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'The writing was on the walls.' A former Bitwise employee speaks out after cofounders' guilty plea

 A Bitwise building sits empty in downtown Fresno.
Alex Burke
/
KVPR
A Bitwise building sits empty in downtown Fresno.

FRESNO, Calif. — It was Memorial Day weekend — 2023 — when Bitwise Industries shocked workers with an announcement: the startup was furloughing all 900 employees.

The startup's collapse gained national headlines as it emerged that the co-founders had defrauded investors and masked a bankruptcy scheme that left employees without paychecks, 401k matches, or jobs.

On July 18, for the first time since its collapse, the co-founders of Bitwise Industries, Irma Olguin Jr. and Jake Soberal, released a public statement apologizing for their actions. The statement came one day after they both pleaded guilty to two felony charges.

Anthony Haddad is a former Bitwise employee who now reports for local news outlet GV Wire. Last week, he wrote about his experience as a Bitwise employee and spoke about it with KVPR's Elizabeth Arakelian.

Listen to the interview in the player on this page.

A Valley native, Elizabeth earned her bachelor's degree in English Language Literatures from the University of California, Santa Cruz and her master's degree in journalism from New York University. She has covered a range of beats. Her agriculture reporting for the Turlock Journal earned her a first place award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
Jonathan Linden is a podcast producer at KVPR. Born and raised in Riverside, he's a Southern California native. Jonathan's passion for public radio began at a young age when his brother would play NPR while driving him home from middle school. He earned his B.A. in journalism from Biola University in 2019.
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