Shell AI Company Deceived 800 Employees and 200 Cats | DeepKr Lite
Welcome to follow the AI account "Intelligent Emergence" under 36Kr.
Written by Qiu Xiaofen and Jonas
Edited by Jonas
Busy for a whole year, but still being cheated out of money by the company.
This sentence has become a true portrayal of more than 850 employees of the once-famous Shanghai-based company, "Polaris Galaxy", which claimed to invest billions in fields such as AIGC and cloud computing.
Several former employees of "Polaris Galaxy" told "Intelligent Emergence": Including unpaid wages, compensation, and reimbursement, The amount that employees are generally owed is mostly more than 100,000 yuan, "Everyone has applied for individual arbitration, but because the cases have been taken over by the relevant departments, we can only wait."
The collapse of "Polaris Galaxy" occurred in June 2024, and the process was extremely dramatic - CEO Chen Qun disappeared after leaving a confession letter in the villa he rented, in which he wrote: "(I) am a fraudster... (The company) has a total capital gap of 6.2 billion yuan."
Chen Qun's confession letter left in the villa
In a company introduction obtained by "Intelligent Emergence", "Polaris Galaxy" claimed that it would become a world-class maker community, and its business model is "Entrepreneurship Incubation + Innovation Empowerment"; After the collapse, the employees realized that the so-called investment and incubation of the company were actually a scam used by the founder to attract money.
After the collapse, "Polaris Galaxy" quickly disintegrated. The only ones who suffered were the 850 employees and more than 280 cats.
Yes, there are cats.
In the industrial map of "Polaris Galaxy", it also contracted a stray cat base. We don't know whether this investment is a means for the founder Chen Qun to build his image, but a former employee told us that when many people in the company went out to negotiate cooperation, they would mention this funding, "It would make people think that we are a very caring enterprise."
Cats in the "Oasis" pet base. Photographed by "Intelligent Emergence"
When the scam collapsed, both people and cats were in a difficult situation.
The person in charge of the cat base in Fengxian, Shanghai, told "Intelligent Emergence" that the annual rent of the base is as high as 2 million yuan. At its peak, more than 1,000 stray cats were adopted here. After the collapse of "Polaris Galaxy", the capital chain of the base was once on the verge of breaking, and the remaining 280 cats were once faced with being abandoned.
(In order to solve the problem, the base has struggled to find a new investor to take over in recent months. Now, the business has been transformed into a pet healing brand "Natural Mind". Interested friends can search for the "Natural Mind" official account/miniprogram to give a support to the stray cats.)
The pet base "Oasis" of "Polaris Galaxy" in Fengxian. Photographed by "Intelligent Emergence"
As for the employees, when we conducted the initial interviews, we always had doubts in our hearts - At its peak, the number of employees of "Polaris Galaxy" once swelled to more than 1,000, with a master's degree ratio of 65%, and many middle-level managers from big companies such as ByteDance, Tencent, Baidu, and Bilibili joined.
However, "Polaris Galaxy" and its founder Chen Qun are almost unknown in the industry. Why would such a shell company attract a large number of well-qualified and experienced professionals to join and eventually fall into a trap?
As we unravel this scam, we find that the deception of "Polaris Galaxy" is quite confusing, and it can be called a "serial set".
From painting a big picture, creating an image, finding authoritative endorsements, and "shifting funds from one hand to the other"... "Polaris Galaxy" has almost exhausted all the deceptive means that a business company can use. From an unknown shell company, it has transformed into a unicorn that is involved in more than a dozen emerging high-tech industries and invests hundreds of millions at every turn.
For this reason, We "dissected" this enterprise scam that may be the most confusing in 2024 and listed the deceptions one by one, making a "job search避雷 guide" to help you see through the tricks in the upcoming 2025. Even if you accidentally step into a workplace trap, I hope you can recognize it as soon as possible and get out in time.
Deception 1: The blustering CEO: Creating an image and finding endorsements
The first step for job seekers to join a company is naturally to understand the background of the company and the founder, and the deception begins at this point.
For "Polaris Galaxy" and its founder/CEO Chen Qun, who have almost no industry reputation, Bombastic talk is the best cover-up.
"When I joined the company, I heard that the boss has a red background." Several former employees of "Polaris Galaxy" told "Intelligent Emergence".
In the circulated story of the founder Chen Qun's background, there is an even more specific version: "The third generation of the Red Family", "The son of the richest man in a certain city in Jiangsu", "Brought in to start a business through the bridge of a certain general who participated in the War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea for investment promotion and attraction".
Exaggerated publicity of Chen Qun on the "Polaris Galaxy" brochure. Photographed by "Intelligent Emergence"
Even during the interview, HRs would implicitly reveal to candidates that Chen Qun is a boss worth billions of yuan, and there is "no need to worry at all" about the funds.
It is these rumors that give the first layer of explanation to the doubts in the hearts of some employees: Why the company is unknown but seems to be very powerful. The reason is: "To be low-key".
In fact, these glamorous backgrounds are the image deliberately created by Chen Qun.
According to "Intelligent Emergence", There is a small department within "Polaris Galaxy" dedicated to researching how to "buy awards" for executives including Chen Qun.
