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Comment by cs702 | Hacker News Reader

Investors in Bending Spoons include musician The Weekend, tennis player Andre Agassi, movie star Bradley Cooper, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and director/actor Taika Waititi, among many other famous people: https://bendingspoons.com/people (scroll to the bottom to see all names).

I wonder if any of these illustrious backers are aware of the true business model of Bending Spoons, which can only be described as scammy:

1. Buy apps that have loyal users.

2. Fire all or most of the employees.

3. Update the apps with the most possibly intrusive adware, to milk user data for cash, earning a nice return.

Most users will thoughtlessly tap "OK" when asked to agree to the barrage of new permissions requested by the updated apps.

The company does other things too, but this is its main business.

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The most notable acquisition in recent times has been Evernote.

They're doing exactly as you are describing.

I've been Evernote user for years, didn't see any ads. Am I not looking in the right place?

The question I would be asking is:

How is the new owner of Evernote using my data?

A sensible concern, but not the one quoted in parent comment, which talked about adware.

Depends on how you define "adware." According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adware, Microsoft at one point defined it as "any software that installs itself on your system without your knowledge and displays advertisements when the user browses the Internet."

I'm not sure what other term I could/should have used ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Private equity playbook

Except for Eric Schmidt, that cap table reads like a bunch of suckers trying to "diversify their success." Barry Diller, on the other hand, is no sucker.

I also like how we are attaching these people to this company as though the Weekend and Taika Watiti sat down and sculpted a plan to get rich by being dickheads.

I bet their portfolio managers did that, and then attached their names to the deal to lend it an air of credibility, probably negotiating some sweet bonuses and spiffs for themselves in the process, and now this reads like they're all a POS, which, while that may be true for other reasons, hides the likely fact that the real POS's here are the stockbrokers.

People need to be aware of their investments.

If I buy shares in Phillip Morris, then I better be ok with people smoking cigarettes and everything that entails.

Especially if I’m publicly attaching my name with “prepend supports Phillip Morris.”

There’s gradations of being a dick, but approving your portfolio managers plan to buy shady companies is still a dick move. So is not being aware of what your portfolio manager buys.

No, you're right, but I think maybe I didn't communicate my thought well.

I'm not absolving them of their participation in bendingspoons and other such companies, I'm saying to not forget that it's the soulless portfolio managers that are the minds that move the body of evil.

I do blame them for their participation, but not as much as the people offering them the opportunity to profit from the exploitation of others.

It's like the Bernie Madoff "victims". A bunch of them were in on it to some degree so they could make a quick buck. I have no more sympathy for them than they do for me.

But the majority of the people who both profited and lost from Madoff were people who were letting their 401k retirement plans be managed by a company which were ultimately being used to fund the scheme.

Not a one of them likely knew that this was how their money was being used and they are all actually victims.

The real jerks are the stockbroker portfolio managers. If they didn't offer to enable rich-jerk douchery for fun and profit, it wouldn't be a thing they were all doing.

> soulless portfolio managers

Only soulless people hire soulless portfolio managers.

A portfolio manager, like a lawyer or attorney, is really specific and takes a lot of selection. People choose intentionally.

Madoff didn’t work with 401ks. No one had their 401k funds with Madoff. It was all rich people using private hedge funds. Also, Madoff was a fraud, not an asshole.

It’s very different to harm people with adware infected, terrible apps than to run a Ponzi scheme. Madoff deceived his investors. Bendingspoons says exactly what they’re going to do and then does it. They aren’t deceiving anyone.

The jerk stockbrokers are all demand side. If people weren’t jerks they wouldn’t hire jerk stockbrokers. It’s a thing because people want it.

If you have money and it ends up funding dickheads, congrats you are also a dickhead. The more money you have the less forgivable it is, simply because more money buys you better insight.

Why is it that owning stock in a company implies support for their actions? If you own stock, you may be able to vote on their future direction.

I can see how owning stock is a bet on the future success of a company, but not an endorsement. Maybe I don't understand stocks.

I think owning stock is a financial endorsement of what the company is actually doing- you own a fraction of the company and saying ‘I just want a return on my money, no matter what the company does’ does not absolve you from actually financially supporting bad actors. If I hoist you in to a building to steal something I am endorsing your behavior. Same thing.

Let's rephrase then: why does owning stock imply financially supporting the company? After IPO, you're not buying anything from the company, you're buying from other investors.

Stocks are also called shares, the name is a bit of a give away. It’s a share of a company you are a partial owner of it with some rights.

I think you do endorse the company whose shares you hold, in particular if it’s public knowledge.

