Andrew Ryan: Sexual Predator & Conman
Conversations with Newchip employees
I’ve written several pieces detailing my opinion and facts surrounding the Astralab’s bankruptcy case. I’ve also written pieces detailing the compulsive lying of Co-founder and CEO Andrew Ryan Rafols. He has fabricated a good amount of his career, lied, and scammed his way into a minor position in the venture capital industry. But he’s not simply a fraud who stole from clients and investors. He’s an unstable, deranged, and dangerous individual.
I’ve made some social media posts referencing his threats to former employees. These are not simply legal threats, or threats to ruin someone’s career. I have spoken with a former employee who had Andrew make a death threat to one of their family members. An employee who opposed Andrew during what he calls “the coup”, an employee walkout and campaign to force him out around the time of the bankruptcy, turned up dead, an apparent suicide, after a relentless harassment campaign from Andrew.
It was widely known around Newchip, and the greater Austin area, that Andrew is harassing and abusive to women. You might have to look a bit, as Andrew has desperately tried to remove negative pieces from the internet, but you will find reviews speaking about his creepy behavior. I have personally spoken to several former employees, who at length, described several incidents of prolonged sexual harassment. There was the employee Andrew would call at 3 a.m. frequently, and invite her over. She eventually had to change her number, and ended up quitting. Another employee, apparently having no internal support at Newchip, went to another venture firm in the area with her harassment allegations. A conversation with a former high level employee revealed that Newchip settled at least three sexual harassment claims as a result of Andrew Ryan’s behavior. Some managers encouraged female employees to work from home, or deliberately placed them as far away from Andrew as possible. An employee I reached via Linkedin had the following to say, “ It was definitely an unsafe working environment for women.” No kidding.
As he has done to many people, Andrew has publicly doxxed me, and made vague threats to my physical safety. He went on an extended harassment and defamation campaign against Jesse Nickels, who hosts the site Hucksters.net where he posts research around exposing corruption and fraud. Shortly before an expose, titled Newchip Accelerator Bait-and-switch Exposed, went up on Hucksters, Andrew blasted out a lengthy email to all his employees, thousands of investors, and who knows who else. Andrew accuses Jesse basically of what Andrew does to people. He hurls accusations of racism, paints him as a stalker, a harasser, and tells everyone that he has contacted the FBI. Jesse’s crime was speaking to employees who ended up not having good things to say about Andrew. He ends the email asking the thousands of investors to blanket review sites with glowing reviews of Newchip. He obsessively trolls review sites and blogs, submitting abusive takedown requests, trying to pay people to take negative reviews down. Several employees confirm that public relations management drove Andrew crazy, and he spent countless hours and dollars trying to remove negative reviews.
The house of cards is collapsing on Andrew Ryan, and people involved - former employees, investors - should be wary. Andrew is an unstable, dangerous man. He will legally & physically threaten you if you speak out. He thinks he is safe as a former politician. That protection only goes so far. Luckily, both the SEC and the FBI have been tipped off about his illegal activities.
I’ll sum this up with a blurb from a Medium piece, and another from a conversation with a former employee:
"He is a fraud, bully, narcissist, compulsive liar, and more...He has sexually assaulted and harassed multiple female employees. "
"Andrew Ryan is the Elizabeth Holmes of the startup and venture capital communities. I would say he deserves to share the same jail cell with her but a known pervert and sexual predator like him should be kept out of women's prisons."