JPMorgan Chase has such a thirst for student-aid fintechs that it’s willing to toss 8 figures around with a minimum of due diligence for them, as evidenced by its now really litigious relationship with Frank creator Charlie Javice. Frank, obviously, is the college monetary preparation operation JPMC paid $175 million for back in September 2021, which exercises to $43.75 for each of the 4 million phony names Javice either supplied to the bank to deceive it or since it requested them, depending upon whose lawsuits briefs you select to think.
In any occasion, Jamie Dimon & co. didn’t get the possibility to refrain from doing enough (or any) due diligence on Mos, the student-aid and previous banking start-up established by human rights activist Amira Yahyaoui before tossing a big amount of cash at it. Luckily for JPMorgan (and possibly really unfortunately for the similarity Sequoia Capital and basketball star Steph Curry, who took part in its very first fundraising round), The New York Times chose to do it for them and possibly conserve them on some future legal charges, too.
In fairness to Yahyaoui and Mos, it didn’t need to comprise a lot of users like Frank. That being stated, less than 10% of its 400,000 users were paying it anything, which doesn’t sound excellent. Still, the tourist attraction of enjoying a little fiction is obviously tempting amongst such fintechs.
Mos’s site consists of a moving ticker of pleased clients (“Jasmine got $12,237 for Cal Poly,” for instance). Ms. Yahyaoui asked workers to utilize stock images and to comprise names, 3 individuals with understanding of the business stated.
What’s more, obviously investing your teenage years being beaten and abused by authority figures doesn’t always (supposedly) make you a kinder, compassionate one yourself.
“She created a culture of fear,” [former Mos executive Emi] Tabb stated…. Ms. Yahyaoui often scolded her leading supervisors and threatened to fire them if their efficiency didn’t enhance, according to 5 individuals who saw such occasions…./Ms. Yahyaoui’s treatment of workers — consisting of employees employed in Tunisia and Algeria — ran counter to her image as an activist, Mx. Tabb stated.
When Ms. Yahyaoui was asked in 2015 about Mos’s variety of users, she published on social networks that female creators were typically assumed guilty while male creators were presumed innocent.
“Maybe today we should start applying presumption of innocence to also female founders,” she composed.
Or possibly, you understand, the other method around.
Inside a C.E.O.’s Bold Claims About Her Hot Fintech Start-Up [NYT]
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