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

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

#81

Post by dasil003 »

coffeemug wrote: post #55
ahoyhere wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On top of everything you said, folks should step back and realize that VCs or VC-related interests have historically powered all the most-read startup media (TechCrunch, HN, AVC, etc). This has an influence. According to Dow Jones Venturesource, there were only 522 M&As, buyouts, or IPOs in 2011 among venture-backed companies. 522. By contrast, over 300 people are injured by lightning strikes per year, in the US.

522. By contrast, over 300 people are injured by lightning strikes per year, in the US. While I appreciate your point, this is a very flawed analogy. There are only a few thousand people in a position to shoot for an M&A each year, and a few hundred million people in a position to get hit by lightning. Relative to the number of adults in the U.S., very few people start companies that could potentially be scalable eac…

Good points, but I don't see it as a binary proposition in tech. You can't make a moonshot without building something small but useful and then pivoting a bunch of times. In retrospect you see the path of how a company got huge as if it were a foregone conclusion, but the individual choices were not necessarily made in service of a grand vision. True there are many decisions along the way that break one way or another, but when I hear early stage folks talking super huge I just get the impression they are dreamers, whereas the guys who are simply reaching for the next level that's just out of reach can do amazing things over the course of a decade.

To me lifestyle business is more about declaring that your values are in conflict with what you feel would need to be done for further growth for this company, at this time; not because it couldn't be done, and even if it couldn't you really wouldn't know until after you tried.

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

#82

Post by dasil003 »

ahoyhere wrote: post #79
coffeemug wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

522. By contrast, over 300 people are injured by lightning strikes per year, in the US. While I appreciate your point, this is a very flawed analogy. There are only a few thousand people in a position to shoot for an M&A each year, and a few hundred million people in a position to get hit by lightning. Relative to the number of adults in the U.S., very few people start companies that could potentially be scalable eac…

You and I agree that there are only "a few thousand" people in the US in a given year who are "in a position to shoot for an M&A." There are, however, at least 10x those numbers in hopefuls… people who believe that they could do it, even though they never will be able to, and many of those people get funding and end up with nothing to show for it but a few wasted years of life. Meanwhile because of the 522 M&As etc w…

> Making an actual business with actual profit is different than what everyone calls a "startup" these days. You don't have to work your ass off.

And yet it shouldn't be, because profit-driven tech businesses can still be scalable and have many of the advantages of true "startups". It's still much closer to a "startup" than it is to a brick and mortar operation.

On the flip side, people seeking viral growth probably should not be killing themselves with work either. If you love what you do and you are productive then maybe 60 hours a week is okay, but certainly it's not serving VC interest or anyone else if you're burning out. Personally I think if there were a guaranteed way to use the other 138 hours in a week as personal R&R that would result in an uninterrupted, in-the-zone, 30-hour work week, that would be a good deal for any employer of creatives.

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

#83

Post by ahoyhere »

dasil003 wrote: post #82
ahoyhere wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I agree that there are only "a few thousand" people in the US in a given year who are "in a position to shoot for an M&A." There are, however, at least 10x those numbers in hopefuls… people who believe that they could do it, even though they never will be able to, and many of those people get funding and end up with nothing to show for it but a few wasted years of life. Meanwhile because of the 522 M&As etc w…

> Making an actual business with actual profit is different than what everyone calls a "startup" these days. You don't have to work your ass off. And yet it shouldn't be, because profit-driven tech businesses can still be scalable and have many of the advantages of true "startups". It's still much closer to a "startup" than it is to a brick and mortar operation. On the flip side, people seeking viral growth probably…

I agree with you that they shouldn't be in conflict. There are only a few outliers (FB) where they truly are, and the chance any one of us has of creating the next one of those are so tiny as to be nonexistent.

When I write about "startups" (with quotes), I am writing a reflection of what most people (at least people who write, talk, and comment) believe. :) Not what I believe ought to be.

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

#84

Post by swang »

CamperBob wrote: post #43

(Kumaran recalls telling the investor he couldn't speak because of confidentiality and antidisparagement agreements.) Memo: when writing an antidisparagement agreement, the first rule of antidisparagement agreements is that you agree not to disclose the existence of the antidisparagement agreement.

In fact couldn't it be argued that admitting that there is an antidisparagement agreement is in fact disparagement because you acknowledge that something happened to cause said agreement to be entered into?

IANAL.

