Founder Ethics | Hacker News Reader

Founder Ethics

blog.ycombinator.com

182 pointsaustenallred188 comments

A code of ethics requires quite a bit more certainty and precision. As written, this is rather vague. It sounds like someone could be somehow kicked out of YC just because they're more or less disliked (who makes the decision? how?).

The recommended behaviours are virtues, not values. Adherence to virtue is the principled pursuit of given values (e.g. honesty -> true to facts, integrity -> true to your beliefs and words, independence -> true to your own judgment).

Here are examples of fairly strong codes of ethics relevant to engineers:

- IEEE [1]

- ACM [2]

[1] http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

[2] http://www.acm.org/about/se-code

the ethics of business are... way harder than the ethics of Engineering.

Engineers occasionally have conflicts of interest with their employers and clients (e.g. when asked to build something clearly dangerous) but it's very, very rare. And Engineers are almost never asked to conceal relevant information from people they directly work with..

Business people face conflicts of interest with their customers and suppliers every day.

In business? concealing relevant information is standard, in fact, you might be failing in your duty to your shareholders if you reveal relevant information to your customers or suppliers. But, you may be defrauding those customers or suppliers if you don't reveal enough information.

This makes business ethics a lot more complex. Now, I agree that the YC ethics as written are super vague and making them more clear would be very good. In fact, I think YC has a chance to set a standard here. Considering how YC explicitly asks for hustlers, and people who push the line, one could even argue that they have a responsibility to make the line clear.

However, it is an extremely difficult thing to do. When a task is beyond your means, is it better to put up a "better than nothing" attempt that doesn't completely solve the problem, or to put up nothing at all? I don't know.

I agree with you entirely on the trickiness of business ethics, but I'd be very skeptical of anything that is more precise. If it's too long to keep in one's head, it will be easily forgotten. And if it's complex enough to cover everything in some detail, there will be a lot of opportunity for hole-finding, rules-hacking, boundary-arguing, and confusion-sowing.

Contrast that with the simplicity, say, of the Golden Rule, or Rawls' Veil of Ignorance [1], or the Eightfold Path [2]. Those are trickier to apply, because you have to do the unpacking yourself. But they're also harder to fool yourself and fool others with.

I think that's true generally, but especially so for YC. If they stick with sufficiently broad principles and heuristics, then they can finish up with, "... and if you aren't sure, ask." YC has a lot of high-touch mentorship, and mentoring is one of the best way to deal with ethical questions. They also have a strong interest in making sure YC startups behave reasonably well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

>Contrast that with the simplicity, say, of the Golden Rule, or Rawls' Veil of Ignorance [1], or the Eightfold Path [2]. Those are trickier to apply, because you have to do the unpacking yourself. But they're also harder to fool yourself and fool others with.

I think the golden rule is a perfect example of how overly-simplified rules, well, just don't work very well. And yeah, it's easy to "fool yourself" or justify whatever it is you want to do with the golden rule. It offers no more guidance than the content-free "Don't be an asshole." The golden rule involves a lot of assumptions that the other guy is, well, like you, or if you take the "treat them how they want to be treated" interpretation, then it takes a lot of guessing as to what they want.

For me, leadership means taking responsibility for failures, distributing credit for successes, and listening to the right people when it comes time to make a decision, and taking responsibility, again, for the emotionally difficult parts of that decision. Like firing people. You need to listen to the other people on your team; unless you are a very small team, that should be the largest part of the decision. But on an emotional level, those people you are asking, and those people who are getting fired both need to feel like you, the leader, are actually doing the firing.

For most people, though, that's not a leader, that's a wimp. For most people, the primary characteristics of a leader are decisiveness, dominance and charisma, things that I usually regard in a negative light.

I agree with you entirely on leadership.

But I disagree entirely on the golden rule. I hear about people all the time who justify some action with, "Well, it isn't illegal". Because with a legal code as complex as the one in the US, it's easy to lose sight of "it's right". Empathy, though, is a foundation of human moral reasoning, and the golden rule points that out.

You can see this in kids all the time. There's the classic "but I didn't break rule X" defense, wherein the kid hacks the rules. E.g., "You said not to touch him." But "How would you feel in that situation?" and "How do you think they feel?" are much harder to hack. Even if the transgressor is able to self-fool, the flaws are much more obvious to third parties. The apparent lack of content of the golden rule is a benefit; the simplicity leaves less room to hide.

I dono. Every time I've gotten fucked in business... I mean, really fucked, it was by a person who was a really nice person. A really empathetic person.

I don't think "nice" and "empathetic" has as much to do with 'ethical' as you think. From what I've seen? good businesspeople and good salespeople are absolute masters of self-justification, and they really believe it in their hearts.

To me? this is one of the ugliest parts of becoming a business person. Not only are you doing something terrible to another human, but you are going on like you are doing them a favor while you are doing it.

Human emotions are weird things. None of them conform to anything like a logical system.

That strikes me as sociopathy, not actual kindness. Or at the very least, such an education in bullshit that they literally can no longer tell right from wrong.

People like that are rarely constrained by rules, either, because they can justify that just as well.

Also, I believe that ethics is mainly an elaboration of our moral sense, which appears to be biologically rooted. For more, I recommend the work of de Waal, and his TED talk is a great place to start: http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_moral...

>That strikes me as sociopathy, not actual kindness. Or at the very least, such an education in bullshit that they literally can no longer tell right from wrong.

No, it's more subtle than that.

