TruthWave – A platform for corporate whistleblowers

My first thought on the headline was, "Startup techbros, if that's what it is, are about the last people you should trust, when the problem is corporate misbehavior," but I held my snap reaction tongue, and went to look:

> Our founders, who remain anonymous, following in the footsteps of some of our nation’s most impactful justice efforts, understand the inherent challenges faced by those seeking justice on an imbalanced playing field.

OK, seriously, who do they expect to trust them?

Actual prospective whistleblowers, or someone else?

> Once Tips are validated and determined to have a likely positive impact on justice, our whistleblowers receive their initial compensation. Then, based on the ultimate justice achieved, our whistleblowers are compensated again. [...] Earn Big Rewards - Tippers can earn rewards of $1,000,000 or more.

Maybe they only need opportunists and scammers to trust them?

And donors/investors? And corporations with a problem-goes-away cost-of-business budget?

Looks like a honeypot to me.

They could be NK hackers using the service to target their next corporate ransom victim.

Or corporate espionage

Trust is key, if you want legitimate whistleblowers.

Anecdote behind thinking a bit about this... I was discussing cofounding a startup that incidentally overlapped a bit with this space. One of the very top concerns was that we needed to be seen as trustworthy, to both employers and workers, and that trust would be a significant part of the value that we brought.

Then my prospective cofounder (a real straight-shooter) pointed out that one possible side effect of that trust (if we achieved it), was that workers might come to us with information about a company that we'd be obligated to report to gov't authorities, against the expectations of the worker. It was one of the many things we'd need to be very clear about, in course of earning and honoring the trust that enabled the good stuff we could do.