Mahalo Growing Rapidly, Opens New Office at Pelican Bay State Prison
I have to admit it. Even I’ve been surprised by Mahalo. Thanks to more than $20 million in VC and some search engine spam, Mahalo is growing rapidly.
So rapidly that it’s opening a new office in California. Where you might ask? It’s by the ocean but it’s not Santa Monica or San Diego. It’s Pelican Bay State Prison.
The decision to locate at Pelican Bay might have something to do with the class-A, Maximum Security office space, the large employee cafeteria, the recreation facilities and the fact that working at Mahalo is like being in prison. Or it might just have something to do with the fact that this is where the convicted felons at Mahalo can conveniently serve their time while serving up search engine spam.
The first Mahalo employee to be convicted is 27-year-old John Kenneth Schiefer. The crime? He infected 250,000 computers with malware and used his botnet to steal identities and bank accounts. He’ll be spending up to the next 4 years in prison reflecting on why he’s one of the few schmucks who has been convicted of doing something like this.
Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who, at 4′2″ tall, is probably going to do everything he can to stay out of prison, explains why he employed a felon (and is sticking by him). Long story short: he was too busy traveling, playing poker and lobbying for a company on the brink of collapse to do a background search.
That and he sympathizes.
In John, I see almost every computer programmer from my time “hacking” on BBSes as a kid, attending hacker conferences and hiring “white hat” hackers for a living.
Almost all talented developers push the envelope when they’re young. Anyone in technology knows this dark, dirty little secret.
Unfortunately, the truly talented don’t get caught. That notwithstanding, I’m glad to hear this because it lets me know that if a crew I do business with happened to steal Calacanis’ Tesla and put it on a container ship to me so that I could sell it overseas, Calacanis would forgive me. That’s not going to happen though. I couldn’t move a shitty Tesla on the black market if I wanted to because there’s no demand. Sorry Jason. Looks like you’re stuck with your $109,000 DeLorean 2.0.
Of course, Calacanis wants everyone to know that Mahalo’s data was never at risk. This despite the fact that Schiefer used his ex-employer to commit his crimes.
“John’s work is well-supervised,” Calacanis writes, although one might question Mahalo’s supervisory capabilities when it apparently failed to perform a simple Google search during the interview process (a search that would have revealed Schiefer’s past). I suppose he only searched Mahalo and didn’t find any results. No surprise there to anyone except Calacanis.
In the meantime, if you’re ever in Northern, Northern California (buying 30 pounds of marijuana, visiting for a conjugal, etc.), be sure to drop by the Mahalo offices in the Security Housing Unit. Raul (front row, center in the photo of the new office above), who was convicted of killing three rival gang members, will be happy to show you around.
damn. was wondering when you would take care of this matter
Word is Jason actually cried in the office today over this.
Funny, cuz he didn’t shed a single tear when he laid off more than half of his staff back in October.
After working with the Jason it became obvious he’s a compulsive liar and a terrible business man. He’s a wanna-be. No substance, all talk.
Two more people quit this week, that brings Mahalo’s editorial staff down to 6 with roughly 30 people working remotely.
Strange how Calacanis will fire someone for doing freelance writing for another site, but will keep a lying felon on the payroll.
There’s no linkbait value in keeping someone on the payroll who does freelance writing. There’s something very bizarre about this story. It makes you wonder if he intentionally kept this person around just so he could use them for linkbait later. The hiring process, as he described it, doesn’t make any sense. It’s so rigorous that there are “5 to 8 interviews, and in which at least three, but more typically five, references are checked.” But despite this, they don’t do a Google search? I think it’s more likely that Jason knew about this person’s background and decided to hire them anyway because they could do the job well, and he knew that, whenever he wanted to, he would be able to use their background as a means for him to be mentioned on every tech blog on Earth.
“After working with the Jason it became obvious he’s a compulsive liar and a terrible business man. He’s a wanna-be. No substance, all talk.”
Spoken like someone who’s created a bunch of blogs and sold them himself for 30 million right? I know, I know, Jason was only successful because he got VC money when they were giving it to anyone who could walk and chew gum. Except that he sold WebBlogs Inc. for 30 million after his first startup, Silicon Alley Reporter, popped with the bubble. It’s tiresome to hear people whine about how he was only successful because of circumstance. MOST people are only successful because of circumstance and their ability to time markets.