Forbes & The New York Times retract and correct Iddris Sandu profile after Sandu’s credibility is called into question
Iddris Sandu is a 22 year old man from Los Angeles of African origin who has been hailed a technological innovator by the New York Times, CNN, and CNBC. He gave the commencement speech at NYU BSU, has appeared at ComplexCon, on Hot 97, and is scheduled to speak shortly at Summit Series. Iddris was also featured in a Pharrell fashion campaign and was granted a 2019 Thiel Fellowship.
Following a recent retraction of a Forbes article on Sandu — after reader criticism, including from software engineer Lex Alexander, challenged the accuracy of the piece — articles written by the New York Times, CNN, and CNBC, over the past 16 months have now come into question, making it clear that very few of the news organizations engaged in the remotest amount of background checking into Sandu’s claimed credits and collaborations — many of which his recent tweets suggest he may have completely falsified or exaggerated significantly.
(Update 9/27/19: The New York Times has issued a correction clarifying that Iddris Sandu did not receive the Presidential Scholar Award from President Obama. Inaccuracies in the Times’ reporting still persist. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/style/iddris-sandu-obama-certificate.html)
First, let’s take a look at the articles in question:
NY TIMES: A Tech Wunderkind Who Knows Jaden Smith and Elon Musk
CNN: Meet the 21-year-old tech whiz who’s coded for Instagram and Snapchat
CNBC: Iddris Sandu — Bridging the gap between technology and minorities
Now let’s examine claims made in the articles.
CLAIM #1 — Iddris was awarded the Presidential Scholar Award from President Obama. The Presidential Scholar Award is one of the Nation’s highest honors for students and administered by the Department of Education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Scholars_Program
In a February 2018 video interview, Iddris discussed receiving the Presidential Scholar Award.
However according to a recent tweet from Iddris, he did not, in fact, receive the Presidential Scholar Award. Iddris received a commendation certificate signed by the President, presumably as part of a group visit by students to the White House.
A commendation certificate is usually a short, congratulatory note. As an example, when one becomes an Eagle Scout, they receive a commendation letter signed by the sitting President of the United States.
The Presidential Scholar Award, that Iddris was alleged to have received (but did not actually receive) is a real award given to exemplary students based on academic merit and outstanding achievement.
It would have been very easy for the New York Times, CNN, and CNBC to fact check this, as winners of the Presidential Scholar Award are public record… they could have also asked Iddris for a copy of the award.
CLAIM #2 — Iddris has coded/created algorithms/consulted for Snapchat, Uber, Instagram, Twitter etc.
A LinkedIn profile credited to Iddris lists him as a freelance consultant to both Uber and Snapchat.
According to CNN, Iddris was “…(led to Uber), where he created software called Autonomous Collision Detection Interface…” However, according to a recent tweet from Iddris, he had no formal relationship with Uber whatsoever.
According to Iddris he came up with a concept and pitched it to Uber, but Uber decided not to work with him.
In a February 2018 video interview, Sandu told a different story, claiming that at age 19 he worked for Uber as a consultant and helped develop autonomous software for their self driving cars.
And, according to Iddris, a pretty similar situation went down at Snapchat.
Yep he designed some glasses and pitched them to Snapchat— but the company didn’t accept his pitch. There seems to be no indication that there was ever a formal, professional relationship or engagement (that he was financially compensated for) with Snapchat beyond a potential meeting.
However in a February 2018 video interview, Iddris told a different story, claiming that he helped design the initial spectacles for Snapchat.
As for Instagram, here’s what Iddris has to say about it…
The New York Times, CNN, and CNBC, are hailing Iddris as a wunderkind, genius, and innovator for (according to them) working with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest companies in major capacities. However, according to Iddris’ tweets, it doesn’t appear that he has formally worked with or for any of these companies. And these alleged collaborations are the crux of every news article published about Iddris… so if they never actually happened… why is he newsworthy?
Iddris’ tweets seem to indicate that he’s just a talented tech/design freelancer who has pitched a bunch of cool projects to social media companies, but none of those projects were actually greenlit by said firms. Welp — that’s not so impressive.
Other of Iddris’ claims are harder to verify — that he designed an album for Kanye West and they’re working on businesses together, was accepted to MIT, and consulted for Twitter. Did any of the journalists who wrote about Iddris bother to call Kanye or check with the MIT admissions office? Did CNBC ask Elon Musk if he’s actually tight with Iddris before saying that Sandu has Musk on speed dial? Based on the rest of the article’s flawed claims, one can surmise that it doesn't seem likely.
In fact, the only real work (that came to market) I was able to publicly verify Sandu’s participation in was Nipsey Hussle’s retail store.
Here’s the thing — Iddris Sandu isn’t Elizabeth Holmes, but isn’t this how Elizabeth Holmes pulled off Theranos? First, lots of credible media publications didn't do their homework and published a false narrative. Then, that narrative was leveraged to secure appearances at conferences and prestigious events (just like Iddris has done with NYU and Summit Series). And the narrative kept propagating and increased in size and delusion. Maybe Peter Thiel and Pharrell had other reasons for working with Iddris, but if it turns out they didn't do their homework either, that’s yet another parallel to the Theranos story.
Has the media not learned their lesson? And furthermore, there’s lots of amazing African Americans in tech - engineers, designers - doing cool, world changing work. When the New York Times writes about a guy with an overhyped resume, they’re depriving real black innovators of opportunity.
