The SigEx Foundry

Business, as usual

2010-01-02T02:03:00.006+01:00

This past year, Christopher Cantell and Frederic Artru have hired a SEO firm to clean up the search engine results, trying to decouple their names from the Sigex Foundry. If that works out for them, only time can tell...

Anyway, remember Linda Yancy Kidsley, who was Christopher Cantell's business partner in the Hill-Holiday lawsuit? Wonder what she's been doing? Well, she and her brother have started helping people in distress. They've started a real estate investment company. Here's what they do, in their own words:

The sole reason this brother and sister team started the company was to help people.

Our Mission is to help Homeowners who are struggling to make their mortgage payments and facing foreclosure by negotiating a short sale with their lenders, purchasing their properties directly from the bank, thereby getting their mortgages satisfied, so they can move on with their lives.

What this basically means is that they look for people who can't pay their mortgage anymore and buy the house directly from the bank, for whatever price the bank is willing to sell it for, while supposedly taking the heat off the debtor's back. Well, Mother Theresa, the debtor is still in shit, since he still has to pay interest to the bank, while you've just gotten a house for less money than the market price. You're so awesome!

Meanwhile, Donna Baker Schwenk, Lisa Yancy Kidsley's former business partner has filed what appears to be a patent for a remote controlled lamp/air freshner/etc. God, if only da Vinci would've thought of that!

Blogging, reloaded

2008-04-03T09:09:00.000+02:00

Our friends have now invaded wordpress.com with another bunch of meaningless blogs, in hope to attract traffic and hits to their own website. They seem to have hired another Romanian girl, together with somebody from Slovakia, to spread their bullshit around. Well, sirs, good luck :)

Wrapping it up (or not)

2007-11-04T21:17:00.001+01:00

Seems our cunning friends who started the scam retreated to a safe harbor in Sarasota, Florida, where their ghost company is registered. I assume they have this webpage in their bookmarks, it gets a couple of hits a day. Here's a printout of the last 3 months of traffic. Hooray for Sarasota! Have a nice pension, you guys!

UPDATE: A fellow reader comments: " Right now they are in Bratislava, Slovakia.
I had the pleasure last week when I went to interview. It was ok, nothing suspicious just absence of specific information about the firm. So I went there for my first shift to know more and guess what. Chris gave me a notebook :)) What a coincidence. Here they hire students for writing videoblogs for hredgselect.tv. Access to read the articles is complicated and the site is being uploaded very slowly all the time.
I found this blog after my first shift (but before signing the Offer letter) and my doubts about them are confirmed. Thanks for this blog. I know you are right because in the firm I noticed many exactly same details you mentioned in your story.
Btw why should the salary be paid through moneybookers.com and not straight to my own bank account? I´m even not going to try to find out.
Btw they have a new Project Leader - Natalie Suvorova. Very nice lady.
Byez"

Seems I underestimated the relentlessness of these people. While there still are numerous hits from Sarasota, Florida, beware of their brand new "business" in Slovakia. Thanks, people, for all your comments. Don't hesitate to post info as soon as you have it. Also, bring this issue to the attention of your authorities.

What goes around comes around ...

2007-07-04T09:57:00.000+02:00

If it hadn't been for Google Analytics, I wouldn't have had the share of joy and amusement this morning. To cut to the chase, I noticed some page hits coming from http://foundy_sigex.ablog.ro
Turns out it's been made by the same dianasigex user that was ordered to issue a Web2.0 counterattack against my blog, who created tens and tens of nonsense othre blogs, hoping to bury this one into oblivion.
I assume she ended her internship at The Foundry and left that place with a bitter taste. Congrats, Diana, for waking up :)

Spread the love with Chris Cantell, Frederic Artru and the SigEx Foundry

2007-03-05T11:05:00.000+01:00

We already know that the SigEx Foundry is a diamond with many facets. They're a bit about everything: technology, PR and last but not the least... love. We see an interesting post on a Christian dating site. Quote:

"Read about training, learning and practice development as well as developing project companies within the SigEx Foundry think-tank and validating them to become viable structures ready to enter the market. Also on other opportunities from SigEx Ventures at the SigEx FoundryStory on developing project companies within the SigEx Foundry think-tank and validating them to become viable structures ready to enter the market.

