141–150 of 167 posts
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> then spend 10 years of their life working with startups and have nothing at the end How do they avoid starving to death after the first few days?
I imagine they spend money to consume food... after which, both food and money are gone.
Or do they get paid? Is it a lot?
In the General Ripper mode, by the sound of it.
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Of note from the article: she complained and was refunded the money after being stood up for the meeting, but they never cancelled the contract she paid to sign that gave them the right to buy her out of her own company for pennies, so once it passed to bankruptcy the creditors still took her company.
Wouldn't a contract like this be considered unenforceable? There were no services rendered, no exchange of value
This is the primary basis that California used to disqualify non-executive non-competes (before they were outright legislated out).
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Wouldn't a contract like this be considered unenforceable? There were no services rendered, no exchange of value
Founder has no money to pay for lawyers. No doubt those fees would bankrupt the company completely.
In addition, if they have a strong case and a law firm believes they could gain more than their fees, they'll often still take the case.
In other words: Do not let the idea of vague "legal fees" scare you off from pursuing a genuine grievance. At least consult with a few law firms.
This was one of several red flags for me…
> So she paid a $7,500 deposit and was all set to join Newchip when a founder friend told her to “never pay for introductions.” Hopefully everyone knows this here, but if you paid for an introduction it's a negative signal: just cold email. That being said, I'll make intros for only $6,500 and no warrants.
Don't listen to this charlatan. For only $6,499 I'll introduce you to a chap who won't charge you a cent over $6,498 for an introduction.
Hear me out - we are introducing a PaaS (Pitch as a Service) platform so that founders only pay for what VC is interested in listening.
It's just $0.003/word, allowing you to optimize your introduction. It's also lazily evaluated: if someone gets bored with it, you get cut off from your introduction and just pay for what you said up to that point.
We are offering discounts for the words "AI", "LLM", and "web3". Those are half the price.
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I once worked at a place where an employee started their first day at the start of the shift. They mumbled their way through it to lunch where they never returned. That's the shortest I've personally seen. Absolutely not a c-suite role or anything management related though.
I've had that as well. I've always wondered how someone felt so out of place they wouldn't stick it out until the end of the day, or give it a few days.
What a psychopath. To anyone who may be in this kind of situation, trust your instincts and leave . It will not get better. You will find other, better opportunities elsewhere. Best lesson I ever learned was from a high level exec that had just started at the company where I worked. He quit in 2 weeks. Impressively, he did it without drama or really even causing bad will - he just told the CEO it wasn't a match, and…
Execs can have bigger voids due to gardening leave, non competes so it looks OK. But honestly because you can (in theory) lie on your CV it ain’t worth worrying about. So the scenario where you die because you run out of money and need a job because of a gap can be remediated that way. Change the dates or something.
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Most VCs add zero value aside from the money. Bootstrapping is always better, if you can do it, of course. Exhibit A: Naval Ravikant, the flagship SV investor, widely regarded to as "a wise man", just released a kind of crappy messaging app that flopped. Imagine having unlimited leverage, unlimited money, unlimited reputation, a huge audience already in place and still that not being enough to put out a competent pro…
No one gives away 20% of a company for advice. He gives them capital. Hopefully connections. And founders can take or leave the advice. Anyway, he is a successful entrepreneur having built AngelList. Sure, maybe he isn’t Midas, but a single failure in a startup doesn’t make someone an idiot. But assuming you are referring to AirChat, it seems too early to call it a failure anyway.
You could have just said: dumb founders want dumb money.
But... not all founders are dumb.
So is the technicality of a warrant vs a SAFE that lands these founders in this position? As a SAFE is an agreement for future equity, would it also be treated as a warrant in a bankruptcy? Why would NewChip decide on this structure vs the more common?
"But startups’ objections were made in vain when the court overruled them. A bankruptcy court’s goal is to oversee the selling of assets to settle debts. If there is money left over, it’s paid to shareholders. Ryan is the majority shareholder."