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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

I find Steele's argument that his staff never knowingly commissioned work that they knew the magazine couldn't pay for to be a total red herring.

It may be true that his staff were in the dark, but he wasn't, and to the extent that he authorized them to commission that work, he permitted them to commission work that he knew the magazine couldn't pay for.

Nautilus might be a first-rate science magazine, but it's only first-rate because it commissioned first-rate writers.

Do you think it will ever be able to attract and retain that caliber of writers now? I certainly don't. Definitely not with Steele at the helm.

EDIT: I looked up NautilusThink's 2015 IRS Form 990 (the latest available on GuideStar) and found an interesting line item. In that year, John Steele was paid $2,408,000 for "consulting fees" for the publication of the magazine. (The previous year he was paid a more modest $134,000.)

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> In that year, John Steele was paid $2,408,000 for "consulting fees”

This isn’t true, and people here should stop repeating it. These payments were to Nautilus Ventures LCC, which Steele owns. It’s not totally clear what this is for, but if I had to guess I’d say these are publishing costs that Steele has spun out into a separate entity (probably for tax purposes). It’s possible that Steele is using these payments to enrich himself, but this line on the 990 isn’t good evidence of that.

I can't edit my post anymore, but you're correct that the payments went to an entity that Steele owns, and Steele's own comment (as user nautilus) describes it as a pass-through. So I'm willing to let that go.

The rest of my opinion hasn't changed, though. I think Steele is using his staff's ignorance as a red herring, and I highly doubt that top-rate writers will want to work for Nautilus in the future.

So I'm willing to let that go.

You're willing to let it go? You accused someone of some kind of massive financial impropriety without any serious evidence. Other people started repeating it as fact. You owe that person an apology and a retraction and yourself some reflection beyond a rather generous 'letting it go'.

> So I'm willing to let that go.

Ha who the hell are you to let anything go? You are a liar that made a random claim without bothering to verify anything.

Now I think we're getting a little harsh. I agree that GP was incorrect, but I don't see any reason to think this was anything more than a good-faith misreading of a less-than-clear form.

> and people here should stop repeating it.

Or maybe they should repeat it until it's acknowledged, corrected, and they're satisfied with the answer?

I don't follow. You seem to be suggesting that we simply repeat a proposition for which we have no good evidence ("Steele was paid $2.5 million"), or a proposition which is verifiably false ("the Form 990 says that Steele was paid $2.5 million"), until someone can convince us to stop.

First of all, I would have thought I've already provided enough evidence to correct the latter assertion to any reasonable person's satisfaction. And second, simply repeating an accusation for which we have no solid evidence is, at best, inconsistent with rational discourse. And at worst will get you sued for defamation.

I have no problem at all with people asking where the money went. Bot that's not what you seem to be suggesting, and it's certainly not what I recommended people stop doing. It's also worth noting that Nautilus itself has weighed in to address this elsewhere in this thread:

>In 2015 Nautilus was transferred from an LLC to a 501(c)(3). As the transfer was in process, NautilusThink paid Nautilus Venture LLC to produce the magazine because the staff and contracts were still in the name of Nautilus Ventures. Is was a cost passthrough. Nautilus is fully owned by NautilusThink and Nautilus Ventures was closed.

I read it very much as a ‘don’t blame them, blame me’ statement, no?

That's how I read it.

> John Steele was paid $2,408,000 for "consulting fees" for the publication of the magazine.

That can't be true, and if true, disgusting. That's half a million more than they claimed to have paid for the totality of their content from the start of publication.

If an editor who made millions from a publication by extracting what must be a majority of its revenue as personal income allowed it to go $180K into arrears with the low-paid providers of its content without even making a personal loan, I'm grossed out.

I'm deciding this isn't true. You should add a link.

Here's the 990: http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/463/4634857...

See the bottom of PDF page 8 under Independent Contractors and the bottom of page 27. Note that p27 is NOT saying that all that money went to John Steele, just that he is an interested person in the transaction.

It looks to me like "Nautilus Ventures" is a for-profit that actually publishes and the non-profit pays that entity. All the operating expenses are there so the 990 doesn't really tell you what they spent.

It says more than that he is an interested person:

  "PAYMENT OF CONSULTING
   FEES FOR PUBLICATION OF
   THE MAGAZINE "NAUTILUS"
   TO NAUTILUS VENTURES LLC,
   AN ENTITY 100% OWNED BY
   JOHN STEELE"

But that doesn't mean he necessarily personally got all the money.

Unless I am mistaken, you have allowed your feelings to set the limits of what you are willing to accept as true?

Rather, I have allowed my instincts to set the limits of what I'm willing to accept as true without evidence. Yes. With adequate evidence, I'll believe anything.

In 2015 Nautilus was transferred from an LLC to a 501(c)(3). As the transfer was in process, NautilusThink paid Nautilus Venture LLC to produce the magazine because the staff and contracts were still in the name of Nautilus Ventures. Is was a cost passthrough. Nautilus is fully owned by NautilusThink and Nautilus Ventures was closed.

Makes sense, thanks.

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