If you haven't applied changes to your Microsoft software that requires DST updating now maybe the time.

This new sex toy by Doc Johnson was created to work in tandem with the dating website HighJoy.com. The toy is Internet enabled, so that it can be remotely controlled by other users for a whole new experience in cybersex."

So we have romance between Christians, IT&C enterprise culture and last, but not the least, sex. Yet another good example of how to gain Google hits by posting junk to 3rd party websites. The 3 paragraphs above obviously don't make any sense.

Come on, join the blog ride!

2007-02-27T22:07:00.000+01:00

They did it! Yes, siree! Our valiant entrepreneurs discovered the Web 2.0 miracle - the BLOG! What an enlightenment!

In my previous post I mentioned that they had started building a network of more or less suggestive crosslinked blogs in hope that they'd get higher ranking in Google's cache. Well, recently they definitely got their crown jewel by setting up a special blog here. After all, it's all about branding and rebranding, if you will. One can notice that they bought the domain quite recently. There's only one post right now, but full of wisdom. Let's all cheer and wish them all the best in their endeavor! May they become the most successfull bubble company in history!

What's born from cat...

2007-02-22T17:51:00.000+01:00

...will, eventually, eat mice. These people are definitely not dropping their dubious habits. In a desperate attempt to regain a decent Google ranking, several people at the SigEx Foundry have come up with a series of inane blogs that link to one another, covering their vaporware products. Here's a few of them:

http://sigexnanodata.blogspot.com/
http://frederic-artru.blogspot.com/
http://diana-sigex.livejournal.com/
http://silviasigexfoundry.vox.com/

And the list goes on. It's very interesting to see how a company of this size (the size they pretend to be) has to use means like blogger.com and others to promote themselves. All the posts are excerpts from the company presentation flyers, which are also available on their website.

Besides that, they've started posting messages to various newsgroups, trying to pass as good students, interns at the SigEx Foundry. Here's one of them. They all go around the "I'm a student at the SigEx Foundry which belongs to SigEx Ventures, which is great OMG OMG ponies" line. Most of the posts are answered to by a certain Pierre-Marie Durand, who also has an amusing Digg.com record here. Overall, these guys look clueless. I wonder why they have to use public mailing lists and newsgroups to gather the knowledge that The Foundry is supposed to provide them, based on their own statements. Nothing adds up. Judge for yourselves.

If they're so good at penetrating media channels, why do they need this? Good products sell themselves. Customer testimonials are the best token of a successful business. So far they have none. Besides that, their COO, Mr. Frederic Artru, has personally opened his own blog, along the same lines as the aforementioned ones. I particularly liked one quote of his: "All these methodologies are well known in top universities around the world and we believe should be taught to all talents that want to succeed in a global world.". How does GLOBAL WORLD sound to you?

Guys, stop it. You lost. You're uncovered. Your deeds stand proof of your stupidity and malevolence. If you were so good as you say, people would know about you already from various other means, you wouldn't need blogs for promotion. You'd have buzz around you, related to your miraculous technologies, products, learning techniques and world saving visions. None of that is happening right now. Why? Why aren't there any success stories , told by successfull people, that relate to you, at least remotely? Why aren't there any start-ups that can vouch for your good intentions and your contribution to their development? Why?

Because that's all there is to it. Smoke. And mirrors. And a good load of wasted money.

The vaporware nature of the SigEx Foundry

2007-02-15T23:09:00.000+01:00

I. Their flagship product, called SuperPBX is, in fact, named after a real one, which can be found here. It's being developed and owned by a totally different company, called Supertec. I believe a trademark infringement lawsuit is in order.

II. Their logos imitate well known ones. For instance, the Foundry logo is very much alike Google's. The SigEx is very close to FedEx's. Could these be sane business practices?

