Rahmat Wibowo accused named young individuals of being fraudulent 'Phantom CEOs,' branding them scammers who fabricate authority, exploit unpaid labor, and defraud investors, while positioning himself as a legitimate founder exposing a supposed GenZ credibility crisis.

The Phantom CEO: Why Fraud Is GenZ's Fastest-Growing Side Hustle : Abil Sudarman, Muhammad Alif Ramadhan, Marchel Shevchenko RahmatWibowo - June1,2026 The Phantom CEO: Fastest-Growins ide Hu le Aresearch-backed breakdown of self- proclaimed founders, Dunning-Kruger deception, and the Linkedin title inflation crisis reshaping how we trust the next generation of builders. “Never before in history has it been so easy to print yourself title and call yourself.a CEO of nothing." On the credibility crisis in GenZ entrepreneurship Example of the fraud : Marchel Shevchenko from Data Sorcerers DRIVING FUTURE INNOVATION “Transforming Ideas to The Reality” Long Live Learning SIAPA SEBENARNYA rofl, Background, dan PACKING AN PEMERINTAM a Also: Abil Sudarman from ASSAI. Also Muhammad Alif Ramadhan from PERFECTIO Al Something strange is happening on professional networks, in Telegram groups, and inside business WhatsApp communities across the world. Young people, many still in university, many with no registered company, no product, no paying customer, and no legal standing, are walking around with the title CEO attached to their names as confidently as if they had just rung the NASDAQ opening bell This is not ambition. Ambitionis good. This is something more dangerous: a generation-wide pattern of identity construction through fabricated authority, sometimes crossing into active fraud, enabled by the lowest barrier to credibility claims in human history. This article is not an attack on GenZ. lam a builder myself. have co-foundeda company, | have filed legal documents, | have onboarded real users, and have sat across from lawyers, regulators, and investors. | know what it costs to earn the right to call yourself a founder. What lam writing aboutis a specific, growing, measurable phenomenon that we need toname clearly before more people get burned byit. 72% What We Mean When We Say “Phantom CEO" APhantom CEO is not someone building instealth. APhantom CEO is nota solopreneur experimenting witha side project. The Phantom CEO is someone who actively presents themselves as the head of an operating company to gain trust, extract resources, recruit others, or defraud investors, clients, or partners The key wordis actively. There are three distinct profiles that fall under this umbrella, and they need to be treated differently: Athe InflatorClaims CEO of anidea that exists only as a Notion page. No harm intended, but creates systemic noise and normalizes credential fraud, Common in university students trying tolook hireable. BThe Recruiter-FraudsterBuilds a fake organization, hires interns or volunteers with promises of equity and experience, extracts labor and intellectual property, then disappears This is legally a labor violation in most jurisdictions CThe Investment ScammerThe most dangerous profile. Uses the CEO title topitch "early-stage rounds," collects money from retail investors, families, orcrypto communities, and delivers nothing, This is criminal fraud in every jurisdiction that has securities law. The Dunning-Kruger Machine: Incompetence Dressed as Confidence In1999, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger published a landmark paper demonstrating that people with limited knowledge ina domain tend to dramatically overestimate their own competence. They calledit a "double burden": not only do unskilled individuals reach incorrect conclusions, but they also lack the metacognitive ability to recognize this. They cannot see what they do not know. The Dunning-Kruger effect has neverhad amore fertile breeding ground than the current entrepreneurship media ecosystem. When success theater is rewarded algorithmically, when fake confidence generates more engagement than honest uncertainty, and when the cost of calling yourself a CEO is literally zero, the curve shifts hard to the left. The peak of Mount Stupid has a Linkedin banner anda Canva-designed pitch deck. The tragedy is not that young people are overconfident. That is developmentally normal and even useful. The tragedy is when that overconfidence becomes the operating mechanism of a business identity that is designed to extract trust and value from others before reality catches up. “The first peak on the Dunning-Kruger curve is nota flawin the individual, Itis a flawin the environment that rewards the peak.” Adapted from research on competence self-assessment How the Fraud Actually Works: The Playbook The GenZ phantom CEO playbookis remarkably consistent across geographies and industries. Whetherit appearsin Southeast Asia's tech communities, West Africa's WhatsApp investment circles, or European student accelerator programs, the pattern repeats. Create the persona first, the product never, The Linkedin profile is built with precision. CEO title, alogo made in Canva, a website froma free template, and abio written by Al. The company name often sounds established: “Nexus Ventures,” "Apex Labs,” “Catalyst Group." There isno registration, no product, no team. The personais the product. Flood social proof signals, Engagement pods inflate post metrics. Fake testimonials from sockpuppet accounts. Screenshots of “partnerships