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Comment by west1737 | Hacker News Reader

Do what you have to do. AOL is no worse for having someone sleeping on their couch.

AOL out the funds they spent on his theft of service and resources, and they're out the time they spent having security figure out why someone was sleeping there. They've been embarrassed in the press, and they're that much less likely to trust people that are part of their entrepreneur programs in the future.

The security staff in question was probably reprimanded for their failure to detect the interloper -- he abused the trust he had gained by previously becoming a "known" face.

You do what you have to do, ethically, to succeed.

"They've been embarrassed in the press"

They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the future. How many people reading this article know AOL as "that company that first sent me discs in the mail" and previously thought AOL as a dead company?

AOL gets free, positive press showing that they're not dead, they're investing in the future, and that they're reasonable. The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources spent.

Yeah, this was the first time I can remember thinking of "AOL" and "cool" in the same sentence. On the whole I think it reflects well on them.

> They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the future.

The best thing they can do at this point is put a positive spin on it, but ...

> The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources spent.

Not your decision to make for AOL. AOL will spin this, but post-facto justification ("see, it's not that bad -- they made good on my theft!") does not an ethical decision make.

Nowhere do I lay claim to making decisions for AOL. While I doubt they are interested, if AOL wishes to hire me for such purposes, I am available.

I pointed out that it was my opinion that the cost of the resources that Eric used was less than the cost of genuine, positive press.

I also did not declare his actions ethical. I responded to your claim that AOL has been embarrassed.

AOL responded appropriately (not pressing charges, just kindly requiring him to not sleep/live there anymore), and was able to respond to the press inquiry with a lighthearted statement that fits the narrative of the article. The article presents AOL not only as having reasonable management, but also as a place to work with great benefits (food, showers, gym, startup incubators, friendly environment).

AOL is where Yahoo will be in 5 years: they have nowhere to go but up in terms of public reputation and mindshare.

I see AOL as doing their best to avoid a bigger snafu over a smaller, unattractive snafu. Opinions on the value of this PR will vary, but the fact is that there's no substance here.

Somebody abused their fairly standard SV corporate perks, they responded without bringing in the police.

At the end of the day, my subjective impression is that their startup interests brought in an immature, ethically-challenged entrepreneur who is stuck in the money-raising cycle, and accordingly AOL has been dragged into the press because of something stupid he did.

That isn't a particularly positive narrative, but I can see how people that are more comfortable with Eric's failure of ethics can see it as a cool story of "hustling" entrepreneurship.

Meh. On AOL's scale, this sounds kind of like somebody noticing that I dropped a nickel and pocketing it instead of chasing after me. I suppose it's kind of unethical — I wouldn't do it, personally — but to put it in the same bucket with what we usually consider breaches of ethics seems incorrect. Even the AOL exec quoted in the article seemed more amused than anything else.

I'm sure the value of the theft is immaterial to AOL. The security breach is more serious, and the bigger issue, to me, is that other startups in the same building that are behaving ethically could suffer because of one person's behavior.

Or not... stop worrying that much until you actually see a consequence.

By the way, all AOL has to do now is to chastise a bit the security people and to make sure the security rounds do cover the whole floor plan. Nothing more, nothing less. I hardly see that as suffering for the other startups in the building.

Sorta... It's still stealing gym time, electricity, showers, laundry, and work space. The ends don't justify the means.

Though, companies like AOL or Google could totally make this a legit practice by asking for 2% or something of any startup that comes out of it.

AOL is a public company that has a responsibility for ensuring the safety and security of its employees and IP. That includes logging in or badging visitors, requiring contracts like NDAs, and requiring background checks. This entrepreneur skirted all those requirements.

So while AOL may not be worse off for having someone sleeping on their couch IN THIS CASE, you can bet that the hammer will come down on the rest of us in the building. From AOL's perspective, it could just as easily have been a homeless person with psychological issues. Honest entrepreneurs will suffer because of this.

Did he? He had a badge, and to get that badge, he likely had an NDA and background checks, if they are actually requirements.

It really couldn't have been a homeless person with psychological issues, he would have been noticed and likely wouldn't have made it into the initial incubator.

I applaud him (a former employee did this at one of the incubators in the valley and I always thought: mad respect), but want to to comment on the "no worse" statement. This is a typical tragedy of the commons mentality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Sure, if one person does this, AOL is no worse off, but if everyone adopts this attitude, it will have an adverse effect.

This isn't a tragedy of the commons. The food, office space, couches, etc., that the entrepreneur used were not "common" property—they were paid for by directly by AOL.