III. They create ghost companies and names around themselves to give the illusion of a great conglomerate of IT&C business, supposedly top notch in the branch, thus aiming to achieve better public looks and credibility. Quoting from Frédéric Artru's LinkedIn profile:

"SigEx has developped and deployed a parrallel communications network for streaming applications, video, phone, cellphone and other servers globally.

[...]

Our major client and business partner, TechSource International, provides the professional services for our clients which include global recruiting, major real-estate markets, insurance networks, semiconductor clients such as Toshiba Electronics Worldwide as well as major development projects such as the World Trade Center Association or, closer to you, the Bahrein Technology Park"

Phew. Let's read again: "...parrallel communications network for streaming applications, video, phone, cellphone and other servers..." Hm. How on earth do you stream an application? Or a server, for that matter? Also, using "other" implies that applications, videos, phones and cellphones are all servers. While that may, after some considerable logic stretch, hold true in the case of applications, phones and cellphones, I really don't see how videos would pass as servers. Doesn't this look like pure buzzword puke to you?
Next on the list: "...Our major client and business partner, TechSource International...". Hm. Let's see who TechSource International is:

Registrant:
SigEx
4915 Primrose Path
Sarasota, Florida 34242
US

Registrar: DOTSTER
Domain Name: TECHSOURCEINTERNATIONAL.COM
Created on: 04-SEP-03
Expires on: 04-SEP-07
Last Updated on: 12-SEP-06

Administrative, Technical Contact:
Artru, Frederic mis@sigex.com
SigEx
4915 Primrose Path
Sarasota, Florida 34242
US
(941) 349 1219
(941) 349 7488

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.SIGEX.COM
NS2.SIGEX.COM
NS.NETGATE.NET

This looks strangely familliar, doesn't it? Ah, yes. It's owned by the same company, uses the same nameservers and last, but not the least, resolves to the same IP.

Registrant:
SigEx
4915 Primrose Path
Sarasota, Florida 34242
US

Registrar: DOTSTER
Domain Name: SIGEX.COM
Created on: 23-DEC-99
Expires on: 23-DEC-10
Last Updated on: 12-SEP-06

Administrative, Technical Contact:
Artru, Frederic mis@sigex.com
SigEx
4915 Primrose Path
Sarasota, Florida 34242
US
(941) 349 1219
(941) 349 7488

Domain servers in listed order:
NS.SIGEX.COM
NS2.SIGEX.COM
NS.NETGATE.NET

One may ask: "So what exactly is this partnership? Are they partners with themselves?" Seems so...

Angels or devils?

2007-02-13T09:49:00.000+01:00

SigEx Ventures was already a star a few years back. Two fellows noticed that something is suspicious here and here. They were offering a slice of the business if it would prove successfully. In case of bailing out before the deadline, the interns were to pay back $4000. What a greay way for SigEx Ventures to make money! Thanks to one of my readers for pointing it out, my initial understanding of the French webpage was faulty.

The funniest part is that one of the guys misunderstood the conception of evangelism as corporations define it and the miss he spoke to was unable to provide him an enlightening explanation.

If it looks like a rotten fish and it smells like a rotten fish...

2007-02-13T00:48:00.000+01:00

... then it's most likely a rotten fish. It turns out I wasn't the only one thinking there was something weird going on in Pau. Here's an article written by a French fellow that also thought things weren't exactly what they seemed to be. Quoting him: "Quant à La FOUNDRY, je me souviens que quand la Mairie a annoncé sa venue avec « tambours et trompettes », j’avais lu, sur le site américain de la « société », de longs monologues pas très clairs et constaté surtout une absence totale de chiffre et bilan !" Yes sir, it's all horns'n whistles! And it doesn't stop here. The city of Pau seems to be sistematically drained by jackals such as the ones running the Foundry. Frederic Artru is a local star, judging by the comments. Read them. Yes, it's French.

And again!

