I don’t have Facebook so I can’t login to take a closer look, but does he have pictures of himself photoshopped to look like a Nordic warrior? Is this a cosplay? How has no one told him how ridiculous he looks?

Do you know of any local suppliers of green (as in not roasted) coffee beans?

> In that case, the company "developing" it was a person who had some non-tech affiliation with CMU (a friend/acquaintance of Bill's)

No. Priya Narasimhan is a professor with a PhD in computer science

https://www.ece.cmu.edu/directory/bios/narasimhan-priya.html

> and a student who was trying to run an access database on a PC he had literally in his dorm room.

No. We had an office with a rack full of Dell servers and we used Microsoft sql server MySQL. I can’t remember which we used on iBurgh. The memory that sticks in my mind vividly is the city used an old version of the database software and wouldn’t let us use a newer version.

You have some misunderstandings about the that project and exhibit the same condescending attitude I remember the city employees had at the time.

I don’t think CMU deserves the bad reputation some people have about them. I think politicians use the school to get publicity. The panther hollow project was goofy and I don’t think the school even wanted it as much as Bill did. But I also think the outrage against that project was simple NIMBYs and opportunistic activists riding on the hate toward Upmc which is a much bigger problem with abusing their nonprofit status, low pay and poor working conditions

This is by far the greatest video I've ever seen. I still don't have any idea what they do.

MMA training, football recruitment, car shows, boxing, real estate? Blew my mind.

The ass hat at the center of the sexual abuse claims posts videos of Andrew Tate on his Facebook page. He looks and posts exactly how you'd imagine.

i’m reading the insider article now wtf 😵😳

Yuck that is skincrawling

I remember coming across some of their job ads 10+ years ago when I was desperately job hunting. They seemed a little shady, but their job ads then and now aren't too different than most independent sales positions you'll find. For example, here's a recent posting that looks almost normal. Of course, most people will Google the places they're applying to, but places like this prey on people who don't know any better; their social media is also focused on the type of person chasing the influencer / athlete lifestyle, and believes they can accomplish anything just by showing up for enough hours.

Wow, ok. I have to say, the software stack you introduced left a lot to be desired. The team you briefly interacted with at the city definitely wanted to work with you and did so when given that opportunity. But the person on your side who need to manage the project just didn't do anything except shift blame around - blaming you a good portion of the time, you should know.

Yes, there are a fair amount of obstacles for things like networking and firewalls when it comes to working with the city, but even setting those things aside, you guys had considerable difficulty fixing your bugs or collecting feature requests or just with implementation in general. Blaming that on the city is goofy. You guys weren't the right team to be doing that project, which is why it sunk.

As for me "not liking" Peduto because he was progressive and spoke about fixing problems and reform...also silly. I liked him for exactly those reasons, and I supported these ideas until it was clear that he really had no ability to take any of it past talk. I only "disliked" him when he started handing out blame and making excuses and retreating from the stuff he said he'd work on. I worked for 7 years trying to "push the city to change its outdated ways", I didn't just yap about it.

Wtf he doesn’t have employees

Life insurance agency. I worked for them for like 2 months and it really sucked. Long hours, running miles in your personal car all across WPA. Cold calls. Commission-based with almost no training on what the product is that you're selling. They essentially make you memorize a script and you hope that the customer doesn't ask you any questions because you learned fuck all about it.

Don’t worry everyone! He also got a PPP Loan to the tune of $179k totally forgiven! No doubt it was also on the up and up 😉

Edit: Since others are asking about reporting fraud. I’d direct you to the U.S. DOJ site setup specifically for this.

Furthermore, it appears that you would need more than just allegations. But if you have firsthand knowledge of any misdoings, or particularly if you were the victim of such, I’d highly encourage you to complete the form that is also found at the linked site.

Or if you’d like to remain anonymous, there is the U.S. SBA (Small Business Administration) OIG hotline that allows for this. And they may even be better suited for PPP abuse specifically, since I believe this program falls directly under it.

But if you do possess highly relevant information, you should also be aware that there appears to be Whistleblower Rewards (from 15% to 30%) for PPP loan fraud, in the event your assistance ultimately leads to any proceeds being recovered. So anonymity be damned if that is you.

