A Goldman Sachs veteran and founder of billion-dollar companies lost $1 million to a CEO who disappeared three days after receiving the investment. The operation was fake: hired actors, two sets of books, six months of fabricated growth. He calls it an ego hit that taught him about overconfidence.
I invested $1 million into a company and lost it all. Mm-hmm. And I thought I was being very strategic about it. So a CEO contacted me for a potential investment. I said, hey, I don't know you, but I'm happy to get to know you. We're going to do a 2-part process where I'm going to work with you for a 6-month period and you're going to pay me a consulting fee. And at the end of that period, if we are a good match, I will roll my full consulting fee in And I will make an investment as well. Wow. So I worked with them for 6 months. I met with him, I met with his management team, I went to his offices, I worked on their operations. I saw they took the advice, they did it, did a good job with it. They got some growth or results? They got growth. It was working. I was really impressed with the guy. And then at the end of the 6-month period, I rolled a $300,000 consulting fee plus a $700,000 investment into this company. 3 days later, Lewis, He vanished. Come on. Not only— Come on. Not only did he vanish— Gosh. Not only did he vanish, I was not even able to serve him because I had to hire a private investigator to find him. Shut up. That's crazy. And you spent 6 months with him and his team. I found out it was all a sham. Come on. He had hired actors. No way. He had 2 sets of books. Oh my God. This process and I thought I was the man. I was like, I've built $2 billion companies. I was the banker at Goldman Sachs. I've done 6 months worth of diligence. Wow. I've worked with this guy. It was a massive ego hit for me. Wow.
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