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Fucking Sue Me

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Re: Fucking Sue Me

#51

Post by tptacek »

jefft wrote: post #41
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…

Isn't the "one extreme to the other" kind of the point of his post? Following his gut has obviously worked quite well for him. It's refreshing to hear this side. And frankly, it doesn't sound like you know much about him if you're replying about "being sensible."

I don't know anything about him and I don't care. I'm drawing a line between two extremes and talking about the extremes and the middle. If he's somewhere in the middle, that's great. I would just hate for people to get the message from a post like this that legal review is a waste of time. We deal with it every week of the year and it never ends like it did in this story.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#52

Post by tptacek »

Duff wrote: post #30
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…

You need to be able to figure out what's negotiable and what isn't. I work for one of those massive organizations that everyone hates doing business with, but sort of has to. I've watched dozens of vendors spin their wheels for months over boilerplate stuff that nobody is empowered to change. They ultimately lose the deal over something that ultimately didn't matter.

It's absolutely true. You have to figure out what terms are changeable and which ones aren't, and you have to know that sometimes you'll be accepting things you really don't want to, which means accepting risks, sometimes serious risks. But having said all that: in almost every contract, there's something crappy that can be changed.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#53

Post by chc »

gnu6 wrote: post #4
toast76 wrote: post #3

Just change that one line "He was right. I got the job, they paid, things went well, nobody got sued." to "He was wrong. I got the job, they didn't pay, things went horribly wrong, everybody go sued".

Even if it were changed to that, the story wouldn't end with "I couldn't buy food, my macbook pro got repossessed, and I went to federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison." If you do get sued and your business collapses you can always start another one.

The contract had a personal liability clause, apparently. Assuming those are enforceable, it seems like you're downplaying the downside.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#54

Post by 5teev »

dfriedmn wrote: post #29
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.

You should still be honest with employees. They'll prove better in the long run if you are. Not a lot of stories where withholding the truth from your employees ends up being something that a boss feels great about...

Yeah, I see no problem if you tell the employee, "I can pay you for two months." At least he knows what he's getting into. Besides, even a "safe" job can abruptly end, often with much less than two months' notice.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#56

Post by AJ007 »

Linkbait. Some of my competitors write contracts specifically so that they can sue other companies. How about this, I fucking read my contracts and I don't sign bullshit.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#57

Post by jarek »

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…

There's no way never to have your livelihood in someone's else's hands ever again; the world's too small. Probably the closest thing is growing your own food in a remote area based only on supplies you produce, but that leaves you exposed to acts of aggression aimed at control or destruction of the land.

Your livelihood depends on so many people when you're doing a tech startup (your clients, the organizations running the internet, the government, the army, your neighbours) it's not even funny.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#58

Post by wglb »

Well, your business may well not be like his business. First, it was all new then, and the first half of the swhoosh to the top.

But being of the conservative sort, I have generally had a lawyer review whatever contracts people want me to sign, firstly for him to explain what it really means--what are the actual risks. Even as a very young fellow in my first one with a contract, I knew enough that it was for me to make the business decision and for my lawyer to explain what the legal ins and outs were.

Then there was the fellow who liked to do negotiation by contract. It said that everything that I did they owned, probably back a year before I started, and that if I didn't perform the would take my house and my first born, but then on the second page they said that we are kidding about the house. And it was from a law firm that was bigger than most buildings, and Very Famous. But I pushed back and after a couple of cycles got things to be in a reasonable state.

In another long-term consulting contract negotiation, my lawyer's first response after reading it was one word "Egregious". Fortunately, I was able to hammer that into better shape. This was one where the contract was supposedly non-negotiable. I learned something there.

But in no world that I am familiar with does it make sense for the lawyer to do the negotiation. They (in all likelihood) don't understand your business as well as you do.

Even though I have been doing this for a while now, I wouldn't sign anything without a lawyer's review.

But I have also been at the other extreme, where there was no contract for a multi-year deal and it worked out well.

Use a lawyer, but use the lawyer wisely.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#59

Post by mgkimsal »

semanticist wrote: post #38
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 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.

You might be employee #20 - they can still lie to you and tell you everything's fine, then run out of money in a matter of weeks.

Re: Fucking Sue Me

#60

Post by nicksergeant »

joshfraser wrote: post #16

You have to balance your risk and reward and take the biggest risks when you have little to lose. The riskiest thing you can do is play it safe.

I know it feels good to think this, but often times playing it safe is not the riskiest thing to do. Climbing the corporate ladder, being smart with investments, and doing the right things financially are considered "playing it safe" and would be viewed considerably less risky than alternatives.
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