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Fucking Sue Me (2011)

pud.com

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Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#101

Post by danielweber »

ganeumann wrote: post #79
jnbiche wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The job of an engineer is to take the cost of materials, the budget, the expected longevity of the bridge, the project schedule, the prevailing environmental and geological conditions of the siting, etc. and balance all of these different variable against each other to arrive at a solution I'm not a lawyer, but I would assume that a good lawyer adopts an analogous process: they take the value of the contract, the pr…

With lawyers, if everything goes perfectly then they just did their job. If anything goes wrong they're entirely blamed for it. Since they are paid by the hour, there is an explicit incentive to spend as much time as possible to make sure everything goes perfectly. Typical agency problem. It's up to the client to tell the lawyers when they are done. Now, the very very best lawyers, the ones who have a waiting list of…

If you don't tell your lawyers what you want, they will try to remove every problem.

Tell your lawyers you want decent terms, and you don't want to spend forever working on contracts, and have them explain the risks you face from the contract the other party proposed.

Failing to engage with lawyers and then not liking their results is like managers who fail to engage with software developers and then don't like the results. You need to tell them what you want.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#102

Post by shin_lao »

pearjuice wrote: post #56
jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Someone with 500k and a few employed certainly has money. This story was sheer luck and is only showing off that.

500 k is nothing for a Fortune 500 company. When they work with a small company they know it might be write off (ie the small company cannot deliver and the money spent is wasted).

So they won't sue but they have internal processes that say everybody must sign "The Contract".

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#103

Post by josephjrobison »

The fact that he closed with

"It works for me.

I’m not sure what the lesson is here."

Takes it from another 'oh this entrepreneur has a few specific experiences and things he has business wisdom' to just funny and awesome.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#104

Post by ganeumann »

mikro2nd wrote: post #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 an…

I think there are two kinds of lawyers: the kind who want to utilize their law school education to the fullest and the kind who have done that and realized the cost-benefit to over-lawyering is negative. The second kind has reasonable standard contracts and pretty much just refuses to spend more than a few minutes changing them. The first kind has completely unreasonable contracts and expects a long adversarial process to reach a reasonable contract.

But I agree with you because most lawyers are the first type.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#105

Post by slantyyz »

jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Never underestimate the pettiness of executives in companies with a lot of money. I've been on the receiving end of a meritless revenge lawsuit.

The net result was that it shut our startup down and turned many of the employees against the founder on a personal level. I was lucky to be able to cut my legal fees with some of my coworkers by sharing a lawyer, but I still ended up being out a few thousand dollars prior to settling (the company had to shut down and disband). Had we fought it, it would have costed a lot more than that.

--edit-- Trivia: Since we're talking about Pud's post, I'm pretty sure the company that sued me was a company that had many employees bitch about it on f*ckedcompany.com, although it was never a company that got "featured" by Pud himself.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#106

Post by raheemm »

StavrosK wrote: post #30
raheemm wrote: post #22

My risk-averse nature has been the #1 challenge in my startup life of the last 11 months. I was worried about taking on a partner for 3 months. Finally I just decided to skip that - it meant I'll grow slower. I was worried about sending sales and marketing emails for 4 months. Finally, I decided to announce my beta launch and offer discounts for anyone who signs up. One customer signed up and paid for a year's subscr…

That's not risk aversion, risk aversion is picking the safe way/minimizing risk. What you're doing is actually increasing risk because you're too afraid to handle things. There's no upside to that.

My point is that risk is often perceived to be greater than it actually is. So taking action in spite of the risk has two benefits - the real risk is exposed and often less than what we imagined and progress is made from taking action. True, this can lead to a stressful experience and perhaps recklessness.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#108

Post by Knight4 »

"Worry about that in 2 months,"

I can't help but cringe. I quit my former job at a startup because they owed me 7 months salary. I really believed in the projects and in the CEO but, in the end, he couldn't walk the talk.

It's a real shame because the company had - and still has - TONS of potential, but management is appalling.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#109

Post by Retric »

libria wrote: post #54
jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Q: Does LLC or Inc. allow the organization to take the hit (or fold) while leaving the founders relatively safe?

That only works if the company signs a contract, if you sign so pretending that says you can be held accountable then you can be held accountable. Most often seen with loans.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#110

Post by slantyyz »

eksith wrote: post #58
jasonkester wrote: post #39

There's a simple reason why this works for small businesses: nobody sues a guy with no money. So if you're a sole proprietor scraping by and you piss off a giant company with lawyers enough that they want to file a lawsuit against you, well, what's the upside for them if they win? Tens of thousands of dollars in expenses on their side, and roughly zero dollars in recovered costs from the business they destroyed or th…

Spot on. "Unless their goal is simply revenge" As they've implied in The Godfather, taking things personally is bad for business. Companies that make money do whatever is necessary to keep the flow going. Revenge is a detour to this process so unless they're trying to stifle competition or the like, destroying someone isn't worth it. Revenge is bad for business.

People who are in revenge mode don't care what's good for business. It makes them feel better and that matters more. In the case of suing former employees, it also sends a clear message to existing employees.
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