121–130 of 1001 posts
A fancy funded company like Replit getting scared by an intern's weekend project is entertaining. If your moat is so low it can be replicated in a few days, I think this open source project is the least of their worries.
VC funded companies are investments that they want a return on. It shouldn't be surprising when people try very hard to protect that investment to help them get a better return.
Did the author disclose the work on Riju as a prior invention before joining Repl.it? If so that puts him in the clear. I would also check your hiring contract to see what kind of clauses are in there about prior inventions. For larger companies, I don't think this company behavior would surprise anyone. I think I can understand where Repl.it is coming from. All I know is this behavior (by Riju author) isn't somethin…
Second-hand source here, but I’m pretty sure Riju postdates the author’s internship. IANAL but if he signed a non-compete maybe this could be a legal issue.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IANAL, but as someone who has used both tio.run and repl.it, I have difficulty seeing what sort of “competition” this constitutes (Riju, in my eyes, being very very similar to tio). Otherwise I would expect tio to have received some threatening emails as well (maybe they have?).
I think the issue was that he was a previous employee. Normally I'd say "yeah, no problem, make a competitor" but he's been exposed to the internal workings of the company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the CEO is absolutely nuts here. With that said, I also think certain employees though have a very slippery mentality of this sort of vibe where they do things that might be sketchy or on the borderline not OK (but JUST on the line), and then rationalize as "but ... reason!". The tone of this whole article is very subtly reminiscent of that... the type of person that when given an inch will take 10 inches (no…
The tone here is "uhhh, I did this thing and it turns out it might be bad but I dont think so". Tbh, the tone he kept here is quite well mannered comparing to the situation at hand. The vibe is more about a person being excited for doing something cool with tech and a company where they interned (not worked, interned!) feeling threatened because it crosses into their domain. If "let’s see what else can I maake with t…
What do you make of the comment about "hardest intern we've ever worked with."
I understand the CEO is feeling very emotional and is clearly manipulating/exaggerating, but I would imagine he wouldn't say this if it were entirely 100% fabricated.
Do you believe any part of that statement might be true?
That's really shitty. I wonder what the founders of Replit have to say about this? They're active on HN so I hope they can address this publicly... EDIT: I mean the screenshots are irrefutable evidence of how bad this has escalated - it started as a normal convo and went downwards like the CEO was out to get some blood for no reason ... now I guess you're gonna get a lawyer threat letter to take down the whole blogpo…
Absent any NDA or other contract, there is nothing requiring the other party’s consent to publish correspondence in the US.
If I’m reading those emails correctly, Amjad the CEO directly emailed you occasionally. It is pretty stunning that as the CEO of the company, he would stoop to what I interpret as pretty unprofessional communication and petty threats. I also am failing to connect the dots about why Replit would even feel threatened - if you were as helpful of an intern as described, you’d think they would recognize that you had good…
Again, it would be different if the CEO threatened a random third party that happened to do a weekend project in the same vertical...
Yeah, not sure about this one chief. I don't know the legal aspects here, but I think it makes sense to not create an open-source project that competes with your previous employer and then correspond with them letting them know you did it...
If I’m reading those emails correctly, Amjad the CEO directly emailed you occasionally. It is pretty stunning that as the CEO of the company, he would stoop to what I interpret as pretty unprofessional communication and petty threats. I also am failing to connect the dots about why Replit would even feel threatened - if you were as helpful of an intern as described, you’d think they would recognize that you had good…
This article and the associated 'press' could serve as a text-book case for insecure start-up CXOs.