2007-02-12T10:17:00.000+01:00

A reader came up with this link: http://www.plexoft.com/SBF/E06.html. The owner of the page dissects the language used by our already famous Chris Cantell on his website:

"European Young Leaders Council. ``[A] two week exercise based on the principals of Six Sigma and the Fifth Discipline.'' The management training-and-cheerleading field is notorious for language incompetence, and this tiny example is typical.
The program is a business activity of SigEx Ventures, and there's a ``SigEx Fellowship Program'' which appears to be a product promotion in the form of a lottery. SigEx Ventures was founded by Frédéric Artru and Christopher M. Cantell. A fine example of self-reverence occurs at paragraph three of the grant application guidelines:

The conception of the [SigEx] Foundry came about with the meltdown of the telecommunications industry. This meltdown can be explained by Cantell's Law that states, ``Time value approaches zero.'' This means that over time, products lose their value and without additional services and technology advancement, they will eventually become obsolete.

What the word ``means'' means in the preceding paragraph is interesting. In a first approximation, ``means'' here means ``doesn't mean,'' since there is no reason why ``time value approaches'' should mean ``over time, value approaches'' even in the most abased forms of business English. One might try to improve the definition of ``means'' in this instance to ``is incoherently phrased with the intention of meaning,'' but that may not quite give the writer enough credit for realizing his intention. A common technique of prophets is to take an ordinary idea (``some commodities become cheaper in real terms'' is an ordinary idea) and express it obscurely or incomprehensibly. By ``discovering'' or explicating the meaning of this expression or riddle, the prophet can achieve the illusion of wisdom.

The SigEx Fellows Program has an address on Primrose Path, in the US state most associated with underwater-land swindles. I learned about it through spam."

The Foundry strikes again!

2007-01-20T23:59:00.000+01:00

I have to admit, they are very persuasive people. I recently got another mail from SigEx Ventures, they are even friendlier than ever before. Let's see what they write this time:

"Your Intelligence Report for Friday January 19, 2007 by Silvia Baldin
The experience of a lifetime

Ever wondered what it would be like to get away from your been-there-done-that type of summer? You know, where you get to go to trips to the seaside or go camping in the mountains with a bunch of pals, or just linger around, in a fuzzy laziness state of spirit which floats all aroud you, knowing its time NOT to have a purpose for 2-3 months? Yes, I 'm sure you know the feeling.

For those of you holiday winners who have their minds set for thrilling adventures, who breath for a sip ( ok, a gulp) of adrenaline… and most of all, who want to prove to themselves and to everyone else that they can be independent… behold Work & Travel with a Twist, right at The Foundry, in the south of France.

Think & Travel
That should be more likely. For what I’m about to share with you has nothing to do with working, in the traditional sense. Once you come here at The Foundry, as a student fellow and part of an elite training center and career development center – your ‘ 9-to-5 ‘ will be anything but ordinary.

It is here, within our revolutionary youth training center – that we placed the thinking higher than the work itself. For we bring ideas in, we shape them , mould them, twist and turn them, spice them with droplets of extreme management techniques and voila! – we have our Think& Travel right here in, on the 7th floor of the Piano Building.

What’s it all about
Right, so I gave you the nice gift, wrapped in shiny paper with a lovely ribbon. Now we’ll open it up, as in I’ll get down with the point and explain what we’re all about .

Basically, The Foundry as ideological concept and distinct juridical entity has been created as an advanced training, research and development organization aimed at attracting young professionals in the fields of system engineering, enhanced telecommunications and business management. The Foundry experience entails a wide array of best of practice business education efficiently combined with challenging practical projects- bound to raise the bar of professional excellency of the attending candidates and ultimately, provide them with in-depth knowledge of the telecom business . Based in Sarasota, Florida, The Foundry has expanded its ground to enticing locations such as Paris, London, Pau, and will soon open its door in Eastern Europe as well. The Foundry deals with developing retraining programs, promoting technology research and launching new ventures as part of a major job creation initiative , undertaken on behalf of its client, SigEx Ventures Inc, pioneer of the new Enhanced Communications Industry. To learn more about the Foundry and its programs, feel free to visit www.thefoundryschool.tv.

