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The Handshake Deal Protocol

ycombinator.com

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Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#211

Post by Karunamon »

brohee wrote: post #163
samstave wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fantastic idea, and there is no reason that this couldnt be an option to the Handshake Protocol. Also, these bills will be sold off and collected when massive failures happen in later years.

Don't forget to do it before witnesses, preferably a Secret Service agent. "-STATUTE- Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other e…

Important text: with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued

No destroying money for the express purpose of destroying money.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#212

Post by jcampbell1 »

tc wrote: post #65

This protocol causes a valid and enforceable contract to be formed. In fact, the constraints imposed by the protocol are almost exactly what you might learn about contracts in the first year of law school. A contract is composed of a 1) reasonably specific offer, 2) acceptance of that offer, and 3) some consideration between the parties. By forbidding vague offers, PG is assuring that obviously questionable or unenfo…

While I agree this is a legal contract, more importantly, I think this is pg setting expectations for both founders and investors.

I speculate that the underlying motivation is that YC partners are spending too much time on handshakes that have gone wrong, rather than helping building businesses.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#213

Post by amix »

Not being in SV and not following the SV way of building companies I really don't understand the rush, especially for something as important as picking the right investors. This would be like picking your wife on the first date and doing a handshake on it... Why not go for a more slow and more thoughtful route? As I see it great companies are not built in days, but years of hard, concentrated and thoughtful work and decisions.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#214

Post by saurik »

There are laws surrounding what is and is not a valid agreement. This website claims to somehow set a "standard" that would define when "if and only if" an agreement had occurred, but they do not have the right to just unilaterally do that. Even when dealing with people themselves, unless they can demonstrate that the other person had seen this website and known its contents ahead of time (and that thereby the contents of this website were to be taken as part of the overall oral agreement), the fact that they publish this website doesn't change what is or is not an agreement.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#215

Post by joallard »

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.

Replies are usually embedded in email.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#216

Post by samstave »

Karunamon wrote: post #211
brohee wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget to do it before witnesses, preferably a Secret Service agent. "-STATUTE- Whoever mutilates, cuts, defaces, disfigures, or perforates, or unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, or Federal Reserve bank, or the Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other e…

Important text: with intent to render such bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt unfit to be reissued No destroying money for the express purpose of destroying money.

Exactly! My comment refers to actually making a bill potentially MORE valuable in its re-issuance to another party after the signing event!

(legality of such statement to be reviewed by people qualified to do so, and kudos to those that find in favor and BOOOOO to those who admonish!)

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#217

Post by jholman »

I think this protocol has a flaw, in a corner case.

In the seventh paragraph, PG explicitly points out that it's in the interest of duplicitous investors to delay commitment while retaining the ability to retroactively commit. Delay between stages 3 and 4 gives investors that power, and isn't explicit.

The twelfth paragraph does address this ("both parties will usually have mobile devices... ordinarily [send messages] in person... suspicious if the other is unwilling to"). However, as it acknowledges, only USUALLY. Mobile devices get forgotten, or they run out of battery, or founders might be really crazy frugal.

It seems obvious that the fix is for Step 3 to include an expiry date/time, to be agreed upon just prior to step 1.

If only there were a discipline that had already studied things like this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_%28computer_science%2...

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#218

Post by dlss »

jholman wrote: post #217

I think this protocol has a flaw, in a corner case. In the seventh paragraph, PG explicitly points out that it's in the interest of duplicitous investors to delay commitment while retaining the ability to retroactively commit. Delay between stages 3 and 4 gives investors that power, and isn't explicit. The twelfth paragraph does address this ("both parties will usually have mobile devices... ordinarily [send messages…

This should be the top comment.

One of the explicit reasons for the protocol isn't met by the protocol.

Re: The Handshake Deal Protocol

#219

Post by jnsaff2 »

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…

There you go: http://www.guardtime.com/
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