Tech guy sounds naive plus responsible for the outcomes and maybe should just accept lesson learned.
There are lessons there for other naive tech peeps to learn from so it seems a worthy read.
The bonus lesson for the same audience: if you "go public", focus on the general aspects of the events that others may encounter and anonymise/obfuscate the people and company involved so they're not the centrepiece of the story.
Having the company name, having the situation exactly as it unfolds from the perspective of the guy who got fucked (and I don't use that word lightly) gives this story incredible power in peoples minds. It's real. If you anonymize it, it's just another fluff piece about how to not get screwed in business that gets glossed over and nobody gives a shit about.
The very fact that the company is named is the reason this piece made it to the front page of Hacker News. Without it, it would've slid silently into the night without anyone giving it a second thought.
You can burn a bridge with individuals or you can nuke the whole area to the point where other people may not want to work with you in future.
This is not just about treating other people as you wish to be treated yourself, but also holding others accountable for their part in that.
Business is a two way street. Quid pro quo. If you have my back, I will have yours, until death do us part. But if you're willing to callously knife me in the back to get ahead, do I really care if I burn that bridge... or if the fire burns your entire business to the ground in the process?
There are lines that need to be drawn in the sand about how you treat people and treating others honorably as you would want them to treat you is where that line should be - at least, it is in my mind. Clearly this is not the case in some peoples minds.
Any time a head-to-desk, business-null developer gets exploited, they say "just desserts", not realizing it weakens the bargaining position of developers as a whole.
Really sad imo.
This behaviour from anyone is just a really big black stain on humanity. It's one thing to leverage someone else's work for the gain of all, it's entirely another to totally exploit their good nature and hang them out to dry while you take all the benefit. Business is supposed to be a win-win-win situation not a win-but-screw-everyone-else-over-in-the-process situation.
While I can see that the author was incredibly naive, I can totally understand his naivete, having been burned like this myself in my earlier years. Being burned like this obliterates any trust you have for working with founders on future startups and makes for a potentially toxic working relationship in any similar situation.
Also, I think people's opinions of situations like this really lets their true colors shine through. Those who are victim blaming and shaming the author by pointing out the lack of apparent contract or that he should have known better are really just justifying the abhorrent behavior of the founders who have totally exploited someone else for their own material gain. The personality trait that lets you treat other people like that is sociopathic. Shame on them.
Yeah the guy was naive, but also, he's not asking for anything! All these people saying "suck it up and move on"... that's exactly what he did! They seem to be upset that he didn't just go out quietly.
1. They've been burned like this before and didn't have the courage to stand up for what they believed in. The author's standing up for what they believe in throws this in their face.
2. They identify with those that exploit others and feel that their behavior is justifiable because the author "had it coming to him for being so naive."
3. They are happy to accept that this is just the way things are and deal with it rather than rock the boat for the benefit of everyone in it.
4. They perceive this as just another whiner that got screwed and they're sick of listening to it, but rather than do anything about it, they just tell the whiner to stop whining and suck it up.
5. They see this behavior works for co-founders because most victims slope silently away with their tails between their legs and hope that when they model this behavior, their victims will do the same.
I say kudos to the author for writing the piece. It sucks he had to learn that lesson the hard way. I hope things turn around for him going forward.
That's a false dichotomy. It's entirely possible to condemn the exploiter while also pointing out where the exploitee made bad decisions.
Analogy: Advice like "Don't insult random strangers" does not justify or excuse physical violence by people who have been insulted.
When people's default position is "you should have known better and done better" towards the "exploitee" as you put it without any blame portioned to the exploiter, you're victim blaming, in the exact same way as the girl who got raped "had it coming to her because she should've known better than to walk around downtown dressed that way."
This shouldn't be different. If you're getting into a role - especially as a shareholder/founder make sure things are well known and documented (term sheets) and well understood by everyone.
In technology terms what he did sounds like - "a friend told me of this great software and I put it into production w/o any testing and it crashed and burned my entire customer base"...
There's only so much you can learn -- so far out you can go. This guy built their platform and an app pretty much himself. Give him some credit. I can count on one-hand the number of web developers out there I know that know all of the surrounding technologies related to what they work on.
Talk to most "full stack" developers about Unix sockets and routing protocols and watch their eyes roll back into their heads.
I see it as constructive, all around.
It's very rare (not 'never', there are sociopathic pricks everywhere), in my experience, for someone who's actually been successful to cop this particular 'tude. Probably because they've been there, they know it's difficult, they know it's worth pulling together.
He doesn't mention any contracts he saw, or signed
(At least this is the impression I get from the TL;DR, maybe the full article discusses contract more).
Always read the contract. Even with my standard large company job, with a perfectly normal benefits package I read the contract and took the time to understand it.
If you're doing something complex like becoming a shareholder in a private small business understand what you're getting it to (or in this case not getting it to at all).
Dude got screwed.