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The Handshake Deal Protocol

ycombinator.com

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Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#202

Post by cbhl »

IgorPartola wrote: post #128
cbhl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if something like this would happen today. With PayPal, Venmo, Interac E-mail Money Transfer, and other similar services, I would expect such a transfer (if the other person felt obligated to make one) would be nearly instantaneous.

PayPal for VC's? "OK, I'll invest in your company. Here's $5M!", "Gee, thanks!", meeting over.

I was referring to the specific case of having a significant other.

I think that the protocol as described makes a lot of sense, because paperwork. (Although I think Clerky was supposed to be trying to help out with that?)

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#205

Post by wuest »

a3_nm wrote: post #149
wuest wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I had cash on my person, it was because I was traveling, and wanted some on hand. I haven't carried cash, as a rule, in almost a decade.

I'm not in the valley, but I have the opposite policy: I systematically use cash unless it is not possible to do so. (It's better for privacy.)

Totally valid reason. I use cards for the sake of ease of tracking and protections offered by cards. I wish there were an optimal situation wherein you had privacy and protection both.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#207

Post by davidmr »

mtrimpe wrote: post #170
pg wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an amusing idea. It would be fine with me if that variant evolved. But it would have seemed frivolous if we'd proposed that.

I keep wishing someone takes up the frighteningly ambitious idea here: developing a low-friction government approved (through e.g. legal precedent) service for signing data. After a passport/identiy check it would technically just be a highly available service to cryptographically sign blobs, coupled with a mechanism to handle retractions of signed data in case of compromised keys and a decently advanced notification…

I just bought a house and never signed one piece of paper in the process (up to the closing, of course. Then I signed several hundred pieces of paper.)

All of the contractual agreements until then were signed digitally through DocuSign and they even have a nifty little iphone app. Of course they were all contracts written by my lawyers, but that counts as data. The concept of a written signature is far less relevant than it used to be. As people have mentioned actually signing a piece of paper digitally or otherwise isn't required for many legally binding contracts. (For example, my previous lease on my apartment was an email exchange between me and my landlord agreeing on the terms. Had he or I broken the terms of it, it would have been enforceable in court (in IL at least; anywhere else I couldn't say.))

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#209

Post by jamieb »

shin_lao wrote: post #136

The protocol is flawed at step 4. The investor should reply "I confirm I'm in for for " otherwise the investor could say it said yes to the wrong text message/mail, and that's it's all a misunderstanding yada yada yada Hard to do that if you have to answer something explicit.

In fact this doesn't solve the problem of investors who wait and see. If they wait a week, and things look good, they can come back and say "we have this legally binding email that says we're in". Startup comes back and says "well we didn't get your response so as per PG's handshake protocol you're not in." To which their lawyer replies "what is this handshake protocol you speak of?"

Seriously, though, isn't this whole thing giving everyone flashback of interview questions involving philosophers sending stone tablets to each other trying to verify whether the other one got it or not?

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