How do You get IN?
Easy like a cupcake. Since we aim for the best of the best and we settle for nothing underneath that, the selective process for the student fellows entails a few steps : Step one, you show your interest by sending us your resume and a short motivation to recruiter@cantellcommunications.com.

Subsequently one of our recruiting team members will call you to get to know you better ( and don’t worry, we’re very friendly and easy-going, so no need to prevent your knees from shaking ).Afterwards we’ll send you a little task to complete, within your area of expertise, whether business or engineering. And ultimately we’ll wrap this whole thing up with an offer letter of acceptance to one of our programs, the Leadership Program or the Fellowship Program. Sounds cool? I can see you nodding.

The Work and Travel is our collaboration with you, and we depend on your feedback. We hope you’ll visit our web site and learn more about us: thefoundryschool.tv. To unsubscribe, click here."

Cupcake, indeed. Check out the Google-like logo. This time they wrote to me from a different domain, probably knowing that sigex.com lands directly in my spamtrap.

How deep is the rabbit hole?

2007-01-10T17:28:00.001+01:00

Why this blog?
The reason behind this is the desire to spare others from a disappointing experience at the Foundry. There's certainly more than meets the eye and some things must be told. Of course, the reader must take note of the author's subjectivity and is encouraged to compare the following information with some from other sources.

The official story
Quoting from their website:
"SigEx Ventures, Inc. is a private investment fund focused exclusively on the emerging Enhanced Communications industry. Using funds raised from individual (angel) investors, SigEx Ventures funds projects for the Foundry’s development programs. Thus, SigEx Ventures, in conjunction with the Foundry, enables fully-funded, viable structures for business R&D to address alpha-beta development projects for strategic customers that include global telecommunications carriers, network equipment manufacturers, information technology companies, and digital content providers. The projects developed by the Foundry are all pre-funded by the SigEx Ventures investments fund for a period of 12 to 18 months. The most successful of these may become sustainable ventures."
SigEx is led by Cristopher Cantell and Frederic Artru.

Now the facts:
In the summer of 2006 I got a mail from Frédéric Artru, with a proposition for a 2 month internship at the Foundry, in Pau, France:

Paris, August 1, 2006
Subject: Offer letter – Freelance Contract
I am pleased to announce that you have been selected for a freelance project at The Foundry in Pau, France for a period of 8 weeks for: Linux Network Application Development. Your assignment will be to take rapid responsibility, perform and excel in your area of expertise contributing to SigEx Ventures Telecom's global advanced telecommunications network. The details of your assignments willl be provided on site. Conditional on your successful performance and continuous delivery, you may be selected to be hired for a permanent position or offered a contract to travel to one of the European locations to support staff and teams around various projects. Your freelance package includes full living acommodations in Pau, a travel allowance of 300 Euros (paid on receipt, half at the end of the first week, other half upon completion), and a 150 Euros per week paid one week after completion based on your timesheets. This offer is official as of the date we receive your acceptance and will be processed based on the date of your arrival on a first-come first-serve basis.

It's worth mentioning that I have my own business, but given that the summer is a pretty dead season for IT (at least in Eastern Europe) and that I had plenty of financial resources to support myself for 2 months, I decided to take it, hoping that I would meet some interesting people from the IT scene. At best, I could establish new business contacts and possibly make some deals. At worst, I was going to see a new country (I hadn't been to France before).

Once I got there, after travelling for 24 hours, I was welcomed by Frédéric Artru at the Pau train station. He led me to the apartment they had rented for me. On the way to it, he gave me a brief of the Foundry. The basics were these: "lots of people come, but the vast majority bail out before the first month of the internship ends". I was about to see why. We finally reached the apartment. It was very small, but quite cosy. As I had arrived there early in the morning, I had the day off to rest.

