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Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

paulgraham.com

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Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#51

Post by duxup »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #49
duxup wrote: post #42

>If they can, corp dev people like to turn the tables on you. They like to get you to the point where you're trying to convince them to buy instead of them trying to convince you to sell. I worked for an established company (not a startup) and had a run in with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart managed to buy some stuff at an ultra low discount because ... someone thought maybe if we get in there we could sell tons to their IT team…

Sometimes it isn't about the "big sale" but having the big company on your list of customers. It can give your company a lot of credibility.

I don't doubt it for a start up... but I also wonder what value that is vs. 18 months of work and turn that into a deal that is really a loss, and the customer struggles to use the product ... and now you've got a big dominating customer who is going to continue to eat up time ...

I wonder how many profitable customers could be had in that time.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#52

Post by bathtub365 »

vb6sp6 wrote: post #49
duxup wrote: post #42

>If they can, corp dev people like to turn the tables on you. They like to get you to the point where you're trying to convince them to buy instead of them trying to convince you to sell. I worked for an established company (not a startup) and had a run in with Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart managed to buy some stuff at an ultra low discount because ... someone thought maybe if we get in there we could sell tons to their IT team…

Sometimes it isn't about the "big sale" but having the big company on your list of customers. It can give your company a lot of credibility.

They aren’t really your customer if they aren’t either paying you or otherwise hinging part of their own success on your product.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#53

Post by Retric »

bumbada wrote: post #33
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't acquisition talks be covered in NDAs to prevent precisely this?

Who cares about NDAs when the company that breaks the law is thousands of times bigger than your company. They have a football team of very good lawyers working full time in order to delay things for years. You can be right and go broke just dealing in Courts and distracting your company from your technical work.

The trick is not to sue them but to sell the right to sue them to someone else.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#55

Post by ilaksh »

idbehold wrote: post #7

Is there a reason he doesn't have HTTPS on his site? Firefox throws up a giant warning when I try to visit.

The reasons to use HTTPS on a blog or everywhere regardless of whether there is data that needs to be secured are mainly to fight against things like censorship or ISP surveillance.

If you really don't think your website is going to be censored, that leaves the problem of ISPs injecting content. Maybe he doesn't feel that is a big problem, or that there is another way to fight it.

The big push for everything to be https is about making it hard for governments or ISPs to say that some site or another should be an exception.

It's kind of like, wearing masks.. before the policy was that everyone should wear a mask, best to keep it simple and not try to make exceptions that way we will get the most adoption.. except for sites like this, it's like you never actually talk, and have been vaccinated so you are not worried about catching anything and don't wear a mask.

The other part of this is that for people like me who have been serving http for so many years, the campaign for https just doesn't hit as hard as for young people who really grew up with that mindset being preached to them constantly.

But in the end, I think that it is better if everyone does it. Just maybe not quite as severe a problem as you think if a few people slip through the cracks.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#56

Post by breck »

I think there are good perspectives in here that are accurate, and worth the read for the perspectives, but I don't spot any great advice. In other words, no pithy strategy that is testable. Difference between the 2 explained here: https://breckyunits.com/wisdom-a-tiny-language-for-great-adv....

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#57

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

rsj_hn wrote: post #24
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old HTML might be fine, but sending it over an insecure connection isn't.

These words "secure" and "insecure" when used as synonyms for "encrypted" and "plaintext" obscure more than they illuminate and have done a lot of damage to the world of software security. They stop thought. You would not believe how many times I've talked to a company with some complex webapp and asked for their security policy and they respond with some statement about using TLS. It's absurd. Then even in books or…

I'm happy to agree that TLS doesn't guarantee security, but plaintext HTTP does guarantee insecurity.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#58

Post by ska »

irrational wrote: post #30

>"What happened to Don't be Evil?" I asked. "I don't think corp dev got the memo," he replied. Why is it that every company that starts with good intentions eventually succumbs and becomes that which they claimed to not like?

> Why is it that every company that starts with good intentions eventually succumbs

There isn't much money in good intentions.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#59

Post by gnicholas »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #17
lnanek2 wrote: post #6

He actually didn't even cover one of the worst parts about the whole process - fake buyers who just want to steal your tech. I was working at a startup with a ground breaking product no one had released before, we had shipped hundreds of prototypes and gotten good reviews and had plenty of orders, but board redesigns and setting up a factory assembly line for the production models was eating into our cash and runway.…

Wouldn't acquisition talks be covered in NDAs to prevent precisely this?

Most NDAs do include prohibitions on either disclosure of information or use of information (for any purpose other than the contemplated transaction).

But some big SV companies refuse to include the second prong, which means they won’t tell anyone your secrets but are free to use them to squash you. Intel’s NDA is notorious for this.

Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)

#60

Post by vb6sp6 »

bathtub365 wrote: post #52
vb6sp6 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it isn't about the "big sale" but having the big company on your list of customers. It can give your company a lot of credibility.

They aren’t really your customer if they aren’t either paying you or otherwise hinging part of their own success on your product.

They used the product (in our case). They just asked for things that no one has wanted since.
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