Edit 2: The more I think about it (as to not dissuade anyone from reporting), well even as simple taxpayers we were all victims to the rampant abuse of the shambolic PPP loan system by the fraudsters. It was meant as a lifeline to those businesses truly in desperate need. Not as a means of access to free money to potentially pay yourself and other top earners at your company. And might I add as a reminder that that money did run out, leaving many empty handed. So if this man and his agency are as highly successful as he purports it to be, was the need genuine? I’ll leave that up to you all and potentially any future investigators to decide.

Could have fooled me with your condescending attitude. I wrote the iburgh software while a student at cmu. The city tech department obviously had no interest in the project being a success. The outdated software stack they insisted on us interfacing with was a major issue. The professor at cmu in charge of the project had no experience working with government contracting and was in over her head but what she learned was government contracting is just not worth the trouble in most cases. She focused more on the sports apps for the penguins at the time bc the team was just more interested in trying new things. Clearly you just don’t like Peduto bc he dared to try to push the city to change its outdated ways. This is the problem every mayor faces when they get into office. Every department is a fiefdom and resist any change.

I went on an interview with them years ago. I was young and desperate for a job. They talk you up like you’re the best applicant they’ve ever had. Tried to talk to me as a friend rather than a traditional interview. I had agreed to a second interview and during that one they learned I came from a union family and I could “connect” with the clients, they treated me even better. The guy told me how much money I’d be making and even told me how many girls I’m going to get. I realized after that interview I still had no idea what they did! I never called back or answered their calls.

A little more about iBurgh - in this city, to get some tech idea off the ground, all you have to do is find some way to get the letters CMU into the mix, and people are ready to get out of your way reverently. That's a big problem...and no one was a bigger purveyor of this approach than Bill Peduto. In that case, the company "developing" it was a person who had some non-tech affiliation with CMU (a friend/acquaintance of Bill's) and a student who was trying to run an access database on a PC he had literally in his dorm room.

That's not how you build good software, even in the context of how city people want to "pull levers" to do it. Silly...and it's a shame these things are remembered (or Google search-curated) somehow by you and others as successes.

How the fuck can anyone be stupid enough to even apply for this shit. Like I get the average person is pretty dumb but there's more red flags in that recruitment video than a Chinese political rally.

Who owns it?

What do they even do?

LOL! This discussion isn't a personal attack. Just trying to help you understand a bit more.

I worked on both iBurgh and Snow Tracker implementation while in city employ.

iBurgh was a mess - a disaster that Peduto brought to us and demanded we implement. The developers of the app were friends of his. The app wasn't anywhere close to being production ready...and it ultimately was abandoned because the developer just couldn't or wouldn't fix the many issues. Afterwards Peduto blamed the failure on Luke Ravenstahl - which was comical and entirely false.

The Snow Tracker was/is a disaster also. Really, a book should be written to describe that whole fiasco. Among the highlights - corrupt procurement, opacity of DPW, failure of leadership to understand or provide requirements, CYA nonsense, and on and on.

iBurgh happened while he was a councilman. He had no tech role. He did throw a bunch of fits as the project kinda bombed. His main interest was that we beat Boston to the punch in announcing it, he didn't give a rip about whether it worked or what he was demanding in terms of department time/resources to deal with it.

Snow Tracker started the minute he became mayor - fueled by his fear that a snow storm would generate criticism of him, and he should know about that - he usually led the charge against the prior admin when snowflakes fell. He knew exactly how unfair or how difficult that would be to deal with, because he himself had lobbed unfair/difficult criticism over the years. The Snow Tracker was literally all he wanted to talk about in the first few weeks of his administration, and that took a toll on getting a good start with so many other things. He was petulant, childish, difficult. And...the thing still is a mess.

What the fuck, is this Andrew Tate’s cousin?

How do you know?

YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PUSH WEBISTICS

Found this... https://archive.md/KHfdx

It's a pyramid scheme. Some guy from my high school got caught up in this a few years back and was like a brainwashed zombie posting propaganda and trying to recruit everyone. Feel bad for all the vulnerable people that get conned by this guy.

I also spent too much time looking them up online. So weird to see him promoting a big baller lifestyle out of fucking Cranberry.