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

Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

scribd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 180 posts

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#171

Post by tzs »

kodablah wrote: post #98
tzs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, I don't think we even reach that question. When Greenspan's business did not obtain the appropriate license, it left the money transmission business, making it hard for me to understand how the remaining money transmission businesses (assuming that they actually are money transmitters) are his competition.

Maybe not presently, but my takeaway is that he accuses his would-be competition (and those funding them) of not following the law. I am not familiar with the law enough to know whether you can play the well-they-don't-have-to card. But my question still stands, is there any recourse for a company who believes it is held to a double standard with regards to direct competitors?

I believe such a company could sue for unfair competition in California (but talk to an actual lawyer before acting on this belief--I am not a lawyer). The key is that it has to have actually been injured by the action of the competitors.

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#172

Post by cabinguy »

nemothekid wrote: post #157
ricardobeat wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind this guy has spent a fortune and has been severely screwed over by regulators, while dozens of startups operate in the clear with similar services. He could probably get over the hurdles with funding, but who's going to put his feet into this mess? I'd be freaking out too. Makes me wonder, if had he operated under the radar for a while, and gradually complied with newly imposed regulations, things would…

Apparently that was first avenue of action. He says here : https://www.facecash.com/legal/brown.html that he applied, but they required his company to raise 80 million dollars before he could pay $5,000 fee. Strangely enough however, he also claims to have built facebook (although the language keeps it vague enough that you aren't aware of his contribution)

http://newsroom.fb.com/News/198/Facebook-and-Think-Computer-...

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#173

Post by [deleted] »

michaelochurch wrote: post #126
kkowalczyk wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He earned what "several times over"? What logic compels you to conclude that if you get viciously and frivolously sued by someone and publicly badmouthed by him (on his weblog) you should give him a lucrative and prestigious employment (i.e. the Entrepreneur In Residence)? Do you think a sane SV VC should employ a toxic person that publicly calls Zuckerberg a psychopat? So far he filed a bunch of frivolous lawsuits a…

What logic compels you to conclude that if you get viciously and frivolously sued by someone and publicly badmouthed by him (on his weblog) you should give him a lucrative and prestigious employment (i.e. the Entrepreneur In Residence)? Let's start with the fact that his startup (lawsuit) actually does more good for society than 95% of these VC-istan social media companies (that are just excuses to waste young people…

[deleted]

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#174

Post by tzs »

redthrowaway wrote: post #142
pg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or startups could just hire him as their lawyer. Parse did and they are happy customers.

The point of non-mandatory tipping though is that it feels good for both the sender and the receiver. It gives the sender the warm fuzzies for giving even a trivial amount, and the receiver gets a concrete demonstration that their efforts are appreciated. Hiring someone to do a job certainly pays better, but its transactional nature negates the mutual emotional benefit of a token of appreciation freely given.

> The point of non-mandatory tipping though is that it feels good for both the sender and the receiver. It gives the sender the warm fuzzies for giving even a trivial amount, and the receiver gets a concrete demonstration that their efforts are appreciated.

Note, though, that for tipping systems where the tip is not cash or something reasonably equivalent to cash, the receiver might find the tip annoying.

For instance, I would overall be unhappy if someone on Reddit gave me Reddit Gold. Sure, I'd be flattered that they liked my comment enough to want to reward me, but I've looked at Gold and did not really see anything in it that I was interested in. I'd certainly get much less out of Gold than the giver thought I'd get, and I'd end up feeling that I had just wasted their gift, and I'd feel bad. I actually wish Reddit had an option one could set to disable the ability of one's account to be given Gold.

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#175

Post by rantee »

Like others predict, I think this will get booted because of lack of standing. Interesting that Greenspan makes the broad First Amendment argument about being able to represent his corporation as legal counsel based on political speech rights found in Citizens United.. but that case is not on point and won't help here. The court is unlikely to explain why and probably will dismiss it for reasons Grellas notes in the first comment too. The complaint isn't as long as it looks for non-lawyers - just skim over the parts where he lists all the defendants. After page 37 it's just copies of the laws, regulations and screenshots.

