The end must be near.
LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
11–20 of 44 posts
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#12The end must be near.
That was obvious for a long time.
Last big discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5255362
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the comments on this and other LivingSocial threads are negative because many have the perception that LivingSocial was a net negative force on the world. This is a pretty reasonable reaction. Things like "impact" and "reach" are orthogonal to whether or not something of value was contributed. Let's face it, it was a boiler room with immense reach. Technically I suppose you can call that an "accomplishment",…
A net negative force on the world? Seriously? How is that? I got good deals, businesses got to try a new marketing method, many did well, some poorly. No businesses were coerced or forced into offering a coupon on LS. I fail to see how they are a negative force or anything worse than a publisher like Yellow Pages selling ads.
Many did poorly. Few did well. Groupon/LivingSocial was a classic pump and dump kind of business, only difference is Groupon reached IPO to dump it on your mutual funds.
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#14Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the comments on this and other LivingSocial threads are negative because many have the perception that LivingSocial was a net negative force on the world. This is a pretty reasonable reaction. Things like "impact" and "reach" are orthogonal to whether or not something of value was contributed. Let's face it, it was a boiler room with immense reach. Technically I suppose you can call that an "accomplishment",…
A net negative force on the world? Seriously? How is that? I got good deals, businesses got to try a new marketing method, many did well, some poorly. No businesses were coerced or forced into offering a coupon on LS. I fail to see how they are a negative force or anything worse than a publisher like Yellow Pages selling ads.
If you really don't see how LivingSocial caused more problems than the Yellow Pages, I don't think we will be able to start a discussion.
Nobody was forced to buy those mortgages either, right?
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#16Why are all the comments so negative on this thread? Aaron has personally contributed a ton to the communities he's a part of and I have no doubt the same goes for LivingSocial. It's a company of thousands of employees and one that most definitely has a massive consumer impact. Whether or not the business thrives or fails, few people on this site can say they founded something with anywhere near as much a reach as LS…
I think the comments on this and other LivingSocial threads are negative because many have the perception that LivingSocial was a net negative force on the world. This is a pretty reasonable reaction. Things like "impact" and "reach" are orthogonal to whether or not something of value was contributed. Let's face it, it was a boiler room with immense reach. Technically I suppose you can call that an "accomplishment",…
You say this as though the founders got together and made a plan to screw people over. The people running a boiler room operate with the intent of screwing people. The founders of livingsocial, as I know them, never operated with the intent of screwing everybody involved.
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#17Why are all the comments so negative on this thread? Aaron has personally contributed a ton to the communities he's a part of and I have no doubt the same goes for LivingSocial. It's a company of thousands of employees and one that most definitely has a massive consumer impact. Whether or not the business thrives or fails, few people on this site can say they founded something with anywhere near as much a reach as LS…
I don't see anyone making negative comments about this guy as an individual, just Living Social as a business.
Personally, I couldn't find much positive to say about them when they started laying people off back in November[1] and I don't see much positive now.
You're right, I can't claim to have created anything with "near as much reach as LS" or as the same "massive consumer impact".
However, I can't see what reach or impact LS had that fellow failing business Groupon didn't.
As I said back in November, it sure looks like they just copied a momentarily hot, yet broken business model, snagged a bunch of fancy office space and sought tax breaks [2] while posting huge loses.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4845253
2: http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2012/07/10/living...
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the comments on this and other LivingSocial threads are negative because many have the perception that LivingSocial was a net negative force on the world. This is a pretty reasonable reaction. Things like "impact" and "reach" are orthogonal to whether or not something of value was contributed. Let's face it, it was a boiler room with immense reach. Technically I suppose you can call that an "accomplishment",…
You say this as though the founders got together and made a plan to screw people over. The people running a boiler room operate with the intent of screwing people. The founders of livingsocial, as I know them, never operated with the intent of screwing everybody involved.
No, to be clear, I don't want to suggest that they did that at all. I'm sure they went into it with legitimate intentions.
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the comments on this and other LivingSocial threads are negative because many have the perception that LivingSocial was a net negative force on the world. This is a pretty reasonable reaction. Things like "impact" and "reach" are orthogonal to whether or not something of value was contributed. Let's face it, it was a boiler room with immense reach. Technically I suppose you can call that an "accomplishment",…
A net negative force on the world? Seriously? How is that? I got good deals, businesses got to try a new marketing method, many did well, some poorly. No businesses were coerced or forced into offering a coupon on LS. I fail to see how they are a negative force or anything worse than a publisher like Yellow Pages selling ads.
If only this had been discussed thousands of times in hundreds of different forums...
Whether you want to talk about damage to local businesses or another company that VCs poured millions into with no return, its pretty hard to argue that this company did much good. You getting good deals and ignoring what was necessary to get them isn't really the metric by which we decide if a business is doing good or not. If you're comparing it to the Yellow Pages than that says it all really.
Re: LivingSocial co-founder Aaron Battalion quits
#20Not much to report... but an incredible love of ellipses. Maybe I burned a few periods, but, man, you have no idea what kinds of grammatical innovation are yet to come. Always remember... punctuate to live don't live to punctuate.