Let's go back to my example of what makes business ethics so difficult. You have two groups with mutually opposing interests; your shareholders and your customers/suppliers. You have some responsibility to both groups, right? If you just gut feel it, well, I mean, that's one way to go about it, sure, and if you are far enough from the line, that's okay. But if you are pushing the line, as pg advocates? Gut feeling it is probably a bad idea.

For example, more than once, I've almost gone out of business. Many years ago I hit serious financial issues. I told all my VPS customers, and went through a lot of effort to find my co-lo customers a new home.

This was absolutely the right thing to do for my customers, but it also destroyed the company, when I could have made it

(I ended up re-launching the company very shortly thereafter, using money from my contracting gigs. In fact, I think I had a few customers stick with me the whole time.)

Now, if I had shareholders at the time, I mean, who were not me? From the perspective of the shareholders, I was not acting in their interest. I should have concealed the possibly impending shutdown, and just worked hard to prevent the impending shutdown from occurring. I am pretty sure that if there was money on the line and there were owners who weren't me, I would have gotten sued for acting in what I think was the most ethical manner.

Do you see what I'm getting at? If we remove the ridiculous cases of stuffing cash into your underpants and running, a reasonable person can argue both sides of most business ethics questions. Your gut can argue both sides, too.

You make it sound like a situation being ambiguous is bad. I disagree. I think that's exactly the time for discussion, negotiation, collaboration, and reflection. All of which are aided by things like the Golden Rule.

Note that I'm not talking about gut feel. What I'm contrasting is using carefully elaborated, hard and fast rules vs applying simpler guidelines, like the Golden Rule. If the hard-and-fast rules you pick are the US legal system, for example, then the answer is simple: fuck the customers. Bankruptcy protects you. You can dodge all of the complexity.

But if you say, "Hey, how would I want to be treated if I were in their situation?" you have to think about the customers and the shareholders. Unlike rules, guidelines, principles, and heuristics all force you to engage with the complexity. Fairly arguing both sides isn't bad; it's exactly what you should be doing.

Two minor points: using retrospective knowledge is a mistake in judging ethical choices. If at the time you thought you were going out of business, then that's the ethical framework. And as far as getting sued by investors, it varies by state, but generally managers have wide latitude to run the business in the fashion they see fit. You have an obligation to keep investors informed, but if they don't like what you're doing, they can replace you.

>You make it sound like a situation being ambiguous is bad. I disagree. I think that's exactly the time for discussion, negotiation, collaboration, and reflection.

The ethical conflicts I've used as examples are "I have information relevant to all parties. If I tell everyone, one party will be damaged. If I tell no one, the other party will be damaged."

Negotiation is... difficult, when you can't reveal what you are negotiating about.

Reflecting on "who do I screw" is incredibly stressful and unpleasant.

The deep problem with successful sociopaths is that they can manipulate others to believe they are being kind. I've seen it a few times. Once you step back it feels obvious and bizarre, but before you can do that you're caught in their web. What code of ethics protects against that?

That's not the job of a code of ethics. Ethics are about your choices and their impact on others.

Ways to protect against sociopaths and narcissists include education (there are good books on both), experience, and adopting standard business practices (e.g., no work without a contract, do due diligence on your business partners, basing trust on successful experience, managing risk exposure).

Then, do you ask for permission, or do you ask for forgiveness?

The ethics of engineering is also hard. If your employer asks you to implement a feature that hurts the users, what do you do? Examples include working on the Sony rootkit, etc. Here's a great post about why it's a difficult problem and why all existing "codes of ethics" (including the IEEE/ACM code) completely fail to address it: http://glyf.livejournal.com/46589.html.

>The ethics of engineering is also hard. If your employer asks you to implement a feature that hurts the users, what do you do?

While that is true, (and that is a tricky situation) It is almost always okay to tell everyone you work with what you know, especially if the project will harm the users, and especially if you screwed up.

The only times when there is complexity is when management has the intent to harm the users, or when management is willing to cut corners to the point where the product will be unintentionally dangerous to the users even after you point out how it will be unintentionally dangerous.

My point isn't that those aren't complex conflicts... my point is that those are not what you spend your days thinking about. Most of the time, the right thing to do is to solve the problem in the best way you can, and to tell your supervisor about all problems. In fact, I can't think of a single situation where it's not appropriate, as an engineer, to tell the person you are reporting to about a problem with something you are working on.

There's only a conflict if folks further up the chain of command don't do their jobs correctly. And all employees deal with this. "If I have done my job correctly, but the company is doing something harmful to society, what responsibility, if any, do I have to stop the company?" All employees have that conflict.

I like the example of Werner Von Braun. He designed the V2, a terror weapon for use against civilians. But after Germany lost? there was no talk of prosecuting him for that. There was, however, talk of prosecuting him because he knew the Germans were using concentration camp labor to build the V2, he was in a position of moderate authority, and he did nothing to stop it.

Note how history judges him harshly for the actions he took (or did not take) as a middle-management joe (or fritz, I guess) - not for his actions as a brilliant Engineer.

The problem with business ethics is that every decision you make has to balance your responsibility to your shareholders to 'maximize shareholder value' - which involves concealing information from suppliers and customers, with your responsibility to be honest and up front with your suppliers and customers.

The ethical conflict is the normal state for business people, while it is the unusual case for the Engineer or other employee.

This makes business ethics a lot more complex.

Complex, yes, but not nearly as complex as junior founders tend to think they are.