Assuming he hired a lawyer to file his other case claiming arbitrary enforcement of the CA law against his company (discussed in paragraph 4 of the complaint linked to above), that one seems much more likely to go somewhere although relief at this point is pretty unclear.

Also the first time I've noticed someone use "pivot" in the Lean Startup sense in a legal complaint (fn. 3).

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#177

Post by joewee »

grellas wrote: post #84

The key to understanding this lawsuit lies in a technical point having nothing to do with the merits of the claims and which appears at pages 35 through 37 of the complaint. In that section, the plaintiff, Think Computer Corporation, "respectfully requests that Civil Local Rule 3-9(b) be retired, or that Plaintiff be exempted from the Rule given its particular ownership [i.e., owned 100% by one individual] and tax st…

Wow, thanks for the breakdown!

Do you represent any of the parties named in this? I think the answer is obvious, but thought I should ask anyway.

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#178

Post by larrys »

redthrowaway wrote: post #153
larrys wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the reference (or a link) but I remember pretty clearly that (might have been Cialdini or similar) a principal where attorneys would do for free what they wouldn't do for, say, $50 per hour. As an example I serve on the board of a condo and I'm paid $0. Most likely if I was told I would be given $25 for every meeting I would think "my time is worth more than that" and it would actually be a negative (fig…

As soon as you bring compensation into the equation, people measure it against what they expect they should be compensated. I saw a thread on reddit earlier discussing Dennis Rodman's entreaty for Kim Jong Un to "do him a solid" and release the American who was arrested for photographing homeless children in North Korea. One of the commenters argued that this actually could work, due to the Korean principle of "Jeong…

""do him a solid""

"or helping out friends simply for the sake of helping"

To expand on this and bring in the theory of reciprocity to the discussion. By doing the solid for Rodman, Kim Jong Un gets access also to something money or power can't buy that he may want going forward (other american basketball players).

But here's an interesting thing that I have learned over time about doing "solids" for people. You have to cash in the solid rather quickly in general. That small thing [1] that you helped someone out with 10 years ago isn't as likely to get you a return favor as something you did two weeks ago.

I'm trying right now to get something that controls that money can't buy because they don't need money. So I'm working another angle whereby I try to find something that someone else needs that has some influence over them to get them to give me what I want in exchange for the favor that the party that has the influence wants. I suspect that when Bill Clinton tried to get Led Zepelin to play the concert he might have succeeded if there was something that the group needed that he could help out with. (Say theoretically an issue that access to key legislators could help with.)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bill_failed_zep_lomacy_ow...

[1] Meaning you didn't save someone's life I'm not sure how this would apply to Rodman and hostages it's all a matter of situation and degree.

Re: Aaron Greenspan sues Facebook, Sequoia, Andreesen, YC, others

#179

Post by wpietri »

pjg wrote: post #94
wpietri wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny! After reading the first few pages, I said, "What lawyer is willing to put his name on this garbage?" and paged around in the document. Only to find no lawyer's name at the bottom, just his own. And now you confirm it. Is there some way that this isn't idiotic? I have seen a federal judge in full-on "this case is a waste of my time" mode, and it is fearsome. I would never file a document with a federal court wi…

Have you looked at Aaron Greenspan's legal credentials ? He is (or atleast claims) a fellow of Stanford Law School. Has build a site for searching legal articles and in general spent considerable time researching this issue

I looked. I don't see him saying he has a JD. I don't see him saying he passed a bar exam. I especially don't see him saying he's a practicing lawyer. I have no idea what "fellow" means in this context, but he's not listed in the staff directory.

"Spending considerable time researching the issue" is not sufficient for not looking like an ass when acting as a lawyer.

There's a theoretical side to law, but it's mainly a practical art. Sort of like software. It would be hubris for somebody who has "spent considerable time researching software" to make his first coding project something big enough that it gets reported nationally.

Post reply on HN