I'm flabbergasted that you can applaud him for this. It's like a former bank employee stealing money from the vault, because someone forgot to take away his badge.

I'm flabbergasted that you take his offense as if he drowned two babies and an old lady with her cat. It certainly was unethical, but his action was immature, not evil. I really fail to see an intent to cause harm. Now, he shouldn't get a prize out of it either, but that's VC for you.

Maybe you are this upset because you fear it will affect you personally?

Stealing from someone just because they can afford it doesn't make it ethical.

Statements like this fall apart in anything other than a well-behaved society. If you were a serf with a starving family in fuedal Europe, living in crushing poverty under a corrupt king, would you wouldn't steal from him to survive, had the opportunity presented itself?

I am running a fever, so not really in a good state to make my point clearly/effectively, but inevitably we are all in this together, like it or not, and who benefits is largely a matter of what rules we put in place. Poor people are frequently legally disempowered and rich people are frequently the ones engineering the rules in their favor. The assumption that what the king has "belongs" to him rightfully often turns a blind eye to where it really came from.

Anyway, it is more complicated than the arguments I have been witnessing here today and I just regret that I am not in good shape to give adequate voice to the idea that society needs to come up with a more enlightened means to address ..the whole kit and kaboodle.

Probably want to avoid comparing startups in Silicon Valley will starving serfs in feudal Europe. One is a choice, the other not so much.

On the one hand, the starving serf living in crushing poverty doesn't have much opportunity to get out of serfdom.

On the other hand, an obviously talented young developer who is starving in Silicon Valley may need to take an internship that pays $80K+ per year.

I'm not seeing the parallels.

The first sentence is not an argument nor is it true. The next sentence follows it up with a non sequitur hypothetical.

Let's say his aging mother died and he continued to cash her Social Security checks for a year, to continue to pursue his dream, would you consider it unethical? The federal government certainly has the money, and he is tenaciously pursuing his dream.

I think you're replying to the straw man "Stealing from someone just because they can afford it is always unethical.", which is not what parent said.

I agree with you that there are situations in which it's ethical to steal from someone who can afford it, but what parent said was that the latter condition doesn't guarantee it to be automatically ethical, implying that grandparent's assertion that the theft was ethical because AOL could afford it was fallacious.

"AOL is no worse for having someone sleeping on their couch."

The assumption the companies has is that the building is clear each night. Having a person there could be an issue simply if there is a fire or other event and emergency personnel involved. In no way can any responsible company tolerate this type of stowaway.

The assumption the companies has is that the building is clear each night. Having a person there could be an issue simply if there is a fire or other event and emergency personnel involved.

FWIW, from a firefighter's perspective, I can assure you that - in the event of a fire - the fire department does not assume a building is clear just because it's the middle of the night or whatever. There are any number of reasons why people could be inside at 2:00am, 3:00am, etc. Maintenance work being done, facilities people cleaning, cheating executives banging their mistresses on their desk, etc., etc. In the case of a working fire, a primary search is going to be done (conditions permitting) anyway.

In no way can any responsible company tolerate this type of stowaway.

You're probably right, but I don't really think the reasons this is true have much to do with emergency scenarios. If anything, I'd lean more towards "what if the elevator was being repaired late at night, and the stowaway fell into an elevator shaft and plunged to his death?" and any potential liability that might come out of that.

"the fire department does not assume a building is clear just because it's the middle of the night or whatever."

Thank's for pointing that out. In retrospect I can see how assumptions similar to the one that I made can cause plenty of errors in emergency situations.

"a primary search is going to be done (conditions permitting) anyway."

I watched a docudrama on the Reagan assassination attempt last night. One of the mistakes they made I believe was assuming Reagan wasn't hit by a bullet because a) he seemed fine and said he hadn't been hit and b) the secret service said he wasn't hit.

While "a" would seem to be pretty valid info "b" was based on "a". After all you can't really see whether a bullet hits someone generally. So in keeping with your "primary search" with fires, they shouldn't have "assumed" the info they were getting was correct and fully checked him out much earlier. (And in fact I'm sure that is probably they way they would operate in the future learning from that mistake.)

Indeed. Some buildings are used normally at 2am. When we have games night at Google, it's rare that it's over before 2. This is an expected use for the building -- it's considered open 24/7/365.

I imagine there are AOL employees that work late, too, or fall asleep on the company couch.

As someone who worked in the building at a startup a few months ago, the answer is no: most are gone by 5pm, all by 8pm.

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