Like as not their definition of a "complex" business ethical comes down to, more or less:

"Say WHA? They're actually reading the contract I downloaded from somewhere (or which some random mentor gave to me) -- and they actually think it means what it says? And they want to negotiate some aspect of it? OMG they're lawyering up on me! Worse, they seem to know more than I do! I'm scared!"

If you are signing big contracts without legal advice, certainly, that's a big problem. I've lost money that way.

I don't think I'd call it an ethical problem, though. It is more of a "I did something stupid because I thought I had capabilities that I do not, in fact, have."

Those seem plenty long winded, but no better in terms of precision. Selecting a random line from the ACM code:

4.01. Temper all technical judgments by the need to support and maintain human values.

What does that mean? I say that a short bulleted list of expectations is going to be more easy to digest and adhere to. Someone could hardly be expected to even know all of the rules in the ACM code, to say nothing of following them.

It isn't vague if human values is well defined. You can just look at your technical dilemma and go through the list of human values. If your technical solution compromises any of those values it is your moral obligation as a subscriber to the ACM ethical values to revise or otherwise mitigate your judgement.

As far as I can tell, it's not defined in that document. If it were, what would that look like? What values would be on the list? How would you know whether a given action compromises one of those values?

A good code of ethics includes aspects that require more context and incite more thinking. Maybe this particular rule is designed to make you ponder what you believe humanism is, and are you making decisions in accordance to it.

Socrates wasn't providing laundry lists of rules -- but his method certainly helped many people think better and pursue better courses of action.

> A good code of ethics includes aspects that require more context and incite more thinking.

I agree that a good code of ethics could be that way. But I think that's less true if the code of ethics is coupled with a system of punishment. In a system where violations are punished, I think it's desirable for the rules to be as objective as possible. Otherwise, you risk arbitrary application and/or abuse of the rules. Further, well-meaning people should be able to read the rules, understand what is and is not permitted, and tailor their behavior accordingly. They should not have to worry that they will later be punished for breaking a rule they thought they were following.

Indeed, these codes are far from perfect, and fewer rules are best. ACM members are expected to know that code and abide by it.

A code of ethics requires quite a bit more certainty and precision. As written, this is rather vague.

In any situation like this there are trade-offs between vagueness and specificity; the more specific the document, the longer they get to be (try reading the contract of adhesion your credit card company forces you to "agree" to, or the terms of service on a big website). Even then, edge cases arise.

In general, over time, overarching principles whose meaning can be applied to a specific case are better (think of the Ten Commandments, or the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as examples).

The Constitution of the United States was purposely written using very vague language and many argue that it is one of the best things that the founding fathers did.

Not to mention the specific clause that states things must not only fall within the textual provisions of the document but also the spirit with which it was written.

This is news to me.

Which clause would that be?

I suspect 'ztratar is referring, albeit not terribly articulately, to the Ninth Amendment.

Maybe, but the Ninth is about limiting the document's scope relating to a subtlety of logic ("not explicitly permitted" != "forbidden "), nothing to do with "spirit"

Why was this downvoted? If it's nonsense, could someone have the good graces to say why?

Many may argue that, but that doesn't mean they're right. The bill of rights is mostly great, but the actual design of the government is pretty lousy, a series of compromises to keep slave states happy and a few vestiges of English rule mixed in. All of this combined with a reform process that makes it essentially impossible to fix the mistakes they made.

I think the things "the founders" did in principle -- booting out the British and establishing a right of the people to choose their government, peaceful transfer of power, etc, better than the government they set up.

Plus, yeah, that bill of rights is pretty great. So good job, antifederalists.

[IANAL]

This code of ethics is exactly for the purpose of establishing the means to kick people out of YC. It's essentially a legal document that covers any implied contracts in regard to privileges historically associated with having been a YC founder - e.g. participating in application reviews, a slightly different version of HN, and in particular it seems, the ability to market one's self as a 'YC founder.' [1]

In short, it's directly about protecting the brand, and indirectly a tool for helping individual founders protect their reputation in times of extreme stress. The analogy that comes to mind is 'morality clauses' in professional sports contracts. It sets the bar higher than "Is it legal?".

    It_is_legal = worst(allowed_by_law)

The merit of YC giving themselves the option to kick out people they don't like is something about which we can argue endlessly. Personally, I'm OK with it. It's firing the customer, and that's good business and a way for a business to maintain standards.

[1] This one is ontologically interesting. Can YC Foundership really be revoked? Isn't it an immutable fact that a person is a 'YC Founder' once the check clears? Is 'YC Founder' trademarked? If so, how does this sit with YC's general stance on intellectual property? Is my philosophical pondering itch scratched? It turns out, yes.

Pardon if this is slightly off-topic, but you mentioned a slightly different version of HN - this is the first time I hear about this. Could you please provide more details? 10x

It comes up from time to time. I don't remember the details, but that they aren't particularly significant if my impression is correct.

The curious cat in me is wondering, "Did something in particular prompt this post?"

Nothing in particular. But as we grow, I think it's important we're clear about our expectations. Because the amounts are small and we fund so many companies, we don't do much diligence before investing. So occasionally we'll fund someone bad.

We've had problems in the past, but only twice that I know of. We have now funded more than 700 companies, so that seems remarkably low.

I would like to see "keeping investors informed" as part of the honesty thing. I've had a few YC founders dissapear without so much as a "we're shutting down."

