Pretty reasonable photoshops. The sad thing is so many people like this exist and more and more are starting to exist, the internet makes it very easy to pretend you're someone you're not and manipulating people that want to get something and think you have it (connections) is even easier.

I'm surprised she hasn't done the customary purchasing of Twitter followers, that seems to be an oh-so common way to artificially inflate your supposed value to the world.

What I don't understand about people like this is if you have the skills to manipulate people into thinking you're connected to important people and get jobs because of it then you can use those skills "legitimately" (in the sense that you're not lying to the people you work with).

oh and also the headline seems pretty sensationalist, it seems she tricked a few no-name startups (ones without a reputation of being important) and got caught making claims of associations with others, although I think what would be most interesting would be "Zaarly" to explain whether she was a good "consultant" or not, not that it ultimately matters at all.

This is all kinda sad really. The tech media is pathetic and the same publication "exposing" this unfortunate waste of space (who wouldn't have been able to pull the wool over the eyes of any company that had the self confidence to reference check instead of jumping on every potential hire who can name drop) is largely responsible for the phony tech-celeb culture that's invaded the valley in recent years.

It's a serious business what we do here in Silicon Valley. Sure we can enjoy our work, but most of us are committing our lives and livelihoods to working hard at what we do. The trivial nature of the media covering the tech industry right now, the desperate need for people to feel they have some sort of celebrity cachet because of what we do, and the fact that too many people watched the Social Network and want to pretend that's their life, is just a sorry state of affairs.

Word gets around about people like this. It's really not necessary to post an article on TechCrunch like you're exposing some mastermind criminal. Well I suppose it is if the generation of journalists currently staffing the tech press is really just taking umbrage that someone else with scant qualifications wants to run around the valley acting like they are somebody when they've not created anything themselves.

Yeah, this article just reminds me of the sorry state of media coverage of our industry.

This is a throw-away account. I've meet Shirley a handful of times, through mutual friends and founders here in SF.

Every time we hungout, she would tell elaborate stories of meeting so and so, or being friends with Sean Parker, or Justin Timberlake. Almost immediately, the first time I meet her, I was super skeptical; always felt like something was really off with her.

She mentioned she knew the founders at Dropbox, and even said that she had stock in Dropbox and sold it, and made quite a nice sum of money. Again, all the while I was super skeptical.

It is kind of sad that this information had to be released in such a public way on TechCrunch. In fact, I am not sure it is TechCrunch worthy.

At any rate, the valley, and SF are a much smaller place then people think, word get's around, so be yourself, stay honest, and be humble.

"One of my sources told me: 'If nothing else, I’ve learned a valuable life lesson — don’t trust anyone until they deliver.'"

But of course. And this is why hiring procedures should generally be based on work-sample tests rather than on reviews of resumes (which may just be a tissue of lies) or impressions after personal interviews (which may also be full of lies). Research shows that neither biographical data about job applicants (e.g., resumes) nor the performance of job applicants in interviews does as well as work-sample tests in finding workers who do good work.

Full references can be found for these facts in my FAQ post on hiring procedures,

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4270768

last posted in complete form about a month ago here on HN.

I've worked next to Shirley for a couple of months in NextSpace last year. She was a nice girl who was doing some marketing work for Zaarly back then. She actually was one of the first organizers of the successful Zaarly Startup Crawls. To accomplish such a thing, you have to be connected. So there may be some fluff to it, but it's certainly not all air.

I'm actually astonished by how low TechCrunch has sunk by calling her out like that and ruining her future career.

In reality, I think people like her are less dangerous/harmful than the amoral snakes who do know how to lie and manipulate convincingly, and cover their tracks. Ms. Hornstein made herself a relatively easy target of suspicion, what with the photoshops and outsize claims; it almost sounds like she had delusions of grandeur. Compare that to sociopaths who deceive intelligently and play dirty games to climb up - they're much harder to catch or stop.

(Not defending her, I just find her actions a little too transparent to worry about)

Who is this, and why should I care?

There are dozens of unimportant people lying on their resumes. Why is this one newsworthy?

Does anyone know what she actually did at these companies? By which I mean, it appears that she misrepresented herself in order to gain consulting work (which Zaarly appear to have confirmed), but I'm interested to know the nature of this consulting work.

Was it to secure further funding? It would be pretty hilarious if she was in fact successful at her job on the back of the same lies that got her hired in the first place. The Photoshops are definitely a little weird, though.

So tech crunch is now officially the new ValleyWag? As one outside the valley circle-jerk I can't work out whether I'm laughing at this article or moderately disgusted by it.

This is a symptom of a very common problem in the startup world that even I am guilty of...not checking references!

This woman isn't a college graduate. She should have references.

This is how I use linked in: before hiring someone pull up their linked in profile and see if you have any mutual connections. Then reach out to those mutual connections privately and ask their opinion of the person. If its a sensitive hire you can say something like "Hey, I met XXX at a dinner party, couldn't really get a read on them, what do you think about them?"

The photoshop stuff is very "funny" but I don't know how different it is to other kind of initial traction tricks. For example sites creating fake users and conversations to gain traction. Here she tried to gain traction from a personal perspective.

Gaming the system is what many startups do everyday.

(Coming from a nobody reading HN at night this might be ironic, but) She seems to be a nobody++ type person that is all too common in circles where people are loosely coupled and you can fake/social-engineer your way in. BTW, I totally understand inflating your impact on projects and even a little bit getting creative with titles on LinkedIn to make oneself more important. But Photoshopping yourself? To Timberlake? If it were pg I'd understand, but this is just sad.

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Here's another interesting Silicon Valley case... http://www.quora.com/Whats-the-deal-with-Larry-Chiang

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I'm guessing this was her mantra "Fake it till you make it".

lol, what a pathetic person.

I laughed when I saw the photoshops.

I pity the fool, her career in technology is most certainly over at this point now that the cat is out of the bag.

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http://gawker.com/5938904/notorious-silicon-valley-fraud-shi...

people are idiots. the only reason someone like this makes it this far is because everyone else is stupid enough to believe her.