Fucking Sue Me • Hacker News Board

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#31

Post by nirvana » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:50 AM UTC

owenmarshall wrote: post #17

> Then there was the time I wanted to hire my first full time employee. I was apprehensive to do it because I only had enough money to pay him for 2 months, unless I got another client fast. > “Worry about that in 2 months,” Dad said. Speaking from the perspective of that employee, fuck you . OK, for the serious point: you may be not give a shit about risk. Good for you, you crazy risk taker! The world truly needs mo…

Pretty much all employment is risky. It doesn't matter that you have a car payment and a wife going thru graduate school. Those are financial risks you took.

Your employment could end at any time. The company could be seized by the government as part of some investigation and shut down, the CEO could be hit by a bus, you could screw up in a big way and get fired. You could be hit by a brain aneurism and simply not be there to provide for your car payment and your wife's schooling.

Every employee is taking risk that their employment might end for any number of reasons.

This is one of the reasons that, when something like that happened to me, I said "That's it, my livelihood will never be in someone else's hands again" ... and have been self employed / doing my own startups since.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#32

Post by lojack » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:51 AM UTC

rick888 wrote: post #28

brk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't be employee #1. Ever. I get your point, but if those things are true, then that would not be the proper job for you to take, no matter how risk prone or risk averse the founder is.

Being employee #1 is the worst of both worlds. You get the risk of a startup and you most likely will get very little payout if the startup is successful. Most of the people I know that were employee #1 got nothing.

That's reassuring.

(putting in my two weeks notice tomorrow to be employee #1)

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#33

Post by rprasad » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:51 AM UTC

gnu6 wrote: post #23

analyst74 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal liability would be a nasty thing to deal with after your business failed. And you may not get to start another company with a huge personal debt.

It's so easy to incorporate it should always be done. I assume when someone starts working with that kind of money and has knowledgeable lawyers advising them that they'll be told to do that.

Incorporating without sufficient capital makes it almost trivial to "pierce the veil" of incorporation and go directly after the company's owners.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#34

Post by compay » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:52 AM UTC

nknight wrote: post #19

compay wrote: post #12

"Just be lucky like I was" is rather poor advice.

Did you read the very last line of his post? "I’m not sure what the lesson is here." I don't see him giving advice to anybody. I see him recounting some rather... debatable decisions early in his career.

Yeah, but if you're recounting what has worked well for you in your career, you're giving advice - even if you qualify it at the last minute with a totally wishy washy ending like that.

Also, if you've followed Kaplan since his (awesome) "Fucked Company" website you'll know that the man is no babe in the woods. IMO he has too good a grasp on the nature and consequences of risk to be "not sure" what the lesson is here.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#35

Post by nirvana » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:52 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #10

Ugh. At one extreme: giving your counsel veto power over what contracts you sign, and allowing them to bill time ping-ponging contracts until prospects give up. At the other extreme: just signing everything and saying "fucking sue me" when things go sideways. You should be somewhere in the middle. Contracts more often than not have provisions that are silly for you to accept verbatim. And, contracts more often than n…

I think the point to "fucking sue me" is that you don't "fucking sue" someone over something trivial. So, if the dollar value of some provision in the contract is not worth the cost of a lawsuit, in a way, it is kinda immaterial to the agreement because it would cost more to collect.

So, I think the article is trying to hit the middle road you're advocating, though didn't make it as explicitly clear as it could have.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#36

Post by learc83 » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:52 AM UTC

veyron wrote: post #15

_delirium wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're a 22-year-old with no assets it's probably not much different; you lose a judgment and declare bankruptcy and that's that. If you're older and have a lot of assets, you just do it via a corporation and it's the same, thanks to the magical unaccountability of the corporate veil.

Nowadays a lot of companies try to add clauses that pierce the corporate veil (for example, having personal guarantees)

For all kinds of things, like leases and such were the company is too young to have any credit. But a personal guarantee on delivering a website on time would be a bit much.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#37

Post by semanticist » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:56 AM UTC

nirvana wrote: post #31

owenmarshall wrote: post #17

> Then there was the time I wanted to hire my first full time employee. I was apprehensive to do it because I only had enough money to pay him for 2 months, unless I got another client fast. > “Worry about that in 2 months,” Dad said. Speaking from the perspective of that employee, fuck you . OK, for the serious point: you may be not give a shit about risk. Good for you, you crazy risk taker! The world truly needs mo…

Pretty much all employment is risky. It doesn't matter that you have a car payment and a wife going thru graduate school. Those are financial risks you took. Your employment could end at any time. The company could be seized by the government as part of some investigation and shut down, the CEO could be hit by a bus, you could screw up in a big way and get fired. You could be hit by a brain aneurism and simply not be…

The difference is that most of those things are risks you can't reasonably plan for. If you know that the start-up you're working for has x months of runway, then you can plan for looking for a new gig, ensure you have savings to carry you over, or decide to work elsewhere.

But you can't plan for it if the company's owner hides it from you. If you think you need to lie to your staff about the company's finances, then you're an untrustworthy prick.

And if you get lucky, no one will ever know. And if you don't get lucky, everyone will know that you can't be trusted, and that could affect your ability to get contracts and employees at your next venture.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#38

Post by semanticist » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 12:58 AM UTC

brk wrote: post #22

owenmarshall wrote: post #17

> Then there was the time I wanted to hire my first full time employee. I was apprehensive to do it because I only had enough money to pay him for 2 months, unless I got another client fast. > “Worry about that in 2 months,” Dad said. Speaking from the perspective of that employee, fuck you . OK, for the serious point: you may be not give a shit about risk. Good for you, you crazy risk taker! The world truly needs mo…

Then don't be employee #1. Ever. I get your point, but if those things are true, then that would not be the proper job for you to take, no matter how risk prone or risk averse the founder is.

Being employee #1 is fine, but you should be asking questions like 'how much money do you have?' and 'when will it run out?'

I've been employee #1 and in the position of having to find another gig due to the company running out of money. It sucked, but I was prepared for it since I knew what our runway was and what our situation with funding was.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#39

Post by nknight » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 1:00 AM UTC

gnu6 wrote: post #23

analyst74 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal liability would be a nasty thing to deal with after your business failed. And you may not get to start another company with a huge personal debt.

It's so easy to incorporate it should always be done. I assume when someone starts working with that kind of money and has knowledgeable lawyers advising them that they'll be told to do that.

The point is that signing a contract for personal liability negates the incorporation.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#40

Post by gamble » Mon, Sep 12, 2011, 1:00 AM UTC

rick888 wrote: post #28

brk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't be employee #1. Ever. I get your point, but if those things are true, then that would not be the proper job for you to take, no matter how risk prone or risk averse the founder is.

Being employee #1 is the worst of both worlds. You get the risk of a startup and you most likely will get very little payout if the startup is successful. Most of the people I know that were employee #1 got nothing.

Yes, employee #1 is almost always the worst-off person in the company. They get to work like a founder, without the financial benefits. I've been there twice; it isn't a lot of fun.

Either found or join a company that has funding.