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YC and Founders Pledge

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#91

Post by lifeisstillgood »

cperciva wrote: post #88
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to backtrack wildly here - I did not mean to imply your (very large) OSS contributions had not happened. I think your track record speaks for itself. On reflection I was speaking from a worry that the majority of companies I have worked for did not / refused to allow OSS contributions, and that a lot of engineering talent was squandered on proprietary work of dubious value. Fixing that seems like it would…

Don't worry, I think I understood what you meant. I was just offering a possible explanation of why some startups might be better positioned to contribute later rather than right now. For example, I don't think I saw any code contributions from WhatsApp to FreeBSD, and I know Tarsnap donated more to the FreeBSD Foundation than WhatsApp did pre-acquisition -- but when they were acquired and Jan Koum suddenly had money…

I'm glad to hear about the BSD donation.

And, I guess the status quo is ok, it's just we live in societies built off investments in open science and open standards and yet we privatise the value this created as if the prior foundations were just a natural phenomenon

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#92

Post by _andromeda_ »

e1g wrote: post #62
kobeya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is effectively the founder saying "I don't need/want as many shares as were allocated to me, but I value more than the people who helped me reach this outcome." It's a big screw you to the later employees.

Do you feel the same about the Gates Foundation or executive managers who donate to Doctors Without Borders? To me both are admirable ways of treating private wealth, while splitting money with employees, investors, family etc is the step that happens before you end up with the private sum.

This is a classic case of expropriation from producers (employees and a corporation's stakeholders) to give to non-producers. What sort of incentive structure is being proposed here? This is bad bad bad.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#93

Post by [deleted] »

e1g wrote: post #62
kobeya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is effectively the founder saying "I don't need/want as many shares as were allocated to me, but I value more than the people who helped me reach this outcome." It's a big screw you to the later employees.

Do you feel the same about the Gates Foundation or executive managers who donate to Doctors Without Borders? To me both are admirable ways of treating private wealth, while splitting money with employees, investors, family etc is the step that happens before you end up with the private sum.

[deleted]

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#94

Post by _andromeda_ »

e1g wrote: post #62
kobeya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is effectively the founder saying "I don't need/want as many shares as were allocated to me, but I value more than the people who helped me reach this outcome." It's a big screw you to the later employees.

Do you feel the same about the Gates Foundation or executive managers who donate to Doctors Without Borders? To me both are admirable ways of treating private wealth, while splitting money with employees, investors, family etc is the step that happens before you end up with the private sum.

If anything, Gates, Altman and the likes remind me of James Taggart from Rand's novel. A corporation has no duty to anyone other than employees, customers, shareholders and immediate stakeholders. It is hard enough to do right by that group of people and all forms of charity should be voluntary. What I'm getting from this is that will become some form of defacto obligation and this must be resisted lest we end up with a dystopian world while in pursuit of 'eutopia'.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#95

Post by tptacek »

loeg wrote: post #86
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're a monster; I meant what I said. You seem to be proposing not only that it's a better idea to give money to software developers than to charities, but that founders who give money to charities are somehow violating some norm or ethic --- after all, any dollar they donate to charity is a dollar that could have gone to a developer on their team. I totally believe that's not what you're saying, but I…

Maybe: pay your (startup) software developers enough to be able to donate to charity themselves.

Virtually all SFBA software developers make more than enough to donate to charity themselves.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#96

Post by cperciva »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #91
cperciva wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry, I think I understood what you meant. I was just offering a possible explanation of why some startups might be better positioned to contribute later rather than right now. For example, I don't think I saw any code contributions from WhatsApp to FreeBSD, and I know Tarsnap donated more to the FreeBSD Foundation than WhatsApp did pre-acquisition -- but when they were acquired and Jan Koum suddenly had money…

I'm glad to hear about the BSD donation. And, I guess the status quo is ok, it's just we live in societies built off investments in open science and open standards and yet we privatise the value this created as if the prior foundations were just a natural phenomenon

This is approaching the crux of the GPL vs BSD philosophical divide, actually. Some people say "you used my work and made money from it? You should share", while others (myself included) say "you used my work and made money from it? Awesome, great to know that you managed to make something people wanted out of it".

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#97

Post by _andromeda_ »

nugga wrote: post #46
imbenclifford wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is equivalent to saying that if a founder decides she will buy a house if she exits, that she is denying employees of equity. Have I missed the point?

Now, a deal is a deal, and if they are not entitled to equity then so be it, and if you happen to be a little too late to the party then too bad, but employees work hard to create that value. I'd probably feel bummed, envious and left out if a founder with their double digit (or multi million dollar) equities flat out proclaimed to give a portion of that to charity, essentially burning that cash from my point of view…

Classic case of the socialists' mindset that is rapidly getting prevalent in the valley; take from producers (employees/shareholders) and give to non-producers. That incentive structure is messed up; I know a great deal of people who would rather be on the receiving end of that equation without putting in the sweat equity and guess what? It's never ever going to be enough to appease them.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#98

Post by kobeya »

e1g wrote: post #62
kobeya wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is effectively the founder saying "I don't need/want as many shares as were allocated to me, but I value more than the people who helped me reach this outcome." It's a big screw you to the later employees.

Do you feel the same about the Gates Foundation or executive managers who donate to Doctors Without Borders? To me both are admirable ways of treating private wealth, while splitting money with employees, investors, family etc is the step that happens before you end up with the private sum.

No, there's a clear difference. One is precommitted to up-front, the other is how someone responds to an unexpected or unlikely outcome.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#99

Post by imbenclifford »

avivo wrote: post #59
imbenclifford wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you click "I'm ready to make this official" in the signing flow, you'll see the full legal document pre-filled with your information before you sign anything. The consideration is access to our post-deployment resources, recognition on our website and invitations to our events.

Hmmm. Well, I just got to that point in the flow. It first required giving all your personal information (I put in fake stuff; also FYI the email went to my spam folder on gmail). There was no obvious way I could see to save the actual contract and show it to a lawyer before submission. I could only copy the image files of the text! I understand that you are working across multiple jurisdictions (so different templat…

Thanks for the feedback - noted. In the meantime, can you send me an email (ben@founderspledge.com) and I'll email you the document as a pdf?
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