Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

inc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#61

Post by tptacek »

mmaunder wrote: post #24
damoncali wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know... You should probably subject everyone to vesting everyone at incorporation - to keep people from ditching early with a huge slug of equity. Good investors know this, and will often rightfully insist on some sort of vesting reset - depending on circumstances. It doesn't make you an idiot to take that deal. It makes you a part of the VC machine. It's just how it works. That said, I've seen people raise (…

Our series A investors wanted vesting and we said no. They were cool with it. Vesting for founders is insane. Never accept it. Vesting for execs is mandatory and has saved me once already, ironically because our investors demanded it. Once again I'm surprised at how very very few founders have a thorough knowledge of what they're signing up for and how to get what they want. It's your company. Act like it. You don't…

Wow, disagree. Team of 3 founders, no vesting, one walks in month 6, the others stay for 4 years, build company; in the end, all three are compensated the same way.

That's a terrible way to allocate equity.

Resetting the vesting clock to zero at funding sounds insane, but if you need the money, the people offering it do set the terms. I know a lot of people who've gotten institutional VC rounds for companies; I believe all of them vested. You're right that it probably can't hurt to push back.

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#62

Post by jacquesm »

lkrubner wrote: post #47

So, in theory, he is fired for stealing from the company. But then this happens: "Eventually, after months of negotiation, Shaikh says, he got a $50,000 severance payment. He agreed to sell his 317,000 shares in the company for $73,000, less than a fourth of what they had been worth in the Series A round." Does this mean the company was uncertain about whether he was really stealing? I don't think it is normal to pay…

You let it go on far too long and you sold yourself way too cheap. 10K for 4 months of work? ridiculous.

To anybody reading this in the same or a comparable position: if your employer owes you back wages walk while you can, the writing is already on the wall and you will likely not get a cent out of them without a protracted fight.

Salaries are paid on time unless there is malice, a bad financial position or both.

Regardless of which it is your first responsibility is to yourself, not to a non-paying company.

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#64

Post by andyl »

lkrubner wrote: post #47

So, in theory, he is fired for stealing from the company. But then this happens: "Eventually, after months of negotiation, Shaikh says, he got a $50,000 severance payment. He agreed to sell his 317,000 shares in the company for $73,000, less than a fourth of what they had been worth in the Series A round." Does this mean the company was uncertain about whether he was really stealing? I don't think it is normal to pay…

My $0.02 - don't back down. Don't get emotional. Fight for what is owed you - even money that was due from 2009. Its not a black mark on your reputation to have your dispute brought before a court or mediator. Regardless of whether you recover your money, or not, it will be a good experience, and you'll be better informed and prepared in the future.

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#65

Post by capkutay »

moocow01 wrote: post #51
jacquesm wrote: post #37

I really don't get why you'd take money off the table while at the same time growing like crazy and diluting the stock significantly. Porsches and houses worth well over a million $US within 6 months of picking up $250K funding in a year when revenues were projected to hit 1M makes absolutely no sense. They should have simply matched growth to income and ridden the growth-curve instead of diluting and splurging on lu…

Totally agree but this is an unfortunately common behavior. During the dot-com boom many people picked up hugely expensive homes based upon the the perceived value of their shares. We all know how that turned out for most. Even now I hear of people buying homes way out of their means because they have some stock in the currently hot company of the week that has some assumed paper value.

How do you avoid these pitfalls? Just assume and act like you're still poor (or not rich) until you sell your stock?

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#66

Post by lkrubner »

jacquesm wrote: post #62
lkrubner wrote: post #47

So, in theory, he is fired for stealing from the company. But then this happens: "Eventually, after months of negotiation, Shaikh says, he got a $50,000 severance payment. He agreed to sell his 317,000 shares in the company for $73,000, less than a fourth of what they had been worth in the Series A round." Does this mean the company was uncertain about whether he was really stealing? I don't think it is normal to pay…

You let it go on far too long and you sold yourself way too cheap. 10K for 4 months of work? ridiculous. To anybody reading this in the same or a comparable position: if your employer owes you back wages walk while you can, the writing is already on the wall and you will likely not get a cent out of them without a protracted fight. Salaries are paid on time unless there is malice, a bad financial position or both. Re…

>10K for 4 months of work?

I'm sorry if the story is unclear. In the spring, they paid me. They were later and later about paying me as the summer wore on, which caused me to grow suspicious. As I said, I was paid for June at the end of July (the last day of July) which left me feeling somewhat suspicious. I stopped working in mid August. It was about 6 weeks of unpaid work: July and part of August.

As to "far too long" I think a lot of contractors work on a 30 day cycle, billing at the end of the month. I used to use a standard contract that said they had 30 days to pay and then late fees applied. Nowadays I usually insist on being paid within 2 weeks.

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#68

Post by lkrubner »

shareme wrote: post #58
WalterBright wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since he was a contractor, not an employee, labor laws may not apply.

PLus the aspect that he doesn't have citizenship

I think WalterBright was responding to what I wrote about my own experience. I think you are talking about the Inc article, where Shaikh lacked citizenship.

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#69

Post by madebylaw »

j_hancock76 wrote: post #59
_sentient wrote: post #13

Did anyone else get the impression that this guy is a major slime ball? I'm sure YouSendIt has issues at the top, and it does sound like Kumaran may be a little glory hungry. But when you happily engage in vengeful DDOS attacks, shitty app spam, and flip apparently stolen websites, it paints a pretty clear picture of your character. I know I sure wouldn't want a guy like Shaikh working for me. Not in a million years.

"...and flip apparently stolen websites" Can someone explain this to me. I understand stealing a website's content but how do you steal a website?

Break into the site's servers and steal the code...

Re: The Forgotten Founder: A Silicon Valley Tale of Humiliation and Revenge

#70

Post by baconner »

cperciva wrote: post #14

It seems to me that the lesson to learn here is to be careful about agreeing to vesting. Pre-series A, the three founders owned most [1] of a company which had a $6M pre-money valuation and was "on track to hit $1M in revenue" for the year. Post-series A, they each owned less than 3% of the company outright, with the rest of their shares vesting over four years [2]. What sort of idiot takes a deal which reduces them…

There are a lot of good business lessons to be learned here but there's a much more important lesson.

In business and life in general you will sometimes make big mistakes and/or just plain get screwed over. This is going to hit most people's sense of self worth and ability to reason like a ton of bricks. You need to be able to recognize when you've been compromised so you don't end up digging a deeper hole like this fellow did.

Sometimes you just have to move on. Revenge isn't going to get you anywhere.

Post reply on HN