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Comment by sourcecodeplz | Hacker News Reader

Seems like a shitty move but we should also hear from the other side before making judgements.

These sponsorships are finalised months in advance, so there is enough time to print logos everywhere. They are also relatively cheap, especially given that this is held in Spain (have done some volunteer work back in the day there, they usually go for the lower thousands), and Couchbase is trading at Nasdaq.

I cannot think of a good excuse to pull out from it at the last minute.

I can think of reasons but they’d be the kind of thing that you’d make an immediate public statement about – you’d be talking about crimes where most people would feel the need to warn others in the community.

> they’d be the kind of thing that you’d make an immediate public statement about

Not necessarily. I could see committing to an event, finding something unsavoury and telling my contact I’m out but won’t make a fuss. They mismanage internal communications which leads to someone else blowing it up, thereby requiring I respond in public second.

I don’t think this would be the case.

The event is organised by alumni of the UC3M, a public university in Spain. This year is their 10th anniversary, it isn’t anything new.

> don’t think this would be the case

Don’t disagree. But we’re going off reputation priors. Allegations can emerge that make affiliation risky without rising to the standard of public disclosure.

Maybe? It just seems hard to reconcile that with backing out a few days beforehand. If I only noticed that so late, it’d either be minor enough that I’d keep my commitment but tell them that it was the last year or something so big I’d want to warn the community. For a few thousand Euros I’m just not sure what’d be worth the cost & reputation hit for a solvent company of their size.

The other side is choosing not to make a statement. There's no reason to wait for Techfest to have to announce it first and get impugned by corpo apologists.

They confessed. They had a problem on their end and decided they could no longer exploit the opportunity as much as they had intended.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34959458

I also feel like I need to hear from the other side, but pulling your sponsorship 4 days before the event needs to have a very, very serious reason. I find it hard to believe that nobody knows why they pulled it if it's that serious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com