Fold that into the "spend money for the unique benefit of the company"?

A lot of these really fall into "fiduciary responsibility", but a more 20-year-old accessible statement of that would be ideal.

I don't think anyone absconded with anything. The company legitimately gave up the ghost. An email explaining it and then shutting down the company so I can take my losses would be nice, though.

That is surprisingly low given the number of YC founders there are now.

Paraphrasing something I heard from a (somewhat retired) CEO is that beyond a certain size, you're going to end up with problem employees in some proportion to the world at large. i.e the one with a possible alcohol problem, the one who is abusive, the one with odd compulsive behaviours and all manner of other predilections you were unprepared for. The first time you have to deal with this is a bit of a shock but you eventually realise that it's just reflection of humanity at large.

> We've had problems in the past, but only twice that I know of.

Possibly more than just two, but kudos for establishing these anyway. And yes, it is remarkably low.

Sam,

As a former Green Dot VP, you're no doubt familiar with the money transmission legal problem (http://www.regulations.gov/contentStreamer?objectId=09000064...). Do you think it is ethical for Y Combinator, its portfolio companies, or its founders to violate state and federal laws simply because they're poorly enforced? Is it ethical for those companies to quietly hire, as contractors or employees, former regulators to "guide" them through the regulatory process? What about overseas tax havens? Does Y Combinator have a policy on the ethics of that issue?

Also, there were more than two Y Combinator portfolio companies named as defendants in the federal lawsuit over money transmission (http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/t6maunfo/california-norther...), so how are you defining "problems?" Are federal lawsuits alleging unlawful and immoral wrongdoing not "problematic?"

What about shell corporations? Does Y Combinator have any connection to Payments Sub, Inc., the company that Airbnb's CFO formed after being sued to obtain a money transmission license in California?

Regardless, wouldn't the most ethical thing to do in the face of a confusing legal situation involve public lobbying for reform of the laws at issue, rather than exploitation of the chaos? Why has Y Combinator consistently opted for the latter, rather than the former?

Aaron

Speaking of ethics, I think you mean:

"Also, there were more than two Y Combinator portfolio companies named as defendants in my federal lawsuit over money transmission"

Hi Tom,

What's the ethical problem here exactly? I linked to the lawsuit docket, it's clear that my company filed it, and it doesn't matter either way in the context of my argument.

Furthermore, had I written "my" as you suggest, it would make it sound like there is a potential ethical problem because I say so. But my point isn't that there is a potential ethical problem because I say so. My point is that there is a potential ethical problem when lawsuits in general start getting filed.

Aaron

Anyone can file a lawsuit naming anyone they like. You are using the existence of a lawsuit you filed as evidence in your argument. I would call that "circular logic".

Actually, no, that's not what I'm doing.

True, the lawsuit exists, and anyone can be named. But this particular lawsuit is backed up with a few hundred pages of evidence. Feel free to read it--that's why I linked to the docket, so that anyone can. No circular logic involved.

Again, my point is that lawsuits are signaling mechanisms for ethical problems.

I also disagree. And I have no dog in this fight -- no affiliation with YC nor Aaron/thinkcomp.

It is false and tendentious to claim that "lawsuits are signaling mechanisms for ethical problems" -- the law nowadays is sadly well-divorced from ethics. Just look at some of Hollywood's inane copyright lawsuits with Silicon Valley companies as defendants. Or the rise in software "patent" suits. Or Harvey Silverglate's book Three Felonies a Day. Etc.

It would probably be true to say that lawsuits are signaling mechanisms for business success. I once interviewed Cypress Semiconductor CEO TJ Rodgers who pointed to the list of complaint cover pages on his office wall. There were dozens. He said something to the effect of: Whenever we get sued, that means that our competitors are unable to win in the marketplace. Bring it on!

If I'm not mistaken Aaron/thinkcomp is suing just about everyone who could possibly be a defendant including Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, DST Global, Dwolla, Kleiner Perkins, Slide co-founder Max Levchin, Reddit CEO Yishan Wong, Sequoia Capital, Square, and Y Combinator. (If YC principals don't reply in this thread, it's probably because of litigation.)

A uninvolved attorney, commenting on this case, wrote: "Unfortunately for Aaron Greenspan, he has sued enough people to seem litigious at best—his own word choice—and a little crazy at worst (that last word choice is mine)." http://blog.upcounsel.com/aaron-greenspan-versus-silicon-val... While I'm expressing no opinion about the merits of this suit, I do wish Aaron/thinkcomp would do less lawyering and more, actual, you know, engineering.

I wish I were allowed to.

(Since 2011, I've built PlainSite from scratch, building on Aaron Swartz's PACER data. But I'd rather be working on payments.)

Also, I'd expect a reporter as experienced as yourself to read the complaint and evaluate the evidence on its own merits. There was a long list of defendants in the recent litigation involving Google and Apple and Intuit and eBay, because--guess what--they all broke the law.

I stand by my point that lawsuits are signaling mechanisms for potential ethical problems. Not all of them are legit. Sometimes they're just crazy. But by and large, they point to problems that need resolution.

Also, if you want to selectively quote things from articles, here's what Felix Salmon at Reuters has to say about T.J. Rodgers: "Chrystia Freeland has found a classic example of Silicon Valley hubris in TJ Rodgers."

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2012/06/01/silicon-val...

Regarding my legal battle with California, the Upcounsel article also said, "He may be right, and it seems obvious that California’s MTA is much tougher than comparable laws in other states," as well as "his complaint raises some valid points."