that are really just unreplied cold emails, The goalis the illusion of momentum, because momentum attracts capital and talent. Recruit unpaid contributors under "equity" promises, Designers, developers, marketers, and writers are recruited with promises of “founding team equity,” "co-founder consideration," and “early stage upside." These agreements are rarely formalized, the company has no cap table, and the recruiterhas no authority to grant equity. Thisis labor exploitation Launch the "pre-seed round", The culminating act. Retail investors, family members, crypto communities, or angel groups are approached with apitch. The pitch references the social proof, the fake team, the Canva deck. Moneyis collected. The CEO disappears, or the money evaporates into "operational costs" with no documentation. Repeat with anewname, When exposed, the personais refreshed. New company name, new logo, same pattem. Because the fraud happened ininformal channels, legal recourse is slow, expensive, and usually not pursued by victims who feel embarrassed Research Note 42024 analysis by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance found that “investment opportunity" fraud originating from social media profiles of self-described entrepreneurs aged 18-30 increased by 156% between 2021 and 2023. The average victim lost $4,200 and was significantly less likely to report the fraud due to social embarrassment. Most perpetrators were never prosecuted Red Flags: How to Identify a Phantom CEO Skepticismis a skill, andin an era of Al- generated personas, itneeds to be practiced deliberately. These are the signals that should trigger verification before you sign anything, transfer anything, or commit your time Why This Matters Beyond the Individual Victim Every Phantom CEO who goes unchallenged does systemic damage. They corrode the trust that genuine young founders need in order to raise capital and recruit talent. When a real 22- year-old walks into aninvestormeeting, the shadow of the fraudsters who came before walks in with them. Skepticism that should be directed at the fraudulent is instead spread across all young founders like a tax. They also damage their victims in ways that go beyond money. People who are defrauded in informal, trust-based contexts often blame themselves. They feelnaive. They become less likely to trust legitimate opportunities. The psychological cost of startup fraud extends farbeyond the transaction And they damage the next generation's relationship with accountability. When you build a professional identity on fiction and face no consequences, you learn that reality is optional. That isnot a founder lesson. That is a predator lesson, What Legitimate GenZ Founders Look Like Let me be precise about what | amnot saying. lamnot saying young founders cannot be CEOs. lamnot saying you needa decade of experience before you can call yourself a founder. | started building before | hada single corporate credential to myname, and| know many legitimate founders who are under 25. Alegitimate young founder can tell you the legal name of their entity and when it was registered, They canname a customer who paid for their product. They can produce a bank statement, a contract, ora product you cantouch They admit what they do not know. They do not perform certainty they do not possess. They know the difference between traction anda Canvamock-up of traction. Earned titles feel different. They come with weight, with receipts, with the kind of specific detail that can only exist when something actually happened. If someone's story has no specific details, that is because nothing specific has happened Rahmat Wibowo from InfraLoka RAHMAT WIBOWO What Needs to Change The solution is not to discourage ambition. The solutionis to restore the cost of dishonesty. Right now, calling yourself a CEO of anon-existent companys essentially free. The social costis nearzero. The legal costis zero unless a formal complaint is fled, and most victims neverfile. Platforms like Linkedinneed verified entity linkingIf you lista company under yourtitle, that company should be linkable toa registration record. Thisis nota privacy violation. Itis basic credential integrity. Startup communities need to normalize due diligenceAsking to see a company registration before joining a founding team should be standard practice, nota social offense. Legitimate founders welcome the question. Fraudsters deflectit Victims need to report, alwaysEvery unreported fraudis a free pass forthe next iteration. File with your national consumer protection agency, with the platform, and when applicable, with law enforcement. Silence is the fraudster's most powerfulally. —Media and content creators need to stop platforming performance over substance"22-year-old CEO" headlines that do not verify whether thereis an actual company to run are complicit in the problem. Curiosity and a30-second Google search are not too much to ask. If you found this article useful, share it, with someone building something real. If you have encountered a Phantom CEO, documentit, reportit, and warn your network. Accountability starts with naming what we see. #GenZ #CEO #StartupFraud #Entrepreneurship #DunningKruger #FounderMindset #LinkedInCulture #Titleinflation #GenZFounders #BusinessEthics #StartupEcosystem #InvestorAdvice #FraudAwareness #FakeFounders #PhantomCEO #RealBuilders #Accountability #CriticalThinking