The next day I went to the office. It was at the top floor of a steel and glass building located in a fancy area of the town. As Frédéric Artru told me on the way there, it was part of the investment the town city hall had made in the SigEx business. Yes, they were given money to start the show. 30 million Euro, if I recall correctly. The investment covered the office space and a network infrastructure interconnected with Pau's own infrastructure (which is very nice, actually). The office seemed to have looked nice in the distant past. The air conditioning didn't work. There was no kitchen. Instead, they had a small storage room filled up with water cases. In a corner there was a small coffee filter. Luckily, the restroom was OK.

Meeting the people was somewhat surprising. 90% of them were Romanians in their early 20s, with no significant previous work experience. A few of them had just graduated tech faculties, but their skills were obviously far from industry standards, even for interns, while others had diplomas in social fields so the best they could do was browse and use instant messengers. I would say there were around 20 people altogether.

Next, I had the honor of meeting the headmaster, the brain behind the whole business, Christopher Cantell. I would describe him as the typical American manager, with an ego big enough to fulfill China's requirements for 50 years. For two hours he told me about what great things he had done, without mentioning a single business name from his past. I can vouch that the words he loves most are "return of investment", "ballpark figures" and "stock". He would be a winner in any buzzword bingo contest. After these two hours passed, the first interesting piece of conversation took place:

Cantell: "Have you read my CV?"
Me: "Yes, but this elloquent presentation you've made certainly outperforms any written piece. How about you? Did you read mine?"
Cantell: "Err, no" Me: "Then how do you know I'm fit for the internship? What if I totally lack skills?"
Cantell: "You'll get all the skills you need here."

This got me thinking. Anything would go, by this guy. Great. What's next? Oh yes, he didn't forget to tell me who his associate, Frédéric Artru, was:

Cantell: "Fred here is my employee, I bred him. He was an engineer at Apple."
Me: "Why isn't he one anymore?"
Cantell: "Because he could do better, he now works for me."

Ok, the egos were even bigger than my initial estimations. Next thing Chris Cantell handed me a notebook. I was supposed to use it for writing down all the things he would tell me to do, put them in a thick square and write in boldface "Action Required" above the square. I was a bit confused. Having had used gadgets like KNotes and all sorts of reminders, I'd forget very few things. But then again, we all have our own methods. This guy sounded like he knew what he was doing.

My first task was to deploy a callback mechanism using Asterisk. I was verbally handed the task by Frédéric Artru, after which his phone rang and he promptly disappeared. I was alone in my office, staring at my Apple computer, on which I didn't even have an account. Needless to say, I hadn't been given access to any kind of resources whatsoever. I was lost. So I went on a small stroll around the office to see who I could ask for an account on some development/testing machine. It turned out that all managers had gone to lunch leaving everybody behind. So I waited. For 3 hours. When the 3 hours passed, they finally returned from lunch. I was quickly asked for a status report. I hadn't anything to say but ask for resources. This is the first time I saw how the (in)famous notebook was used. I had to write down on the first page what I needed, put the square around it and write "Action Required" above it. Since Chris Cantell wasn't satisfied with the thickness of my square, he decided to show me how it's done. Enlightenment. The good thing is that I got access to a machine. The bad thing was that it was behind NAT and outside calls couldn't reach it without port forwarding. Of course, I had nobody to ask for setting it up for the next couple of hours, at the end of which Frédéric Artru came and did it, after logging in to the web interface of a SOHO router that seemed to serve the entire office. Pretty strange, I would say, given the huge amount of technical resources they pretended to have. Well, life goes on...