Civil suits should definitely not be considered signals of ethical problems. This case is a perfect example where the law is vague, primarily exists to protect some large incumbents and has been used to generate a lawsuit by a legally active gadfly with tenuous standing.

If there were standing issues in the case against California it would been tossed out years ago.

In the unfair competition case, after trying and failing to get rid of the case via bogus sanctions, Y Combinator and the other defendants manufactured standing issues to get it thrown out by arguing that one cannot be the victim of "unfair competition" if one is not legally permitted to compete (even when the other parties are "competing" by breaking a law). This leads to the perverse conclusion that § 17200 encourages illegal activity.

Most legal gadflies are not cited by opposing counsel in formal filings before state agencies, invited to submit testimony to Congress, consulted by the GAO on what to tell Congress, cited by academics, or offered fellowships at Stanford Law School. But, you know, whatever.

I disagree. Lawsuits could also be rightfully characterized as signalling mechanisms for predatory (but still ethical) commercial opportunities, social ills and/or exploitation of same, poorly constructed laws or regulations, reasonable disagreements, and probably half a dozen other situations. Not to mention that the ethical problems that could be signaled by a lawsuit might be those of the plaintiff, the defendant, or either of their legal teams. Or all of them together.

You disagree. With what? Did you read it? Do you have any thoughts on the ethical issues presented? Or are you trying to score some karma points?

Is anyone here actually willing to discuss the actual points I've raised? Just want to get that on the record.

Hmmm, I suppose that could have been plainer. I disagree with your assertion that - as a general rule - the existence of a lawsuit necessarily signals ethical concerns relating to the defendant.

As for "it", if "it" was not in the text of one of the comments leading up to my post, I probably did not read "it". In any event, I doubt that further knowledge of "it" would have substantially modified the nature of that assertion you made.

The actual subject matter of the lawsuit you've been referencing is only of marginal interest to me (and is irrelevant to my comment), and I didn't feel like looking through the claimed hundreds of pages of materials, or addressing the merits of a case that is already in the hands of professionals.

Civil lawsuits indicate disagreement.

It might be more on track to say that criminal lawsuits indicate criminal activity, since DAs are only supposed to commence with prosecution when they believe that the law has been broken and when they can prove it. It's a safe bet that the majority of people criminally accused actually did what happened. But it violates the spirit of innocent until proven guilty, where even after an investigation the state must still convince a jury of the defendant's peers beyond a reasonable doubt.

So that's just to contrast with civil lawsuits. There is essentially no bar at all for those.

Bringing "beating a dead horse" to new heights.

Your employer just filed a $5 billion lawsuit against Visa about this dead horse (interchange fees). It's not the first time. What happens in this market matters.

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/28ec7xw86/arkansas-western-...

http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/28ec8i12d/new-york-eastern-...

I'm not employed, so I'm not sure how that's relevant.

Perhaps if you talked about anything else we wouldn't automatically think "oh, this guy again."

"I'm an advisor for Walmart." --your profile on this web site.

Is your argument really that I haven't written about enough different topics? Well, here's some for you:

- Toxic waste in Palo Alto http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=88

- Supreme Court briefing requirements http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=87

- Business schools http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=58

- Airport security http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=49

So given that I've written about a variety of issues, do you have any substantive response to any of the questions I pose above?

When I see you comment, you are usually using whatever topic to talk about your pet issues, which is usually money transmission.

Combining your boorish focus with your unpleasant discourse makes me think, "oh god, he's here to beat his dead horse again."

For what it's worth, digging into someone's profile to figure out how some background detail is relevant to your dead horse is is somewhere between "unpleasant discourse" and "creepy."

I also suspect that pointing these things out to you is unlikely to yield fruit so I already know that this is my own private dead horse.

I'll update my profile regardless.

I understand that you don't like what I have to say. And I understand that you, and apparently others, don't like talking or even reading, for whatever reason, about money transmission.

Here's what I don't understand: you're now criticizing me for referencing something you posted on a public profile. Why did you put it there if you don't want it to be seen or considered?

You're also criticizing me for raising a substantive issue especially relevant to startup founders and investors, on a forum for startup founders and investors, when you yourself are a startup founder and (it would appear from this page) investor.

If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I am just some crazy person obsessed with a pet issue that has no bearing on reality, by all means go ahead. But this is exactly the ethical debate I believe needs to be had. Because I am not just a crazy person obsessed with a pet issue. I, like you, am a rather rational person looking to turn a profit from my involvement in the technology sector. And the California legislature has now put forth not one, but two bills, to amend the law that I am most concerned with because it had a material impact on my company and many others, including some of the largest in the country (ADP, PayPal, MoneyGram, etc.). Moreover, this law affects you and potentially your investments. It certainly affects Y Combinator. And there are serious ethical issues tied up in all of this, which I will continue to haul before a judge as long as I need to.

So really, what are you getting at? You don't like me? No problem, you don't have to. But don't pretend that I'm doing something "creepy" when all that I'm doing is pointing out that laws actually matter.

I guess my point is: you sound like a crazy person. You use tangential issues to raise things you think are important (YC ethics, my background) that nobody else seems to agree on.

The creepy refers to your mode of communication, not the message specifically. I never really get to the meat of what you are saying because I find I dislike your manner of presentation.

The message and the format are inseparable.

