Comment by startupdiscuss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by startupdiscuss | Hacker News Reader

There are two ways to read this article:

1. Be completely skeptical of the author's claims and demand proof.

2. Give the author the benefit of the doubt.

I submit that when we ordinarily read an article, we do the second. We can't know what the other person did that was creepy or intense, but we have (presumably) all been in similar situations. The person snaps, or doesn't respond, or yells, or takes credit or any number of odious habits.

For whatever reason, some people are inclined to not give this author the benefit of the doubt and, without being there, want to give this other person the benefit of the doubt.

To them I would say this: imagine that you have an idea and recruit a technical person to help you with it. After a weekend, you tell them its not going to work for whatever reason.

Maybe you just don't like the way they smell, or they go off on goofy tangents, or you don't like their puns, or they don't laugh at your jokes. I don't care. Its just one weekend and you don't want to work with them.

You have a right to ask them not to work with you and move on. You didn't say this was forever. If the person refused to move one, what would you do?

I think a lot of people are going against the author's narrative because they don't agree with her conclusions based on the evidence she presents. I think even the people who sound like they're defending Mark would admit his behavior is inappropriate and immature. But this article started out with 'I've faced harassment constantly in my decade-long career, and this was far and away the worst of it.' The evidence points to the author dealing with a weirdo who's acting like a jackass, but equating that to harassment seems non-obvious to me (and a lot of the critical comments state as much).

On top of that, I think a lot of HNers see themselves as people who have a good idea and are afraid of being pushed out, rather than as people who push others out. So right off the bat readers from HN may think of the author as an antagonist, rather than someone to sympathize with, regardless of how justified the author is.

Did she pay though?

The agreement was that the work was voluntary.

If you volunteer to fix my yard, and after a weekend, I tell you thanks but please leave, am I suddenly expected to pay for it?

I'm not sure it has nothing to do with IP ownership. I "volunteer" to a million of opensource projects. However, I am not giving up IP ownership - they get transferred as part of the license associated with my work.

In the absence of a license, I still retain 100% ownership of everything I have produced. There is a reason why every employment agreement requires to sign a special document where the employee transfer IP ownership to the company. In an "informal" setting, Mark is fully entitled to the intellectual ownership of his work (unless he signed a license or a IP transfer). In the current situation - from a pure legal standpoint - Mark could claim ownership of the project.

I suppose Mark can argue that he can take his code and launch a competitor. Or he can threaten not to let her use "his code" or something else.

But none of those things happened!

He said he is going to show up at the booth, and that he will continue working the company.

> The agreement was that the work was voluntary.

I'm just not seeing that in the article.

Haven't you heard of startup weekend?

Please look it up:

https://startupweekend.org/

It's probably hit my radar at some point, but honestly hackathons just aren't my scene unless I'm going for work.

It's made very clear in the article. That's the point of SW. It is voluntary. It's understood that you are sharing everything. Both ways.

> It's understood that you are sharing everything. Both ways.

This was my preconception, based on the hackathons I've attended.

That also doesn't fit well with the article - it seems the author was expecting it to be their company.

In the absence of a prior discussion or agreement, I would expect it to be an equal partnership.

No, not at all. There is no equal partnership. They are under no obligation to bring you on board. You are free to go your own way, and so are they. God, if there was an implied equal partnership, that would be bad.

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