Not only that, but your goal as a shareholder is to benefit financially from the company. If a company is a bad actor and you know it, you are expressly financing and benefitting from bad acts. I’m not sure why other commenters are trying to abstract this fact out of existence. It is not rocket science!

> you are expressly financing

This is the part I don't understand. You generally buy stock from other stock holders. The company doesn't get the proceeds.

So if you buy stolen goods from someone who bought the stolen goods from the thief, and you knew the goods were stolen, you are doing nothing unethical. That’s all you’re saying, which is a position you can have, but it is a sad one. And you are, in fact, contributing to bad acts. The initial buyer may not have bought the investment if they knew there wasn’t a rube down the line that would take it off their hands.

Ok, this kind of makes sense. By holding a stock, you're increasing demand. Future fund raising for the company will benefit. I think.

50% of my retirement funding is in Australian mining. Is it sustainable? Is it good for the environment? Is it an industry known for ethics?

No, no, and no.

Will they stop mining if no-one holds their public shares? Lol, no, lots of privately held mining companies exist who tend to perform even less ethically.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hancock_Prospecting#Attitudes_...

So, if they're going to dig the stuff up to sell to China anyway, I'm happy earning some money from it. I don't endorse their behaviour, but I do endorse the 10 - 15% return I've been getting on something they're doing already.

“They’re going to keep the chickens in horrific conditions whether I buy the chickens or not, so I may as well buy them, becuase ‘yum!’ Chickens.”

Your vote may be paltry, but it’s still your vote. Use it wisely. It matters.

"If we don't steal these hubcaps, someone else is bound to..."

Due diligence is part of being a lackey to rich guys. Barry Diller has people to worry about his people doing stupid shit. If you don’t have control of people acting on your behalf, you earn the asshole badge.

Generating the energy to fire a neuron giving the dude sympathy is energy wasted.

> as though the Weekend and Taika Watiti sat down and sculpted a plan to get rich by being dickheads.

To be fair, Taika Waititi is known to be a bit of a very self-confident dickhead, which is why he achieved the success he did, you need that kind of unflappable-almost-delusional self-belief to make it in film, especially when you're starting from a small isolated island nation and trying to break into Hollywood.

But yeah, in this case, a financial advisor spotted a great opportunity.

No, major celebrities are very careful about their brand and usually demand extra compensation to use it. I have seen some VC investments that require written approval of any use of the investor’s name or likeness.

Update the apps with the most possibly intrusive adware, to milk user data for cash, earning a nice return.

I think this is every app's business model now.

How'd they get both Chainsmokers?

If Apple enables it (by being sloppy with the App Store quality controls for years now) why not?

Wow, even that /people page screams "douchebags".....

Yes, also I'm not sure I see hiring decisions made by committee as a plus!

That's the Google way. I was referred by 2 people on the team I'd be on but nobody on that team had anything to do with my committee interview.

So, instead of the people who know my work (from FOSS projects) it was a random gaggle of Stanford, etc people. I don't have a degree at all so to say I was intimidated and miserable and feeling very judged is an understatement.

Even my recruiter there had gone to Stanford and mentioned that her sister went to some other school and looks down at her lowly Stanford. wild place.

in older days my artsy friends would call those Stanford etc people "yuppies" or "frat guys/gals" among other things. The culture gap is real since those ordinary graduates did in fact compete and acheive in a certain way to get where they are.. so it is easy and human nature to judge others on the criteria they were judged on.. meanwhile, real skills, talent and sweat are common among the fringy outsiders, along with bad skin, odd clothing choices, low personal skills or other warts... hang in there!

That was actually my first time in SV/SFBay area (just stuck around San Mateo and San Jose) and I hated San Mateo. I'm used to gritty fun towns like Austin and Denver and San Mateo was culture shock. Netflix has the same problem being in Los Gatos, it might be worse there.

I remember one of my Uber drivers was getting their PHD in Machine Learning/AI.

They must have a huge funnel from Stanford. I'm not sure what other good schools are over there.

It always better for possible new hires to be interviewed by as many people in the team/company as possible - if they give feedback, have a veto, is that a committee?

"Creator of product topping Hacker News"

I can't help but find this funny

Well, the compensation is not that bad for a company headquartered in Milan (Italy) and remote-friendly

> Competitive salary and stock options. Our compensation packages are designed to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. Individuals just starting their career joining on a full-time contract are offered a salary of €63,965 along with a €1,200 welfare bonus. If you already have a few years of relevant work experience, you can expect to earn between €105,737 and €143,330, depending on your expertise

Complete with cringe-worthy nickname for employees: “spooners”.

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