Again, what you consider a "tangential issue" is directly linked to a $5 billion dollar lawsuit over interchange fees (actually, several, that's just the latest one). Where I come from, that amount of money is not "tangential." It's core.

I think ethics are important. I don't really know much about your background. But it's disingenuous of you to claim that it's irrelevant when you're an investor with links to Walmart.

The only reason I sound like a crazy person to you is because, as you admit, you "never really get to the meat of what [I'm] saying." That's easily remedied by actually reading what's written, as opposed to just scoffing and writing me off as crazy.

As for format, I've tried just about everything there is, but I'm open to suggestions. In any event, my approach seems to be working, whether you want to admit it or not:

http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_number=ab_2209&...

You don't sound crazy to me, but definitely angry, which makes it painful for me to read you.

The technicalities are way over my head, but even if you're right, you're unlikely to get any reply from YC since a law suit is pending...

Unsolicited advice:

From what others say in this thread, it sounds like you're obsessed with this issue. If I understand correctly, you've been wronged and filed a law suit because of it. Let your lawyers do their thing, and move on.

Your rants cause you more pain than they cause to the people you accuse.

Re: "Let your lawyers do their thing"

Greenspan is acting as his own lawyer in this action (unless other counsel has been added since the initial complaint).

False. Read the docket, linked above.

Thanks for the update, I was relying on your original complaint's text that "…Plaintiff's Board of Directors wishes Plaintiff’s CEO, Aaron Greenspan, to represent Think Computer Corporation in this matter before the Court", but my parenthetical qualification allowed for the chance you might have acquired lawyers later.

I guess my point is that it just seems like you are using any relevant point to talk about your own issues. Conversation is a give and take, not an infinite loop.

I never claimed that ethics weren't important. I am saying that your mode of presentation is tiresome and makes your point impenetrable.

> I guess my point is that it just seems like you are using any relevant point to talk about your own issues.

If it were only the relevant ones then that would be one thing. But this threadjacking is getting a bit much.

And it seems like you are flippantly excusing Y Combinator's ethical double standard because you're not interested in hearing about how pervasive unethical behavior is in the industry from a person you've never met but you're pretty sure you don't like, no matter how much evidence is a click away.

Tiresome indeed.

You aren't actually listening to what I am saying, so it should be no surprise that I am not listening to what you are saying.

Do you see how this works?

Your argument is that I'm tiresome. My argument is that you're ignorant, and perhaps willfully so. I think we can leave it at that.

If you are having trouble getting your point across, it's probably you.

I don't think I even disagree with the issues you point out. It's just that I hate the way you present them.

Perhaps that's because according to AngelList you're an investor in Square, which has signed two consent decrees for violating money transmission laws. That would make you a federal felon per 18 U.S.C. § 1960. And it sure would suck if my "presentation" caused you some legal trouble.

The feeling is mutual.

Why, then, are you surprised how people react to you here?

Because I'd expect someone as smart as you, with a clear financial stake in the money transmission regulatory situation, to realize that you can make more money by helping to promote reform than you can by hiding your connections to the mess and trying to shut me up.

If you haven't noticed, that strategy isn't working.

I'm not trying to shut you up. I'm trying to get you to phrase your message so that other humans will want to consume it.

How am I hiding my connections?

Accusing people of felons is probably also not a good way to rally them to your cause.

Even here you are bent on turning the discussion to your cause. I'm talking about the phrasing, not the message.

It does seem creepy that you see enemies and opposition everywhere. Good luck with your cause - you need it.

FWIW my investment in Square was small and because Jack was a friend. I'm not really injured either way, though would generally like to see laws make sense in the interest of parsimony.

Also FWIW, I think plainsite is pretty good.

Wow, news.yc makes this thread really narrow. Probably punishment for belaboring the point.

I don't see enemies and opposition everywhere. I'm not paranoid. You just happen to be an investor in at least one money transmitter and company I'm in litigation with (not to mention your Walmart involvement), and you didn't care to mention it. That would seem material and capable of altering your viewpoint. Instead you said you weren't employed.

The fact that I am supposedly "bent on turning the discussion to [my] cause" would actually suggest that I see potential partners everywhere, if anything.

As for phrasing, if the private and very polite conversations I've had with people had gone better, we never would have reached this point.

I am not involved with Walmart. I sold a company to them and did some contracting work that wasn't extended. I am no longer advising them, though I haven't bothered to update every profile everywhere. I'll go edit some more things if that makes you happy.

I retract "dead horse" and wish to replace "pet cause" - the first implies more about your cause than I really mean to.

Is that better?

Whenever I see your username, I instantly assume you're posting something about money transmitter laws. And usually talking about something that happened to you years ago that your feel was unfair to you.

Fair or unfair, that's the impression I have of your account.

I'm not sure exactly what he means, but perhaps he's referring to what you choose to post to this particular site:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=author%3Athinkcomp#!/comment/sort_...

Wikipedia has a term that might (or might not?) apply here: "Single Purpose Account".

Yeah, not your strongest argument ever. Aaron Swartz and Google AdSense have absolutely nothing to do with money transmission. Nice try though.

The general sentiment I get from the community is that if you're an expert on a particular issue, and you happen to have an unpopular viewpoint, you shouldn't participate. The community is entitled to that sentiment, and I am entitled to strongly disagree with it, which I will continue to do so long as it persists.

Perhaps not, although I have to click through a page or two of the search results for the pattern to become particularly apparent.

I wouldn't know anything about having unpopular viewpoints coupled with subject matter expertise. Maybe you're right about HN.

