AOL is going to get press out of this that am sure they will find worth the few months of squatting.
Also, entrepreneurs break rules in order to get stuff done. I applaud Eric and look forward to seeing him do well in the future.
That's AOL's decision to make. Not yours, not his.
> Also, entrepreneurs break rules in order to get stuff done.
Unethical people engage in unethical behavior (which is sometimes "breaking rules") in order to get stuff done.
Plenty of entrepreneurs do business honestly, and I'd rather read about them. I don't need a news story to tell me that behaving unethically can provide gains at a cost to others.
What unethical behavior are you referring to, and how have you demonstrated that Apple's success not only stemmed from such behavior, but could have only occurred through unethical means?
This cost the phone companies and was an illegal item that they sold on the "underground market"
If Steve didn't partner with Wozniak would Apple be around today? Doubt it.
Was this more immoral then sleeping on AOLs couches for a few months after your incubator ended? I would say so.
Now, you might think that building an education startup is not an end that requires or warrants trespassing, and you're probably right. However, I hope that you would feel differently about trespassing as a means to protect oneself from a dangerous oncoming storm.
I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but too often I hear people argue that if a certain means is immoral in one circumstance then it must be immoral in every circumstance. These people have the notion stuck in their heads that "the ends never justify the means." IMHO this viewpoint is far too reductionist to be universally valid.
2. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you're a reasonable person, and you were merely exaggerating, but I don't even know what you're trying to say. Are you trying to say that in order to do great things, rules generally have to get broken...and therefore it's ok for entrepreneurs to do unethical things?
3. Consider reducing your consumption of entrepreneurship porn.
2) The world is rendered in shades of grey, and not all ethical issues carry equal weight. Some are worth sweating, some aren't. This one isn't, according to a representative of the victimized party itself.
3) Consider having a beer or two and giving the high horse a good night's sleep.
Many successful entrepreneurs engage in social hacking in some way. What the entrepreneur in this case did was both unethical and illegal.
Just because you have a key to someone's house doesn't mean you get to open their front door and sleep on their couch.
(since you apparently missed it the first time)
I see this fellow as no worse than, say, a telemarketer. In fact, that's probably a good analogy to draw... except that I typically get more annoyed at telemarketers who hijack my time and attention, than AOL management seems to be at the person who overstayed his welcome in their building.
It's possible that I'm only as sympathetic to him as I am because he committed his offense in the course of trying to create something. Telemarketers don't offend me because they're annoying and presumptuous, but because they're lazy and unnecessary. If every telemarketer dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow, life would go on for the rest of us. If every kid with a bit of hustle and debatable judgment dropped off the face of the earth, things would go downhill in a hurry.
"Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination." http://paulgraham.com/founders.html
It's fine to break unwritten rules of decorum, or question conventional wisdom. This is another thing all together.