Josh told me that the owner of Butterflylabs has a buissness history of keeping stuff secret and silent.
And he certain doesnt have any experience with posting on a forum or maintaining websites.
Thats why (untill now) stuff has seem so shady and all I guess.
Seriously? The president of BFL got extradited from Italy and sentenced to 26 months in federal prison for mail fraud stemming from a large internet Ponzi scheme. That's a little more than "keeping stuff secret and silent".
Where's the source for that? Haven't heard about that before...
Original post:
You say they defaulted last year, but the Wyoming Secretary of State website shows them having filed an annual report just about two weeks ago. It also clearly shows the only listed executive of the company as Chris Vleisides at 2507 Jefferson St. in KC, MO. He is apparently a professional photographer as you said (here's his
website). I don't think it's a just a coincidence that Butterfly Labs and Chris Vleisides are both in Kansas City, Missouri.
Anyway, after doing some further digging, it turns out that there is another Mr. Vleisides who has a more interesting past. His name is "Sonny" Chris Vleisides. Sonny was apparently convicted of mail fraud relating to a ponzi scheme and is currently on probation:
http://ca.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20100915_0004129.CCA.htm/qxhttps://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/radDocs/PressRoom/nr110114.htmHe's still on probation for another year. Anyway, Chris Vleisides the photographer was posting photos while Sonny Chris Vleisides was imprisoned. It also appears that Sonny Chris is younger than Chris (a son or brother?). I doubt they're the same person, but it's possible that they're related. Butterfly Labs has definitely been producing legitimate hardware, so if they are a scam, it's a very long play and not a ponzi scheme. At the very least, at this point it would be nice to have some answers.
Inaba's confirmation:
Sonny Vleisides is associated with BFL and it's the same Sonny listed in the case documents. He was involved in off shore gaming in the capacity of selling and providing software engineering to companies that did the actual offshore gaming (there is even a US patent application for the process). The industry came under attack (as we all remember) around that time, and Mr. Vleisides was caught up in the process as well as a good portion of the industry based in Costa Rica.
Although this may be cause for concern to some, the fact is that we're a robust company with 22 employees. One of them has a colorful background in offshore libertarianism. If I thought there was even the possibility of something unsavory going on within BFL, you can rest assured I would a) not be part of it and b) would let everyone know it.
The reality is, we are legitimate, we have released revolutionary products and we are going to release more revolutionary products. I was made aware of this back story prior to my employment and I evaluated it and concluded that it was immaterial to the business at hand and thus joined BFL. There was nothing hidden from me and Sonny has always answered questions and been completely open about his past, but I think we can all agree that it's not something you just announce to the world.