Kim Dotcom's new Mega project • Hacker News Board

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#31

Post by jpxxx » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:37 AM UTC

rscale wrote: post #18

ryanpers wrote: post #10

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's s…

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

Why can I only upvote this once? This man is needy garbage who doesn't rate any more attention from the industry that enabled his earlier bullshit.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#32

Post by pud » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:42 AM UTC

I can vouch for Kim's positive traits. He also has negative traits, as do we all - but I don't know much about them.

However he was a customer of AdBrite (a large ad network I founded around 2000) and I spoke with him via Skype many times around 2002. AdBrite is kinda like AdSense in that you can run our ads on your site and make money. And he was running AdBrite on one of his sites.

I don't remember which site of Kim's it was, and I don't remember why we had to kick them out for T&C infraction.

Regardless, he didn't like the AdBrite logo (which I paid a lot for) and told me his designers could make a better one. They did, and Kim let me use it for free. AdBrite raised around $40M using the logo Kim & his team designed for us. And I'm grateful.

AdBrite recently changed logos again so it's not there now. But here's the original (my designer) http://www.storesonline.com/members/963920/uploaded/adbrite_...

And here's Kim's, that we ended up using for years: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MsUpdWwPgms/UFOcvPMS74I/AAAAAAAAAW...

The differences are subtle but I believe it made a significant improvement to our brand.

And regardless if you think Kim is a brilliant entrepreneur or a criminal -- you can't deny that he makes very high quality products that people love to use. There's something we can all learn from that.

Thanks for the logo, Kim.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#33

Post by larrybolt » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:42 AM UTC

rscale wrote: post #18

ryanpers wrote: post #10

I was neutral on this guy until I read the wired story, and then I became a fan. He is a self made man (way more so than romney!), he suffers from persistent discrimination (overweight) and he has cycled thru the hero's journey. I have heard a lot of these "major success stories", but they are people who have been put in ideal situations and then they made the best of it. That is just emotionally dead for me. Kim's s…

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

I don't support everything Kim Dotcom does.. but I do support Internet neutrality. I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) the internet is one of the few mediums where the Government cannot stop free speech.. cannot stop people from posting their "real" opinion and the truth. And one of the few places where after reading an article you can do another search quite easy to ensure it is correct what you just read.

Television, Radio, the newspapers etc try to provide us with news a true as possible though I often question myself when watching the news, is this the entire truth? Is there not more behind it, or things they leave out to ease the mind of the crowd.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#34

Post by maaku » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:42 AM UTC

justindocanto wrote: post #27

logn wrote: post #15

He's soliciting for investors. Isn't that illegal? (Not that he would care)

What? Soliciting looking for an investor is illegal?? (Serious question). I know it's not 100% admirable, but i dont see anything wrong with it. Curious what the law is.

In the USA, public solicitation of investors is a crime.

At least until the SEC rules on the crowd-funding legislation.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#35

Post by jyap » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:45 AM UTC

pud wrote: post #32

I can vouch for Kim's positive traits. He also has negative traits, as do we all - but I don't know much about them. However he was a customer of AdBrite (a large ad network I founded around 2000) and I spoke with him via Skype many times around 2002. AdBrite is kinda like AdSense in that you can run our ads on your site and make money. And he was running AdBrite on one of his sites. I don't remember which site of Ki…

The logos are practically the same. Cool story though.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#36

Post by mojowo11 » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:48 AM UTC

jyap wrote: post #35

pud wrote: post #32

I can vouch for Kim's positive traits. He also has negative traits, as do we all - but I don't know much about them. However he was a customer of AdBrite (a large ad network I founded around 2000) and I spoke with him via Skype many times around 2002. AdBrite is kinda like AdSense in that you can run our ads on your site and make money. And he was running AdBrite on one of his sites. I don't remember which site of Ki…

The logos are practically the same. Cool story though.

The logos were so similar that when I opened them in tabs, I began to question whether the original post was a joke. I'm still not really sure what's going on.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#37

Post by kleiba » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:50 AM UTC

ryanpers wrote: post #22

rscale wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most. As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling. Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths?

I don't think that's true. If I'm not mistaken, the percentage of sociopaths among CEOs is somewhat higher than among the rest of the population, but that doesn't mean that the majority of CEOs are sociopaths.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#38

Post by zinssmeister » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:50 AM UTC

guylhem wrote: post #12

zinssmeister wrote: post #6

lame.

That's an interesting 5 letters reply. Does that means you have something to show which might stand the comparison? The guy did it, has a strong brand recognition and people who publicly expressed their sadness that megaupload was gone and their eagerness to give him their business again. Now he is out there to get some. I say good luck to him.

Yeah that's one way of looking at it and I once did so myself. I've seen various projects of Kim Schmitz (aka Dotcom, aka Kimble) since the late 90s and all of them ended up failing because they weren't sustainable in one way or another. But he always came back with something fresh... This time he is trying the same things twice. So my personal opinion: lame.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#39

Post by res0nat0r » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:51 AM UTC

kefs wrote: post #26

rscale wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

Did you find it shocking when the Prime Minister of a nation apologized directly for the ridiculous abuse of power and error in execution? http://www.nzherald.co.nz/national/news/video.cfm?c_id=15030...

Any raid being apologized for by the PM has nothing to do with his previous exploits which he has already been indicted and prosecuted for.

Re: Kim Dotcom's new Mega project

#40

Post by alexhawdon » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 1:53 AM UTC

ryanpers wrote: post #22

rscale wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a career criminal. He hacked for profit. He traded in stolen phone cards and turned in his compatriots for reduced sentence. He ran a "premium" phone number scam. He ran a pump and dump scheme to defraud investors. He evaded prosecution by jumping jurisdiction. He tried (and failed) to run a fake hedge fund. He sold pirated software. He committed insider trading. He's not a self-made man. He's a career criminal…

That was years ago when he was a teenager. Many people went thru an "illegal period", his was just... more successful than most. As for sociopathic, so what? Didn't you know that most CEOs are sociopaths? I find that argument... not compelling. Like it or not, sociopathy appears to be an integral/essential part of human organizations.

"Many people went thru an 'illegal period'..." What?

I think there's a pretty massive difference between the speeding, soft-drugs, petty vandalism and theft that characterise common illegal teenage behaviours and large scale fraud. Even sat behind a keyboard far-removed from your victims I'm sure the difference becomes readily apparent when the number at the bottom of your bank statement is a few digits longer than those of your peers.