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

#85

Post by ahoyhere »

dasil003 wrote: post #81
coffeemug wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

522. By contrast, over 300 people are injured by lightning strikes per year, in the US. While I appreciate your point, this is a very flawed analogy. There are only a few thousand people in a position to shoot for an M&A each year, and a few hundred million people in a position to get hit by lightning. Relative to the number of adults in the U.S., very few people start companies that could potentially be scalable eac…

Good points, but I don't see it as a binary proposition in tech. You can't make a moonshot without building something small but useful and then pivoting a bunch of times. In retrospect you see the path of how a company got huge as if it were a foregone conclusion, but the individual choices were not necessarily made in service of a grand vision. True there are many decisions along the way that break one way or anothe…

In retrospect you see the path of how a company got huge as if it were a foregone conclusion, but the individual choices were not necessarily made in service of a grand vision.

This.

To support your statement, it's worth looking into how many of the large companies today started out large -- and how many started out small and incrementally built up. The majority of successful large businesses started small.

That isn't to say they didn't take loans or types of investment to grow faster, once they already had a steady revenue base underneath them. But few succeeding in the jump from zero to 1000 headcount with Other People's Money.

Around the first dotcom boom, one of the characteristics of the destined-to-fail companies was that they tried to copy big businesses "are" like instead of emulating what those big businesses were like when they were small and starting out. Fancy offices, game rooms, huge perks, lots of headcount was a chief indicator of future doom.

A friend of mine played Fucked Company Bingo and used to bet on which companies would fail spectacularly based solely on whether or not they had press/web site touting their foosball table. She did extraordinarily well in the office pool, I've heard.

IMO, it's all happening again.

The poet Basho once wrote, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought." For startups, perhaps we should amend that to "Do not seek to copy what your target business is doing now. Seek what they sought when they began."

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

#86

Post by ahoyhere »

encoderer wrote: post #46
ahoyhere wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But a lifestyle company founder can get equally rich - just not one huge pile of money at one time." True. Especially when you consider that investment isn't income . When an investor gives you one huge pile of money at one time, it's not for you , it's for the business .

Somebody forgot to tell that to Groupon.

I thought about mentioning Groupon but thought it would make my argument sound weak. Thank YOU for bringing it up.

Seriously, I don't know how they could get away with that. Surely it's some kind of financial malfeasance?

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

#87

Post by ahoyhere »

paulhauggis wrote: post #76
encoderer wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody forgot to tell that to Groupon.

I heard an interview with the guys from Groupon and they mentioned paying $14,000 for a paper weight and paying $5K to a guy to stand in a clown-suit all day in their office just because they could. It's this sort of wasteful spending that kind of makes me want them to fail.

Ooh, wow. Do you have a link by any chance? That's enough to make it worth it to create a new Fucked Company. That's new heights (depths?).

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

#88

Post by paulhauggis »

ahoyhere wrote: post #87
paulhauggis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard an interview with the guys from Groupon and they mentioned paying $14,000 for a paper weight and paying $5K to a guy to stand in a clown-suit all day in their office just because they could. It's this sort of wasteful spending that kind of makes me want them to fail.

Ooh, wow. Do you have a link by any chance? That's enough to make it worth it to create a new Fucked Company. That's new heights (depths?).

It's the mixergy interview. You can find it there.

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

#89

Post by rdl »

1) Who the fuck were their lawyers?

2) This seems to be the inevitable consequence of third-tier investors, weird family politics, and founders with less than fully developed ethical sense (which is fine; I would expect young founders and first time founders especially to learn somewhat what things are considered ethical, starting from a personal moral framework -- that's what advisors, lawyers, investors, etc. are for).

3) The Mahler character's first instinct (this will end in tears and disaster) perhaps was right; gut instinct is a good check on decisions like that. Necessary but not sufficient.

4) Wow, now I remember what it was like when people still built stuff on windows. Using linux (or bsd) was a huge competitive advantage 1998-2005 or so; I guess like having the Internet was in the early 1990s. Macs for desktop/laptop use became this in the mid-2000s; what is the current unfair advantage held by anyone competent? Maybe the cloud, and devops vs. individual system sysadmin? Single-command deployment?

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

#90

Post by beachgeek »

andyl wrote: post #64
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.

My $0.01 (only because I'm after you :-) is for the OP to go after them in small claims court ASAP. Its not a very difficult process. I hope OP saved his bills etc.

I believe the statute of limitations is 4 years, in any case time is of the essence.

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