The next day I came back to the office to finish setting up Asterisk. It was one of the least productive working days I've ever had, due to the standups held by Chris Cantell with sheer grace. For my readers that don't know what a standup is, it is when the manager comes to you and asks for a status report. "But it ain't so bad", one may say. Sure, it certainly isn't. As long as it doesn't happen every 15 (yes, fifteen) minutes. You do the math: 15 minutes of work, 10 minutes of standup. Not very efficient...
After fixing the NAT problem, I went ahead and wrote a Perl plugin for Asterisk to do callback. I was supposed to connect two Vonage accounts by callback using my Asterisk server as a relay. As one could already guess, I wasn't given a Vonage account. So I had to wait some more. Of course, afterwards, another standup took place, this time with Frédéric Artru.
I forgot to mention that during the previous day I had been told that at the Foundry they wanted the interns to think before anything. They wanted to stimulate creativity. They could even afford leaving unfinished tasks as long as the intern brainstormed (yes, I find it strange too). So back to standup, it came with a novelty: I was yelled at. Why? Because:

Artru: "here at the Foundry we don't brainstorm, we do things. I don't care how you do it,you just have to do it."
Me: "Hm. That's not what I had been told a day before. Good engineering needs good planning and that no successful project existed without a decent roadmap"
Artru: "I think your attitude isnt' the proper one. You're not here to tell us what to do.
We tell you what to do. Got that?"

I didn't insist. The guy was obviously on a management authority demonstration spree. The most interesting part of the day was about to happen after this standup. Chris Cantell came by, he brought us all in the "big room", an oval shaped room with several desks, to do a "build". Before I go on with speaking about what a "build" is, I should spend a few moments to describe what the project that the whole business went around was:

Are you ready? Ok, here goes. SigEx's revolutionary product is a crappy peer-to-peer platform written entirely on Flash, which is ugly as your mother-in-law and slow as her donkey. For a taste of it you can access http://www.sigex.com (it now is http://www.thefoundryschool.tv). If you're wondering what the purpose of this platform is, it is, according to Chris Cantell's words, meant to revolutionise the Internet and make it more interactive. People are supposed to access it and exchange all sorts of media with eachother. Word of advise: don't try it, it will most likely bring your PC on its knees. That's how "fast" it is.

Going back to the build: the build is the process through which each intern (yes, including me, the supposed engineer) visits video.google.com, youtube.com or some similar sites and looks for videos on a particular theme. Then, he/she copies the links to these videos and submits them to the SigEx platform. The system downloads and archives them. Perhaps you're wondering what the purpose is. I asked Chris Cantell the same thing and he didn't give me a straight answer I was eager to know who were the visitors exchanging that "marvelous" information and when. According to the statistics I saw, me and the other interns were the only users of the miraculous platform at any given time.

One of the most difficult things about staying there was eating. The French are extremely cautious when it comes to doing any kind of work, so the shops, cafeterias and even the banks are only open from 10 to 12 and then again from 14 to 17. Being in the office most of the time, I didn't even have time to go to the local supermarket to fill my fridge. I usually went to the gas station, the only place open at evening or night, and I got water and cold sandwiches. This turn of habits led to one of the cutest conversations I had with Frédéric Artru. We had gone out of the office at the end of the day and I started it:

Me: "You know, we have a problem. These "flexible" working days really make me starve, because there's simply not any way for me to get to the shop and buy food. We have to either leave the office earlier or use catering services while we're there."
Artru: "Well, you see, this internship isn't just about technical matters, it's also about that you wouldn't get bored."
Me: "Well, yes, the view is great but I got kind of bored of being hungry."
Artru: "Sec, I gotta call my wife ..."

The next day was going to be even more entertaining. After the usual 15 minute working sessions interrupted by the standups, after two "builds", I decided it was time for me to go home. It was 9 PM, on a Friday. I had been in the office from 8AM, because I had decided to go earlier so I could leave earlier, hoping that I would catch a movie in the evening. Neither Chris Cantell or Frédéric Artru seemed eager to leave, they were very happy doing the "builds". It seemed that they would spend the whole night there. Their reaction when I suddenly stood up and said "I'm going home" was one of the most hillarious ones I ever saw:

Cantell: "What do you mean, you're going home?"
Me: "I mean I'm going home, I've been here for 13 hours, I've some health issues and I also have some personal ones that I'd rather not speak about that I have to take care of."
Cantell: "But I'm in a build here, you can't walk out!"
Me: "Look, I know where my physical limit is. I know where the common sense limit is, too. And this moment is way beyond both. I really feel tired, I didn't eat anything all day, I'm done. It's late, I'm going home."
Cantell: "Err, can you come back after you finish dealing with your issues, later on?"
Me: "Sure, when do you want me back? Is 3-4 AM OK?"
Cantell: "Mhm, nevermind, just go home."

