Right, but the point remains that the company made no money. It’s a lot of effort to do what he did and to not sign 1 contract especially as employee’s 6mo paychecks were coming up is still surprising to me.
I kind of suspect he was doing it all to build his personal profile as a potential CEO or management "influencer". If it wound down quietly with no contracts as an explanation for no hires, perhaps he would have already been on to a hefty salary somewhere chaotic but real leaving his fake partner winding things down.
So I read this too but it sounded like it was based on accounts from employees BBC could get hold of. I guess it's possible it's true but I find it hard to believe such a business could exist for a couple of months with absolutely no sales whatsoever.