For the past twenty years, I have made my living as a mechanical engineer here in Silicon Valley. This means I have worked for a lot of start-ups. These are small companies usually founded by a couple of engineers who have a better idea. In the best circumstances, they become successful enough to catch the eye of a competitor who buys them out.
Right now I am working for a small start-up that makes assembly line equipment for semi-conductor and food processing plants. I am the only ME working with a couple of EEs and an extremely personable and hard-working sales guy.
Before I was hired on, one of the EEs sourced a conveyor system from a manufacturer based in the mid-West. He relied on the website, phone calls and emails to determine if the company could deliver the product. They went through the standard round of quote and PO, with a hefty NRE fee of ten thousand dollars.
Two months later, we are still waiting for drawings and a full spec. One of the EEs got nervous and started to investigate further...the world headquarters of the company is advertised for lease, there are multiple websites owned by the contact person who already cashed the check...all with different names, but the same product line, and the same photograph of the company building.
I suppose I should be shocked (shocked!) that some crook figured out he could throw up a website, take orders from various companies on what is considered to be a long-lead time item, and then stall while he moves to the next operation. What really surprises me is that this is the first time in my career that a company I have worked for has been burned.
Now, given even the smaller start-ups had savvy CFOs who required a credit application from all vendors and checked references, including the bank of deposit, so I guess I should be grateful that I wasn't the one who placed the order.
This doesn't mean I haven't experienced dumpster divers, corporate espionage, and other "only in Silicon Valley" hijinx, but I thought I would pass on this recent experience as a caveat and a thank you to all those "bean counters" out there. Engineers usually consider the folks in accounting as an obstacle to be surmounted before we can get our "stuff". An experience like this gives me a new appreciation for the safety net provided by a competent finance manager.