This conversation took place in everybody else's presence. I couldn't help noticing the smiles and satisfaction in the eyes of the other interns. For some strange reason, I was the first one ever doing that, standing up against the crappy management and treatment. Next day, on Saturday, I strolled around Pau, getting souvenirs for my close friends. Around noon, I went to the office to spend some time online because we weren't allowed to use the Internet at home, for fear it would distract us from the important duties we had at the Foundry. Soon after I went in, Frédéric Artru showed up. He imediately pinged me:

Artru: "We need to talk."
Me: "Yep, we sure do."
Artru: "What do you think of this place?"

I smiled a bit, then went on:

Me: "I think it's a terrific place for newly graduates to get their feet wet with technical challenges, where they can find answers to all their questions. A place where they can do anything they've ever dreamed of."
Artru: "No, I mean what do you think of us, the leaders."
Me: "I think you're very friendly and you have good intentions, I really admire what you're doing."
Artru: "Are you bullshitting me?"
Me: "No."
Artru: "Look, we think you have a problem, why are you here? You seem to know everything better, you have an attitude problem. You don't judge what we tell you, you just do as we say. So again, why are you here?"

At this point I already was a bit pissed, so I said:

Me: "Well, I'm here because I hoped to face some challenges. So far the only challenge I've had was not starving. As for the technical matters, I don't see a plan, I don't see any specs, I don't see a product, I don't see anything. I just see potential good engineering skills flushed down the drain with standups that take more than the actual work. I see lots of money spent and no result at all. It smells fishy."
Artru: "We really think you have to go."
Me: "So do I."

So he led me back to the apartment I lived in, I packed my things, after which he was kind enough to drive me to a hotel. I stayed there for one night, then I took off.

If you read the resumes of Chris Cantell and Frédéric Artru, you may think of them as brilliant entrepreneurs or scholars. I'll have to disappoint you. Frédéric Artru doesn't know what the UNIX kill command does. I found this out while speaking to him about signalling another process from PHP. PHP has a kill function that does just that. It sends a signal to another process. Mr. Artru recommended himself as a PHP guru. I even saw he subscribed to some PHP newsgroups. I would expect a man of his stature, with his kind of tech skills, to know at least that. After all, he was an Apple engineer. He is also mentioned as the leader of several companies, one of which was bought by Cisco. My googling skills failed to help me find any reference to any product of these companies. In fact, I beg the reader to submit any kind of information on this matter. Furthermore, he had a really funny solution to the problem that their web harvesting PHP code couldn't properly use all the bandwidth they had so he started several scripts at the same time instead of seeing why a single one couldn't behave properly.
As for Chris Cantell, he stars as Christopher M Cantell in a hilarious case from Massachusetts. He basically tried to squeeze some money from a company without a written contract. You can see how big of a capitalist he is here.

The funniest part is that, 5 months after I returned home, I got another call from SigEx Ventures. The miss on the other end of the phone was Romanian, as they are trying to do the same thing now in Bucharest. Here's an excerpt of our conversation:

Her: "Hello, we would like to ask you if you're interested in a 2 month internship at SigEx. You will be doing some extreme programming."

Did you laugh? I did. "Some"."Extreme"."Programming."

Me: "What precisely is this extreme programming thing?"
Her: "Well, you know... programming extreme things."
Me: "No, thank you very much."

I'm quite confident that the Foundry is a very good cow to milk. Nothing has ever come out of their "labs". The profile of the interns they take is extremely low. Two years ago their website was in the exact same stage it was when I paid them the visit. It seems to have changed in the meantime. Judge for yourselves: http://www.sigex.com