  > The general sentiment I get from the community is that 
  > if you're an expert on a particular issue, and you 
  > happen to have an unpopular viewpoint, you shouldn't 
  > participate.

For all the talk of deference to logic, facts and expertise here, the reality is that this community is just as emotional, superstitious and irrational as any other group of humans you'll find.

Forget about "facts" and "evidence": If you want to win people's support you'll have to court them like a politician courts voters. Study the techniques of some politicians who had to gain support for unpopular or controversial legislation.

Dale Carnegie is also worth a read:

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

Not only are people sick and tired of your dead horse, some of the folks here are on the other side of your lawsuit (or close). So don't be surprised when you don't get the red carpet.

I don't think I ever said I was surprised. Just because I commented on the dynamic doesn't mean I find it shocking.

Word to the wise: don't pollute HN like this or you risk alienating those that were seeing things your way (or at least, had a bit more balance than just black/white).

I'm not trying to win a popularity contest. I'm trying to make a point about ethics that no one wants to hear. Still not one person has addressed any of my initial concerns.

> I'm not trying to win a popularity contest.

No, that much is clear. What is clear is that you have an axe to grind and have lost perspective as to what is and is not a proper venue for making your point (you're suing, what else do you want to do?), and that your concerns are now a matter of court review so whatever someone here has to say about it (including Sam Altman) has no importance at all.

Ethics have relatively little to do with your complaint, you contend that it should be illegal, that does not mean that it is ethical or not to engage in said practice.

Lots of things that are legal are not ethical and vice versa, but by involving the courts you have made your battleground the legal aspect, not the ethical one.

The one that does not want to hear it seems in this case is you.

So you're saying that because I filed a lawsuit, which for the time being is no longer pending, I should relinquish the right to speak in public about the ethical implications raised by that lawsuit, and that any such speech is "pollution."

All I can say is that I disagree wholeheartedly.

Also, ethics have everything to do with my complaint.

It does not follow that we should consider your defendants unethical because you filed a lawsuit against them.

You just made something up that I didn't say to point out that it "does not follow."

You filed a lawsuit. You suggested that the defendants are ethically challenged. These are facts.

If you're trying to argue that all payments startups, AirBnB and Uber are unethical because they are operating in reasonable but gray legal areas, then you're wrong.

ps you might have more luck pretending that you're trying to win a popularity contest. No one likes lamers.

Law != Ethics e.g.the War on some Drug Users and most actual wars ever

"Legal" and "ethical" may overlap in places, but IMO those are largely orthogonal issues.

depends on what you mean by "orthogonal"?

Ethics in business are simply informal rules.

The purpose is to fill in gaps in the laws.

(or mitigate the cost of a hyper-specific compliance regime).

Thus, legal systems underpin the context for "informal ethics" in this sense.

"Moral ethics" (so called) are a wholly distinct concept.

I'm using orthogonal in the sense of "can vary independently". IOW, something can be illegal but yet still be ethical, while something could be legal but still be unethical.

Of course, this is all somewhat subjective, and I acknowledge some people may dispute the idea that something can be illegal and still be ethical. But if a law is bad, I believe breaking that law can be ethical behavior. YMMV.

while they can vary independently because they are dis-similar, as a general rule it seems they are complementary more often than not. So, I would say they are likely co-vary together (even if inversely) at times.

At an intutive level, "ethical fabric" is often/practically seen substitute for legal/regulatory infrastructure. The latter is more complex/arduous/expensive, so one advantage of developing ethical norms is increased productivy (from more focus on business, less on due dilligence/monitoring of contracts and general micro-management issues).

I just looked at your profile, and it's amazing you have an average of 3.81 even after all of the down vote hits you take each time this comes up.

FWIW, with the whole money transmission thing, it does sound like you got screwed for doing the right thing. That sucks.

More likely it was an aggregation of events that prompted it.

It's amazing the extent to which (what should be) self-evident principles such as this whole "fairness and respect" thing, "honoring handshake deals", and "generally behaving in an upstanding way (even though it may be convenient or profitable for you not to)" seem to be beyond the cognitive grasp of certain "founders" I know.

Thumbs up.

I've heard about a few instances of the past year of startup founders treating their employees really badly... from lying about work hour expectations, to the details of the day to day job in order to get someone to sign on the dotted line. Even firing people, without cause, within days of them starting.

What do you mean, "without cause"? There are plenty of good reasons for firing people just after you've hired them:

"We really appreciate your strong backend skills (especially being as we're still trying to figure out like, namespaces and stuff). But we just found this frontend guy who's really hawt! And we can't afford him unless we fire you."

"It's not a culture fit."

"It's just not working out."

etc.

Being fired for "not being a culture fit" within days of being hired sounds reasonable to you? Especially after what was most likely a rather involved interview process?

I think he was being sarcastic.

Sarcastic it was, I confess.

But to the friend of mine this happened to (at the hands of a 25 year-old first-time "founder"), it was anything but.

And when they gave their "explanation", it was pure deadpan -- without the slightest trace of irony or humility.

Woosh. That's what I get for reading comments half asleep.

It looks like YC's answer to the Zidisha situation.

Definitely or is this a solution in search of a problem?

> Not using misleading, illegal or dishonest sales tactics.

The grey area on this one is so big that I don't even know where to begin...

yeh... airbnb is in violation. They illegally spammed people on craig's list.

http://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-harvested-craigslist-t...

