581–590 of 1001 posts
Beside the whole legal threat drama, is anyone else surprised that replit got $20 million in VC funding for what essentially is a script that can be made by an intern in a day? And the idea has been around forever and is not even unique. Is it really that easy to get VC funding for these types of things? Like Jesus, if all it takes is some ideas and moving to SF to secure funding like this, then I have a whole bunch…
(I'm not a lawyer, so don't interpret this as anything other than a possibly poorly-informed opinion.)
Did the author disclose the work on Riju as a prior invention before joining Repl.it? If so that puts him in the clear. I would also check your hiring contract to see what kind of clauses are in there about prior inventions. For larger companies, I don't think this company behavior would surprise anyone. I think I can understand where Repl.it is coming from. All I know is this behavior (by Riju author) isn't somethin…
Incredible that had to scroll so far down HN to find this comment.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would play devil's advocate here and say that the situation is probably muddier than it is presented in the blog. Also there appers to be a level of trust here (at least the Replit CEO trusted that OP will not make this go viral on HN and spiral into a PR nightmare I suppose, which though is the most entertaining path it can take) Not sure how talented OP is. This can as well be a case study of who not to hire.
I'm pretty skeptical. I think a rational actor wouldn't have made legal threats. Even if OP's project does somehow use some secret insight from replit, it's certainly not a threat to replit's business in any way. Legal action would be a waste of time, money, and PR. Which means that the legal threats levelled against OP are presumably coming from a place of emotion and personal resentment, and I'm very much not prepa…
The problem with applying the "rational actor" test here, or anywhere really, is that to a first approximation people are not rational actors.
> Naturally, I took down my project right away... So a CEO bullied you. He threatened to have lawyers look at something, accused you of behaving poorly, and accused you of being difficult. He is being manipulative. He is trying to guilt / scare you into stopping. And it worked. For all readers... do not be afraid of lawyers. Especially if nobody has even talked to them yet. Lawyers do not like to lose cases, so will…
Counterpoint: be afraid of lawyers. They may not be able to win s judgment against you, but they can easily bankrupt you. Remember the case where a man criticized Proctorio and was hit with a SLAPP lawsuit aimed to silence him. He ended up spending 100k on legal costs and the case is only beginning. He would have been bankrupt despite being 100% legally in the right. Fortunately for him, EFF decided to support him af…
Why? If you are 100% legally in the right then why wouldn't an entity with sufficient resources whose agenda is in line with that of yours support you? They will get all the expenses compensated after you+they win, won't they?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, if we want to supply character evidence, I know Radon. And I believe that not only were his intentions good, but also his actions. Although I would still like to hear Amjad’s side of the story.
I just... Amjad has been excellent, and I’ve never gotten the sense he would do something like this. It doesn’t even make sense for him to worry at all, let alone to send legal threats. Replit is at “early google/Microsoft vibes,” as pg put it. It would be hard for anything to kill replit, unless they do it themselves. I saw this pop up while I was out driving to the gas station, but I was so shocked that I wanted to…
You're doing it wrong.
Vote me down, but Ycombinator: "It's all about the founders blah blah blah" - if their process finds and funds these kind of people, the process is broken. https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/repl-it
Having just experienced my first "brain rape" from a recent YC grad I concur. The behavior of Amjad is similar to what I experienced interviewing (and apparently performing free consulting) with the company I was just speaking with. Maybe these situations are not the norm, but they are certainly happening.
Between this, and the story the other day related to founders bragging about taking advantage of certain vaccination site - it certainly seems that there is a basic "asshole filter" somewhere that YC does not have tuned correctly. Alternatively, they do have it tuned - and they don't mind assholes so long as they make them money... But yeah, YC should probably respond to some of this. Even if it's not a trend, it seems to now have the appearance of one.