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Fucking Sue Me (2011)

pud.com

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Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#171

Post by wavefunction »

benihana wrote: post #72
wavefunction wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 downvoted you for being so thick that you can't figure out how the comic was relevant to the discussion and also because you took the time to explain your downvote, like it actually matters.

I certainly enjoyed the comic, but I felt it necessary to explain why I was downvoting the comment. I primarily upvote and rarely downvote and I hate when my seemingly appropriate posts are downvoted with no apparent rationale.

I certainly anticipated responses like yours and proceeded anyways, thanks for your thoughts, like it actually matters ;)

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#172

Post by kaa2102 »

I don't think entrepreneurs should be lazy or blind to risk; rather, they should use strategy, options and flexible arrangements to eliminate, minimize, or transfer risk. Big companies didn't want to handle fraud for online payments - Paypal founders figured it out. The OP could have brought the employee on as an independent contractor. Moreover, forming a corporation would help to limit the risk of non-delivery with the $400k contract.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#173

Post by stmartin »

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.

> taking things personally is bad for business

...and pretending to not take things personally in the context of business is just as bad, if not worse for business.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#174

Post by DigitalJack »

slantyyz wrote: post #152
mistercow wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In the case of suing former employees, it also sends a clear message to existing employees. Yes, but I'm not sure "run" is the message an you want to send to your employees.

More often than not, executives/companies think they're doing you a favor by giving you a job, even the ones who pretend to care about their employees.

This post puzzles me. How are companies not doing you a favor by GIVING you a job?

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#175

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

rayiner wrote: post #133
btilly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But lawyers working in private practice, or partners in firms with a lot of power, will presumably be willing to balance risk against reward, and try to optimize accordingly. Lawyers: please correct me if I'm assuming incorrectly here. I am not a lawyer, but you are certainly assuming incorrectly. It is a lawyer's job to not only get you a good contract, but also to maximize their billable hours. They do not gouge to…

So what you have is a curve of diminishing returns. If you spend 2 hours on a legal problem, you might get an incomplete result. If you spend 10 hours, you might get something that meets the standards of good representation but still leave a few avenues unexplored. If you spend 20 hours, you might be able to explore those avenues and assure yourself that there are no risks lying there. If you spend 30 yours, you migh…

The other problem is if your lawyer spends 20 hours, the many requested amendments are likely to prompt my lawyer to bill another 20 hours.

What happens then? Your lawyer has even more work to do.

The cycle can easily spiral.

Even for a 400k contract, it is not fun to feel nickeled and dimed with multiple 5k bills from my law firm before any work gets done.

I would rather work with someone willing to sign an imperfect contract. Unless you work very hard to tick me off, you have to do 50k worth of completely egregious stupidity before it is likely to be worthwhile to see the inside of a courtroom.

How likely is that? It is never going to happen. If I hate the work you are doing, I am going cancel the contract and never pay the final 100k or 200k you bill. Then you can effin' sue me. (More likely, we will end up negotiating a compromise...if we are not stupid buffoons.)

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#176

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

ufmace wrote: post #136
fr0sty wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the linked story at the time he said "so sue me" he had made ~$32k gross revenue and had no employees. He made his $400k and hired the employee much later.

He never actually said "so sue me", though. He was told, probably correctly, that at his size, there's no point in getting a perfect contract that precisely covers what happens in every one in a million possibility to the satisfaction of every party. Ignore the rare possibilities of the contract and just do the work, knowing that if you hit one of those rare possibilities and violate it, then their only real recourse…

Right. An honest, competent, and communicative contractor will not prompt a revenge lawsuit, because even if things go wrong, they will not blow up into 100k+ problems without the client knowing the risks of continuing down that road.

Unless you cause an egregious 50k+ of damage, suing is probably idiotic. And how can that even happen? The client would/should refuse to make the last payment if the work sucks. ("So sue me" works in both directions.) So it has to be a nearly complete fail for suing to make much sense.

It could be possible to run across a very incompetent executive who is desperate for a scapegoat...but that is probably rare. Such a suit is unlikely to see the inside of a courtroom, because it is a delaying tactic of an executive whose career is probably already circling the drain.

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#177

Post by comrade_ogilvy »

ksmiley wrote: post #64
yackob03 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will also be less likely to attract future contractors.

Playing the devil's advocate here: if contractors self-select themselves out of being hired because they're not sure they can get the job done, then all the better! The remaining applicant pool will be stronger on average.

They may be stronger, or maybe not. They certainly will learn to inflate the price to include lawyers fees.

Are you hiring a contractor to get work done? Or are you allowing the head of your legal department to pad his resume, while your department is paying for many in house lawyer hours plus (via the contract) many out of house lawyer hours?

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#179

Post by PhantomGremlin »

The 20-something young hipsters in startups now, reading HN during compiles, mostly think the sky is the limit. Salad days, nothing but good times ahead. But we've seen this movie before, and it didn't end well the last time. The whole frenetic startup scene will eventually blow up again. IMO.

Archive.org has quite a few captures of fuckedcompany.com, Pud's great site chronicling the (previous) dot com bust. I don't know if they archived everything; companies were blowing up on a daily basis, laying off people, missing payroll, closing doors without notice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company

Re: Fucking Sue Me (2011)

#180

Post by wavefunction »

vitalique wrote: post #80
wavefunction wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you also like to deliberately explain (at least to yourself) your upvotes and all the cases when you didn't make your mind or mindfully decided not to upvote or downvote? Not trolling you, I just have really hard time trying to give my vote either way, and usually just move on to next comment or submission.

I upvote posts that either I find to be consistent with my appraisals of the subject in question (these are rare in terms of my total upvotes), posts that contain well-reasoned opinions contrary to mine, or (the bulk of my upvotes) posts that force me to consider aspects or perspectives I failed to consider previous to reading.

It is the posts that cause me to redefine my understanding of subjects that primarily receive my upvotes.

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