51–60 of 108 posts
I was thinking about joining them to try it out.. but now I feel yucky.
Honestly, I feel like the criticism is missing some key points. Sam and the other founders are creators who've put a ton of work and resources into Nebula. They've made awesome original content like Jetlag and have invested heavily to support other creators on the platform. Nebula gives budgets for creators to produce their own shows, and they get a share of the revenue from subscribers they bring in—I wouldn't be su…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's definitely an interesting solution to a very similar problem I was looking at a few years ago - how to take on external investment in a co-operative company. I'm not in the US, so I can't comment on the options for Nebula, but where I live coops are a specific type of legal company which would encompass what Nebula want - a company where profit is divided between members in proportion to their contribution. As p…
> So you can't take on equity funding, only debt. Is this a huge problem?
It depends on what the company is trying to build.
The dollar amount of debt a company can take is limited by its revenue because it requires ongoing payments to service that debt. Whether it's debt from a bank business loan or by issuing corporate bonds, they both require real revenue to make those payments.
Equity investments don't have a ceiling capped by the company's present day earnings. This is important if the company has ambitions to build something that can't get any meaningful revenue on day 1. Instead, they need the money to pay salaries, cloud bills, office rent, etc to build the product and hope the later revenues will justify the investment. E.g. the early Google startup in 1998 took $25 million VC investment and didn't have meaningful revenue until +4 years later in 2002. A company with $0 revenue can't get a $25 million loan with a 4-year deferred payment plan. Yes, there's such a thing as "convertible debt-to-equity" but that's a financial vehicle for investors that doesn't apply to co-operatives.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with that is that if you truly own something, you have the right to sell that thing, and nobody can say who you can sell it to . Give it six months and it wouldn’t be “creator-owned” any more, due to cash-strapped creators dumping stock for a payday. A co-op is structurally as much about ensuring that employees can’t transfer their equity to non-employees as it is about ensuring that employees have equity…
That might be the ultimate version of "ownership" but it's by no means the only useful version. Startups typically issue shares or options but restrict selling of them. Does that mean you don't own them? Well it's complicated, but in my opinion it's far more useful to say that yes you do own them than no you don't. I as an employee of a public company receive compensation in the form of shares, but I'm only allowed t…
They have to explicitly restrict selling of the shares through contract means. That's because ownership is the legal right to possess, use, or give away (sell) a thing. Likewise, Nebula has to explicitly restrict selling of partial ownership through contract means.
This is approximately what I figured. Whenever I do deeper due diligence, this sort of scam comes up. Literally "whenever." For the record, Nebula is primarily owned and operated by creators. Those creators are: * Dave Wiskus * Brian McManus (Real Engineering) * Alex (LowSpecGamer) * Devin Stone (Legal Eagle) * Thomas Frank * Sam Denby (Wendover Productions) The other creators are getting scammed. This is not an unco…
Interesting analysis! From the facts in this post, I'd reach the following speculation: the creators have a contract that entitles them to vote on certain types of company action, a share of 50% of the revenue, and potentially representation of their votes in the form of one or two of the existing board seats. Essentially there being some company bylaws in place to enact that "ownership" mechanism. This would match w…
Why is this person who, as far as I can tell, is not, has never been, or has any intentions of being a creator on nebula complaining that creators are being screwed over? Surely if you were going to publish this piece, you'd get the opinion of at least one nebula creator?
... and why is it called the same as the Nebula Awards?