than 50% when they cannot offer it to the rest of the team? How would that make me feel as well???

I sent a long email comprised of action items (from number 1 to 8), that they should seriously consider because we ran out of people in Singapore, because they are so stingy.

From the tone of my email, I think they would sense that I am already frustrated with the situation, that I would soon quit.

Not yet though. I need to settle in my new home first then I take action. I just needed this promotion so I can have more leverage when it comes to salary negotiation in my next job. I have no idea what that will be but my patience is already wearing thin with my current situation.

Probably I need to do some fasting tomorrow so I can concentrate on praying for guidance. My mind is full of cobwebs now because of this staffing issue, on top of the editorial work that I must hurdle.

Smile even if your brain is hurting. My back is so tensed now. Sushi sharing my pain.

To cheer me up, our global editor emailed us all last night, announcing the best stories we produced worldwide. I was one of those reporters mentioned as I led the team in producing a series of reports about this particular story for 52 months since we scooped this thing in 2018 until it came to fruition late last year. We were always ahead of competition.

I still have my mojo.

This is the reason why I still couldn’t leave for a long time—I’m enjoying what I do. Plus the flexibility of not being in the office (heck, I can work at the beach if I can, which I did several times). But then I know I should earn more.

Maybe there’s a happy compromise somewhere?

I just realized, I want to enjoy a slower life in my new house. My new life.

I don’t know how I would be able to reach a compromise between higher pay and doing what I love to do.

I think this is the third coat of paint for the girls’ room. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I don’t know. I think my head is splitting now.

The stars would align, maybe? I should follow my own advice I gave a friend a week ago: you will know it’s just right when it falls on your lap and you are able to get it without so much of a resistance. Like everything just aligned for you to have it.

Just like this house; it was all smooth-sailing. I never imagined I could build my house in two years since I mused about it in December 2020 when I was so broken. I am meant to have this house and meant to go back home.

So ok, I just have to believe that there is a happy compromise somewhere.

I just want to do this

Posted on by
Kimchi wanting some pets this afternoon. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

The entire day was spent chatting back and forth with my colleague who is resigning, my APAC boss, and my manager. The annoying thing is that my manager was blaming me for not flagging the issue about my colleague’s e-pass always being challenged by MoM. I wanted to lash at my manager but I just said, I HAD BEEN PUSHING for this since Day 1 I took over! You guys had known about this ever since she transferred to Singapore.

APAC boss was more reasonable and she acknowledges that colleague was underpaid.

They’re making a counter-offer.

Stupid. Why only do that now?!

My colleague’s transfer to another more well-known company is already a done deal. She told my manager, when she asked how much is she going to get paid in the new company, my colleague said: more than 50%.

It’s so annoying and mentally exhausting trying to explain to them where the company has been wrong about us, about Singapore, about everything else in this region.

Latest eligibility requirements for an E-pass from MoM.

When I took the Self-Assessment Test for E-pass, the minimum pay for my rank, age, and educational attainment is SGD 13k. That’s just the minimum and of course you can’t go just the minimum if you want a stress-free e-pass application/renewal. One well-known competitor has been offering 14-20k, another less well-known one is offering SGD 15k for an editor (and not a bureau chief). So my company has to level off with market rates, otherwise MoM would say, just hire a local if you don’t want to spend so much for an import.

That’s why a big global bank decided to keep their internal editorial positions in HK because it was just expensive for them to hire in SG and they couldn’t get talented local ones.

And SGD 15k a month is not a lot if you have dependents given the expensive education, housing (SGD 4.5k for an HDB flat), and general cost of living in Singapore.

My head was bleeding by afternoon. I had to take a nap to ease the tension on my back muscles. I was supposed to draft two articles today but that noble intention just flew out of the window.

Fuck it.

I will request for an across-the-board pay hikes in my region.

Median salary increase budgets across industries next year are forecast at 6.8% for Indonesia, 5.1% for Malaysia, 6% for the Philippines, 4.7% for Singapore, 5.1% for Thailand and 7.9% for Vietnam, according to New York Stock Exchange-listed services company Aon. All figures exceed 2022 rates except for Malaysia’s, which is flat.

If they fire me because I’m just fighting for my people’s welfare, then fuck you, employer!

And there she goes

Posted on by
high angle photo of woman looking upset in front of silver laptop
Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels.com

My colleague, the best that I have in my team, finally tendered her resignation letter. She will stay on until the 27th. It’s supposed to be Feb but she will use her remaining leave credits that she carried over from last year so she will just cut short her stay.

