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OP here!

If Mark was an employee who was fired and refused to leave the premises, he'd be escorted off by security. If he promised to show up a few weeks later to talk to the board of directors or investors, they'd similarly bring in security.

That's what happened here (or what he threatened to do, anyway.) After a really bad weekend, he was "fired". Then, over a series of emails with escalating demands he eventually threatened to show up at the project booth falsely representing himself on the project. Yet, he was offered exactly what he'd have gotten if he stayed on the project.

As for the rest, it's probably harder to see this if you've never had to do it before, but it's really exhausting being asked to repeatedly justify your actions in a situation like this.

When you find that one golden person who says, "I trust your judgment", it's honestly shocking. It feels good to have your judgment trusted when you go to someone saying, "Hey, I was in a bad situation and had to make a difficult decision" and they say, "That sounds tough, but I bet you made the right choice," rather than, "Tell me why you did that?"

> When you find that one golden person who says, "I trust your judgment", it's honestly shocking.

That's because most people's judgement is not always good. Just see "Mark" as an example.

In addition, they were probably not questioning your judgement, but instead attempting to see if there's anything else they could have done, earlier. It's common practice when a good employee makes or requests a dramatic change - it's a sign of good management that they are trying to identify and fix potentially systematic problems.

As for the rest, I honestly think that any harassment was limited to Mark. It's just not that uncommon for companies to give the squeaky wheel grease to get them to just shut up. On the flip side, the constant references to "subtle threats" reflects a bias at play by the listener, not necessarily the actual intent of the speaker.

> If Mark was an employee who was fired and refused to leave the premises

It's not clear to me from your post that this was an employer/employee relationship. It seems apparent that Mark felt as if it were an equal partnership.

Was there anything in writing going into Startup Weekend that defined the terms of the relationship?

The analogy with a company is misleading. Is Mark a cofounder or an employee of this company?

* If a cofounder, he's probably entitled to shares. As a cofounder, talking to the board or investors would fit the character (he /was/ a cofounder)

* If an employee, as employee was getting paid or equity. Upon termination, he would receive severance. I think the discussion about how many tickets, what percentage of the booth, etc isn't very different from a company firing an employee and discussing how much severance. For a company with no money, how to split the assets.

In general, as investor/board member, I would be shocked to know that an employee - who hasn't signed an IP license agreement - is walking away, without signing an IP license agreement, making the entire IP asset of the company a potential legal liability. As board member, I'd have advised the CEO to QUICKLY settle this IP dispute, to give in on everything requested (booth, tickets, etc) - BUT - to receive a signed paper claiming full ownership of the project. Booth and tickets can easily be replaced. A startup whose IP ownership is unclear will be a dealbreaker for any investments during ANY due diligence process.

Employees are paid, even if the idea fails.

Perhaps the tickets could be considered Mark's pay, but how much are the members of other projects who don't win paid?

If nothing, as seems likely, they (and Mark) aren't employees.

> I'm willing to believe that the guy was being threatening and harassing, but I also read into that evidence a guy who is socially inept and frustrating to work with, but not sure on the harassment part.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. Harassment is an action, not an intent. You can harass someone because you are socially inept, but that doesn't mean you aren't harassing someone, and it explains the behavior but certainly doesn't excuse it.

> Then she says that how they really should have responded was:

That wasn't text of how she imagined he should have responded, that's a quote from an actual response she got from one of her mentors

There's a difference between harassment and someone refusing to stop pursuing a legitimate claim.

Is he a cofounder or an employee? Difficult question, but certainly a legitimate one.

You know, in isolation I felt similarly about this specific example. But looking at the rest of the article, you'd have to be blind if this is the one example you choose to pull out after reading the whole thing.

I think there's some confirmation bias going on here