In the official publicity brochure, Chen Qun has a rather intimidating title - He is the "Winner of the May 4th Youth Award, Honorary Member of the China International Economic and Technological Promotion Association, Honorary Director of the Industry Development Research Institute of the China Academy of Management Science, and Economic Figure of China in 2014"...
However, as we have verified, Most of these awards are purely fabricated - The May 4th Youth Award does not exist, but it is actually the China Youth May 4th Medal; The China International Economic and Technological Promotion Association and the Industry Development Research Institute of the China Academy of Management Science, when queried on the National Organization Code Management Center, are indicated as non-existent.
So, who is Chen Qun exactly?
"Intelligent Emergence" managed to piece together his real identity through multiple verifications - Chen Qun's real native place is Taizhou, Zhejiang, not the "second-generation rich in Jiangsu" as rumored. Initially, Chen Qun was just a small boss of a decoration company in Jiangsu. Ten years ago, he gradually accumulated his first pot of gold through businesses such as bank loans, P2P, and blockchain.
If the image is easy to be exposed, Chen Qun's more sophisticated packaging method is to get government endorsement.
In 2023, a "Polaris Industrial Park" was built in a suburb of Shanghai. The industrial park has two buildings, and a whole floor of the gym is used as a connection between them. According to an informed source, the decoration is carried out with the highest specification, and the decoration alone costs 40 million yuan.
In a speech recording of Chen Qun with investors obtained by "Intelligent Emergence", Chen Qun boasted that - The municipal, district, and town-level governments in Shanghai give "Polaris Galaxy" an annual innovation support fund of more than 40 million yuan, "This (technology) project gives several hundred thousand yuan, and that project gives one or two million yuan".
This has not been confirmed by the relevant government parties, but what is visible to the naked eye is that during the period from the second half of 2023 to the collapse in mid-2024, the red welcome banners are often hung high in the "Polaris Galaxy" company.
"Everyone sees the titles on the banners, ranging from a certain vice mayor, a certain member of the district committee, to the directors of the cultural and tourism bureaus from all over the country", an employee told "Intelligent Emergence".
Polaris Galaxy Industrial Park. Photographed by "Intelligent Emergence"
"Why can 'Polaris Galaxy' settle in this district in Shanghai? Why did the government provide them with two buildings? Has there been a background check?" A middle manager of "Polaris Galaxy" continuously raised three questions -
The reality is that the suburb in Shanghai selected by "Polaris Galaxy" is located in a remote area, where there are almost no high-tech enterprises, and even fewer technology companies like "Polaris Galaxy" that can help solve the employment of thousands of people.
In the current situation where local governments are urgently seeking scientific and technological innovation transformation, enterprises like "Polaris Galaxy" that meet the needs of scientific and technological innovation attributes and employment solutions are highly confusing.
After the "CEO runaway incident", the light belt sign at the entrance of the Polaris Industrial Park was quickly removed by the local government, and the park was locked. Photographed by "Intelligent Emergence"
From the founder with a prominent family background, the imposing office space, to the creation of a government-enterprise relationship network supported by the government, thus, "Polaris Galaxy" has created a highly confusing and magnificent shell. And these are all baits to deceive employees' trust, layer by layer, luring them in.
A middle-level manager from a big company told "Intelligent Emergence" his judgment at that time - "Why would a fraud company go to such great lengths to set up a trap?"
Deception 2: Fictitious positions and "acting" work
When job seekers are deceived by the magnificent packaging and enter the company, "Polaris Galaxy" will continue to create an illusory workplace atmosphere for employees.
"Polaris Galaxy" was founded in February 2023. Many employees said that in the one and a half years since the company was founded, among the more than a dozen projects that the company claims to have externally, 2/3 are in a state of "having little revenue and being difficult to cover normal labor costs".
However, for a start-up company in the entrepreneurial stage and exploring business, limited income is also normal; but what is bizarre is that when the business has not yet shown signs of improvement, "Polaris Galaxy" has recruited a huge and redundant sales team - more than 150 people, accounting for 1/4 of the company's total.
An employee introduced the specific team structure to "Intelligent Emergence": The sales system of "Polaris Galaxy" is divided into five regions: east, west, south, north, and central. Each large region not only has a regional director, but also a so-called key account manager; These directors and managers also have various assistants under them;
In addition, each sales region also has a dedicated "CMO assistant". The role of these people is, "As the avatar of the CMO, to exercise rights across the country, to sign contracts and do business", the CMO of the company once explained.
Under this kind of makeshift management style, employees quickly discovered the problem - This large sales team often seems to be "acting at work": "150 people often travel everywhere, 'do public relations' in various places, saying that they are getting projects, flying back and forth, and staying in a local hotel for three to five days, Without any cost thinking that a company should have.
The team formation is chaotic, and the product delivery is shoddy.
Take the metaverse business with the largest number of people in "Polaris Galaxy" as an example. Their business is to cooperate with scenic spots to allow tourists to scan the QR code on the scenic spots to experience the AR metaverse, charging 10 yuan each time.
However, an employee once conducted an on-site investigation of the actual effect of this business in the scenic spot, "The delivered design and interaction effect are very poor, and it is difficult to make users really willing to pay. This set of things has been played out by Tencent before".