My bosses told me to hold my horses and not accept. They will make a counter-offer.

I told my immediate manager that nah, she won’t. I’ve been raising this issue about promotion and raises since I took over but they wouldn’t listen. I asked for her promotion the moment I assumed my new role, but I was told her name wasn’t in the list of those who will get raises/promotion. Actually, all the names I submitted didn’t get any promotion.

And now my manager is blaming me for not flagging. I told you several times already, I said.

Even the reporter herself told me that she told my manager about it.

They just didn’t listen.

If your company doesn’t value you, walk away. The problem with other managers is that they will only realize their folly when the die has already cast.

Of course, since I already knew that this was coming, I am just calmly taking it now and absorbing it. But it still hurts and also there’s a panicking voice inside me that is screaming, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO NOW?! You don’t have a reporter in Singapore!

I’m trying to be calm and collected. I have no idea what to do now. Shall I fly to Singapore next week and start having coffee dates? My bosses should realize they pay peanuts and no one with good experience would really jump into this role. There’s a dearth of talent in Singapore and we could only get foreigners for this role, which would require a hefty salary given that the MoM has hiked the minimum pay for non-executive/non-investor foreign workers. Even the rivals I talked to last November aren’t from Singapore—they’re all transplants.

OK, breathe in, breathe out.

I am now plotting all the conferences that I need to attend in Southeast Asia. It seems like I will be traveling every month. Oh shit.

Merry socializing

Posted on by
‘Tis the season for drinks and socializing. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I was one of the early birds because I had to come before rush hours (5 pm-8pm) when my car is banned from the streets (Monday, my car plate ends in 1). I parked at the hotel and walked to High Street to work in some nearby restaurant. I was on editing duty today so it was a non-stop flow of stories that needed major fixes. 🥴

I think I can be a digital nomad if I want to. Soon. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

My main reason for going out tonight is to see more friends from the industry whom I haven’t seen that much this year–and of course the past two years. I had non-stop conversations with some of the editors with whom I needed to touch base. Right after I arrived, I opened my laptop to do some minor tweaks to a story I had been laboring over for a few hours earlier. One editor said, “Aha! I just finished my final edit right before you came.” That’s usually our greeting to each other; we usually ask, “When are you going to close your storefront?” This translates to: When will you do your last edit/end your editing shift? Are you free now to socialize/do non-work related stuff? Because we editors are normally tied to our “desks”. I put it in quotation marks because “desks” not long ago were literally the physical desks in our publications’ office. Now our “desk” means anywhere we can put our laptops with Internet connection. It’s only during and after the lockdowns news editors were finally allowed to work from home. Before Covid, news editors were required to be physically present in the newsroom so we can supervise the layout and be within cursing distance of other editors. Rain or shine. In my case when I was still with a newspaper, floods or heatwaves.

Covid changed all that.

Vodka + tonic. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I asked T, one of the editors I often see and talk with in some events, if she is still required to come to the editorial offices and she adamantly replied, NOOOOO! And every time they have editorial meetings, the topic of working from home constantly crops up and she keeps on campaigning to make this arrangement permanent.

There’s little reason for us to come to the office and face the traffic jam and the high Grab fares. Newsrooms can function like this, as proven by Covid. Your reporters are in the field anyway.

Oh wait, reporters are now house reporters. It used to be a derogatory term for lazy reporters who don’t do the rounds in their beat and seldom cover events. Now, we are legally house reporters and nobody bats an eyelash.

The PR firm that helped arrange this event has given up its physical office since the team realized that it’s more efficient for them to work remotely. Each employee can save money and time and can be more productive this way. The owner of the PR firm said he is weighing if he should just buy one small condo unit just to have an address. I said you can just rent from Regus or other co-working spaces and get the service that offers an office address and a phone number for business registration purposes. I told him that I was thinking of doing the same years before but good thing I didn’t push for it since it was useless… We could just use the Singapore office address for whatever reason.

Now our new business cards just sport our names, job title, our publication, email addresses and mobile number (or Wechat, WhatsApp or LinkedIn). We no longer have physical addresses printed. We’re all floating anyway, and this is especially true for our Singapore office. We all just hot-desk and many of us elect to just work from home.

The corp comm head of the host for this evening’s party also said that their hybrid setup has become permanent. They just hot-desk in their new office and just maintain lockers. It saves them floor space and time. They’re a tech company now anyway, so better make everything digital and cloud-based.

And remote working makes gatherings like this more meaningful. We make an effort to come and have conversations with our hosts and with friends from the industry.

Nice to see them all.