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Fucking Sue Me (2011)

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41–50 of 200 posts

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#42
Just signing anything is great until they do sue you and you're fucking screwed.

Tenancy agreements is one thing where it pays to look through and say "come on, you didn't get a lawyer to draft this, let's cross these bits out."

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#44

Relevant Hark! A Vagrant: http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=206

I downvoted your post because it only contained a link to a web comic. If you had provided some of your own opinions on the blog post or why the comic was relevant to the blog post, I would have refrained. I like to explain my downvotes when the downvoted post is not an obvious troll.

I don't see how adding commentary to the comic would have added anything.

'Relevant' linking is an art and in this case it was artfully done. You don't want to ruin the punchline, if any, as if done correctly the juxtaposition of the thread you go from to the relevant new thread should hopefully create something tangential, underlined or poignant.

This link was relevant, funny & poignant. Adding a small commentary would have removed from the latter two. It also has something significant to say about startups.

A link like this would never have made the front page even though it tangentially says something important about entrepreneurial success (something that successful entrepreneurs too-often choose to forget).

Startups should print this out and stick it on their wall.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#45

"I'm not sure what the lesson is here." I'm not sure, and furthermore, I'm not sure I agree with being overly 'fuck-it' about legal matters. But I can tell you what it's like having been where you were with the "endless lawyering," and why it sucked so badly. I worked for a startup once in which our CEO was a really smart guy, but the kind of smart guy that got overly worked up over tiny details and edge cases. We'd…

Jesus Christ, $50k to pick the company name?? You could launch a whole new product for that much.

No kidding. Someone actually inserted "Facepalm" into the running at one point, no doubt in the belief (proven correct) that the CEO woulnd't be familiar with the term. I had to stop him from submitting it to the lawyers for serious consideration.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#46
Had to laugh... in my one-man business (20 years and still going) I have almost no "Standard Policies". Almost.

But one ironclad rule I do have is, "If a the CEO is a lawyer, run away. Away is where you must run." Every time I've dealt with client companies run by a lawyer it has been horrible. They seem incapable of signing a reasonable deal and getting on with the business at hand, but insist on crossing every t and dotting every i to the death. All the juice is sucked out of the deal before it even begins.

Oh, and the only client I have ever had to see a lawyer over (to collect outstanding invoices) was a law firm that had hired me to help them design a software system for... Debt Collection. (I kid you not.)

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#47

"I'm not sure what the lesson is here." I'm not sure, and furthermore, I'm not sure I agree with being overly 'fuck-it' about legal matters. But I can tell you what it's like having been where you were with the "endless lawyering," and why it sucked so badly. I worked for a startup once in which our CEO was a really smart guy, but the kind of smart guy that got overly worked up over tiny details and edge cases. We'd…

Jesus Christ, $50k to pick the company name?? You could launch a whole new product for that much.

$50k to pick a company name sounds pretty low for most companies. Names are important. Granted I reject the idea that you need to pay some high-falutin' corporation to name it ("Agilent", anyone?), but $50k to do some background searches, patent searches, general lawyer review? Doesn't seem too bad to me.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#48
Although I think you should always have a lawyer around to highlight and explain the risks, business is not always cut and dry and contracts disputes sometimes require you go to court. After all, you just need an impartial party to make a determination. It's part of business and entrepreneurs should get used to it. Especially in our field where people throw around Intellectual Property wants/demands so easily.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#50
End of the day, this is risk management. The risk of getting sued over a deal that doesn't happen is zero. The risk of getting sued for deal that goes through is non-zero.

Here's a great example. If you want to do business with the State of New York, there's a list of non-negotiable clauses that you need to agree to. ( http://www.ogs.ny.gov/about/Docs/AppendixA.pdf )Several are onerous... you need to provide periodic reports about whether you discriminate against your employees in Northern Ireland (whether you have them or not).

As a smallish enterprise, you do not have the ability to negotiate with a big org. So you need to decide: Do you want risk and a bag of money? Or no risk and no money?

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