from Hacker News

Walmart Fires VP in Tech for Taking Daily Kickbacks Starting from $30K

by napolux on 8/25/25, 12:23 PM with 69 comments

  • by duxup on 8/25/25, 12:48 PM

    > Layered vendor relationships—where prime contractors sublease work to secondary vendors, who in turn engage tertiary providers—have created opaque financial structures that obscure accountability while enabling systematic exploitation.

    It’s wild to me that big companies with all the resources would expose their IT systems in this way where they have no idea who is doing the work….

  • by postalcoder on 8/25/25, 1:01 PM

    This article was written entirely by AI likely using the Blind thread as the prompt: https://www.teamblind.com/post/massive-fraud-at-walmart-770k...

    If this was a sourced article, it'd have the name of the exec.

  • by adolph on 8/25/25, 12:56 PM

    It'll be interesting to see if this is true or if it just validates people's priors.

    Disclaimer: The identity of the news submitter has been verified by us. However, we have not received any confirmation or verification from Walmart regarding the information provided.

    See also:

    * Unverified Walmart H-1B Scandal Rumors Claim VP Got Kickbacks, 1,200 Terminated, Spark Fears Among Indians: https://inews.zoombangla.com/unverified-walmart-h-1b-scandal...

    * Walmart H-1B scandal rumors spark anxiety among Indian workers, company responds: https://www.financialexpress.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-...

    * Walmart visa scandal fears unfounded, company says firings not linked to H-1Bs: https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/walmart-h-...

  • by coderatlarge on 8/25/25, 12:48 PM

    “When you have four or five layers between the client and the actual worker, each taking a cut, it becomes impossible to track where influence ends and legitimate business begins."

    wow i would think that for all the money paid to ERP vendors tracking five layers of contracts would not be a major issue.

    but i guess unless people in positions of authority subject themselves to some sort of financial audit then it’s almost impossible to detect corruption related payments.

  • by jongjong on 8/25/25, 1:02 PM

    This is a brave move by Walmart. If all companies follow suit, I suspect this will affect almost every major tech company. This is not an isolated case, but the norm in the industry. I've seen this over and over; specific SaaS providers being given preferential treatment because somebody high up in the tech leadership of a major corporation is either receiving kickbacks or they've been promised a future highly paid job at the SaaS provider. That's why you see a lot of corporate folks get hired into leadership positions by smaller SaaS providers who received business from the corporation.

    The corporation almost always overpays and it's the same providers getting all the money from all the corporations because they have a similar strategy for all of them.

    It's been going on for a LOT longer than 2023.

  • by burnstek on 8/25/25, 12:50 PM

    Reminiscent of the Netflix drama when Mike Kail was accused & eventually convicted of similar.

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/former-netflix-executiv...

  • by noobermin on 8/25/25, 12:54 PM

    So this definitely sounds salacious and could be believable, but is this a reputable source? It's supposedly an IT consultant's website, a strange place for a news article of this kind to appear...

  • by jtbayly on 8/25/25, 1:02 PM

    This (same link I believe, not just same story) was on the front page a couple of days ago and quickly flagged dead. I’m surprised to see it again so quickly. I would have thought a flagged link wouldn’t be possible to submit again and get to the front page.

  • by vjvjvjvjghv on 8/25/25, 12:59 PM

    When I did contracting at Siemens in Germany, the son of the CTO ran a staffing firm. He took around 30-50% of what Siemens paid. We did a rough calculation and concluded that the guy must make millions for not doing much. It’s hard to understand why countries are contracting with staffing firms that take a high cut but they do.

  • by jongjong on 8/25/25, 1:21 PM

    The "Everyone in tech has been receiving kickbacks scandal" has been averted successfully. Phew... So many people involved, so much pressure.

    This thing got flagged so fast, I didn't even have time to unmoor my ill-gotten yacht.

  • by VoidWhisperer on 8/25/25, 1:21 PM

    If this did happen, you would think this would be better substantiated by now. All the articles I'm finding on it are very clear at the top that it is an 'unverified' report - you'd think they'd be able to find atleast one of the 1200 engineers willing to talk to them.

    Perhaps I'm too cynical but I'm not sure I believe this until a credible news source names the exec or has it substantiated by an engineer.

  • by ulf-77723 on 8/25/25, 12:51 PM

    Not knowing how the game works: What is legal in the US regarding kickbacks? Is it ok to get someone tickets for a gameday? To get invited to a party or taking a holiday? Pure cash seems a little odd to me - this must have been found in some company booking accounts, I guess

  • by hopelite on 8/25/25, 1:13 PM

    This is an odd story. The VP of global tech for WM is fired, but no name is given?

    I found who that person is in that role, but there is also an x account that claims it is all not true and he is not fired.

  • by DrNosferatu on 8/25/25, 12:45 PM

    Unfortunately, this is a lot more common than people think… :/

  • by tiffanyh on 8/25/25, 1:05 PM

    Why is this framed as “Daily Payments”?

    Isn’t that kind of vs just saying something like “VP received $X amount of money from Y vendor to be selected”

  • by djohnston on 8/25/25, 1:01 PM

    Surprise surprise, eh?

  • by hammock on 8/25/25, 1:02 PM

    It may already be obvious to the average HN reader, but this seems to be about offshore staff.

    “Contingent workforce infrastructure” is a term of art I haven’t heard yet, but in Google terms this is about red badges, likely offshore ones from staffing agencies.

    And frankly, as someone who requests these kind of teams, it makes me question every interaction I’ve had in the past with the people who build these that has “pushed back” on me asking that we keep the recruiting network open globally and not just from some executive’s preferred country/area. For example I have in mind one exec who told me “I promised (unnnamed person) we would build a team in (redacted city)” and it was a lot of work to sidestep that

  • by JCM9 on 8/25/25, 12:44 PM

    It’s unclear from the article exactly what happened, but the general implication/allegation one takes away is that Walmart tech operations looks more like waste management contracting from the Sopranos.