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Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

Did we ever get any resolution about what happened after this company threatened to sue their intern for making a side project that supposedly stole all their great ideas? I would like to know before I ever consider anything from them again.

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The founder admitted his mistake and the ex-intern's site is back up and running https://riju.codes/. I'm personally a fan of both Amjad's (CEO) and Radon's (intern) and realize that everyone makes mistakes. It's not a reason to discount the hard work of the people at replit.

A badly behaved CEO is absolutely a reason to avoid using a whole company.

Reading through the entire story leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth, especially this bit: "still refused to list any specific part of Replit he thought I had copied, even when I asked him for such details multiple times during the phone call, despite his continuing to claim both privately and publicly that I copied Replit unethically".

I haven't used Replit, but reading about it and looking at riju.codes, I have a hard time believing that there was any secret sauce that was inappropriately used, and the sketchy refusal to give details makes me think it's more about a CEO establishing dominance over the little people than any serious IP concern.

It ends with another threat - it's ok you copied, but don't copy more things (what things?)

The CEO refused to apologize, and instead doubled down, taking advantage of a massive power differential between himself and a random college grad. He only apologized when the differential evaporated after the post hit the top of HN with something like 3000 points. I don't know about you, but I don't find that to be particularly acceptable, nor a "mistake", and I'm happy to continue to punish a CEO's unethical behavior.

Sounds pretty toxic

Why is he toxic? reminds me of those media influencers calling for others to lose their jobs, freedoms and lives because they wouldn't take the vaccine.

I'll never forgive them for their toxicity and I don't think that makes me toxic.

That’s a very generous interpretation of what happened because it wasn’t a “mistake” when he threatened the intern, it was something he purposefully and intentionally did, and doubled down on, even after having significant time to reconsider. Only when there was widespread public criticism of his actions did he backpedal.

I’m curious what he’s said or done to make you a fan?

Seems like you're just arguing about the definition of the word "mistake". Intent has nothing to do with it. From Google (Oxford Dictionary):

> an action or judgment that is misguided or wrong.

So to admit that you made a mistake just means you were "misguided or wrong" which he definitely made clear he was. You're claiming that there was significant time to reconsider but the reality is that this all went down in a matter of hours from when the intern published his article. Sometimes people have bad judgement and the public and especially one's peers can help to see the error of their ways and improve for the better. If he was a repeat offender and this happened several times then I could totally understand it but there's no reason to keep bringing this up every single time anything related to Replit is mentioned on HN.

No, whole thing didn’t go down over a few hours. It was weeks. Not sure why you’d lie about this to protect someone you don’t know.

Furthermore, not only did did he refuse to acknowledge his lies, he continued to lie, doubled down on the previous ones, and to this day still continues to make deceptive statements.

So yes, as his slimy behavior has continued it is relevant to bring this up every single time replit is mentioned here.

Mistakes are not necessarily accidental or guilt-free. The CEO absolutely made a mistake.

Thanks for linking this. This is actually a superior offering to replit. They recently removed the ability to access a simple repl without logging in. Now you a) have to login and b) have to deal with this obtuse IDE-in-a-browser project creation shit. It's so many extra steps before I can run code.

I just want a URL in which I can run some code. https://riju.codes/ is literally that. Thanks!

I ran into the same thing and finally made a Replit account. I'm just gonna use Riju from now on though. Using Replit with an account is way more janky than it was without needing to login.

> Using Replit with an account is way more janky than it was without needing to login.

It’s such a massive miss by their product teams. I don’t need this half-baked IDE. I want an interface that lets me run code as quickly as possible without any intermediate steps.

> I’m personally a fan of both Amjad's (CEO)

Why?

Not at all familiar with the details of this, but just to generally observe the bigger the mistake - the harder the walk-back and the higher the chance a lesson was learned. No guarantees, but it's rare to get past the first stage.

If you read the blog post from Radon, Amjad's apology comes across as "sorry I got caught" rather than any actual remorse.

Story for those who didn't see it: https://intuitiveexplanations.com/tech/replit/

That's weird. I would never do anything even remotely similar to what my (ex) employer does. CEO sounds like a douchebag tho.

I've seen terms/clauses here in AU for full time employment, depending on the industry/niche, where you can't jump to the same industry within X months.

That's what happens when you have a society worried about money and not interested in true human development.

This CEO also has a history of punching down on Twitter. A very bad look.

Shh, another post on the home page is about them hiring (YC W18), don’t interfere with the business model!

That's just a coincidence. The job posts go into a queue and it's semi-random when they get placed. The current submission appearing at the same time is unrelated. At least I presume it is.

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