And, as much as I love them, their entire business is predicated on wholesale violation of local ordinances restriction hotel and short term stay operations. Those ordinances may themselves be corrupt and unethical but they're still laws.

Yeh... Tesla, Uber, airbnb all use illegal sales techniques. I miss PG's more unvarnished advice.

Tesla and Uber's defiance are for things that are pretty hard to justify.

As the multitude of airbnb horror stories show, anti-subletting rules and the like are usually there for some pretty valid reasons, and it's in a different category of illegal.

I, for one, am glad that my neighbour isn't inviting a bunch of strangers into his house every other day.

Uber in general is violating "things which are hard to justify", but their marketing tactics vs. competitors in NYC were unquestionably wrong, IMO.

Unethical behavior and marketing are notorious in Silicon Valley, where so many have this "holier than thou" mask on, and make public statements such as #2 on YC's list, yet use every unethical trick in the book to reach critical mass. They say that, yet they do this https://www.google.com/search?q=airbnb+craigslist+spam

One could easily classify growth hacking as a dishonest sales tactic. The amount of Facebook autoposts and obfuscated referral URLs I've seen connected with YC companies are staggering.

As I understand it, "growth hacking" simply refers to the practice of treating your company's marketing as a software project; of systemizing it, making it measurable and repeatable.

This is one of the reasons I am not in love with that word. For better or worse, for at least some people it is strongly associated with "naughtiness" in the sense talked about here: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html

At least some growth hacking tactics are examples of taking someone else's system and convincing it to do things that its makers had not envisioned. The paradigmatic example was Airbnb building a deep Craigslist integration via a process which does not wholly fail to resemble security research. http://andrewchen.co/2012/04/27/how-to-be-a-growth-hacker-an...

"Security research" as a euphemism for "unauthorized use of a computer system"? Nice.

That is exactly correct.

In the same way in which a "social media consultant" is just helping people with a new medium.

On the one hand: that's what the good ones do. But on the other, there's definitely some dubious bullshit that gets excused under the shiny new name.

This has come up a couple of times and as a rough from memory list:

- PayPal - would buy goods on eBay but only use PayPal so the seller had to sign up to PayPal to get their money.

that's brilliant... not unethical. imho.

Beyond just the ethics of the founders in these terms, I'm a big believe in the idea that the company taken as a whole, should have values and principles, and that they should be communicated widely and clearly, and - most importantly - they should actually really be adhered to...

IOW, don't write a "mission and values statement" because it's expected or for marketing purposes. Write that stuff because you know what you want your firm to stand for and represent, now and over the long term.

We did this back when we first started[1], and we recently had a situation come up which tested our resolve, but knowing that we had written down what we believe, and what we are trying to be as a company made it a lot easier to make the right decision.[2] Or, at least, what we find to be the right decision for us.

Note that in our specific case, the decision in question is one that many rational, well-reasoned people could disagree with. But we believe that our principles dictate the decision we reached. We aren't saying people who may have made a different decision would necessarily be wrong.

[1]: http://www.fogbeam.com/company.html

[2]: http://wraltechwire.com/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no...

> We will stand behind you no matter how much your company struggles, as long as you behave ethically.

I think this can't be re-iterated enough. Most investors would probably just write off a struggling company but YC stands by you

> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret.

If I recall correctly, Paul Graham asks the Summer 2011 class not to share tips on getting into YC at the end of Launch Pad. I wonder if this is in part a response to all the recent YC Applications/interviews going public (or at least showing up here on HN).

There are different kinds of tips. Some which I think actually help YC if everyone knows them -- because YC wants to make the most accurate analysis possible in a short interview, it helps if everyone knows to give clear, direct, and succinct answers, be prepared to answer questions, don't depend on being able to show a demo, etc.

The confidential information is more like Off The Record things during YC dinners, information about other companies, etc. There is much more information about other YC companies (especially batchmates), or speakers at YC dinners, which is confidential than there is information about YC itself which is confidential.

> Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret.

> Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC.

This can turn 'unethical' pretty darn fast.

Ethics are hard. And the law should be an overriding concern in most instances. I think more examples and more explicit guidelines would help the founders judgment. I fear this could get real ugly when (not if) conflicts arise and the punishment of revocation of founder status is strictly enforced.

I'm really glad to see this. Kudos.

There have been one or two YC companies which have been a bit on the sketchy side, I'm glad to see an actual statement about this kind of thing. I'm thinking specifically of the "We bundle ads with software installers," I don't remember what the company was.

That was InstallMonetizer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711

Speaking of which, that startup appears to be dead/zombie, so karma may be in play.

That was funded a year ago?

It seems like some early 2000s garbage-ware :\

"Keeping off-the-record or confidential information (whether about YC itself or a YC company) private and secret."

VCs are very famous (as a class of investors) for not signing NDAs with anyone except under exigent conditons. Confidentiality and its context-dependent limitations should be adressed more formally if there is any concern here--by both sides.

I think you want "exclusively" where you have "uniquely".

Some of the least defined words in here are:

- Upstanding

- Integrity

- Respect

When I say defined, I mean defined by the document. I wonder what they mean in the YC context.

As an example of why I wonder, I noticed that when YC shared a building with a scrappy, extremely creative robotics company that made a virtual telepresence robot, it surprisingly funded another company that competed with that neighbor with what looked like a knock-off telepresence robot product. This product had an admirably more clever / agile design in that it leveraged the buyer's existing iPad.

The idea that they funded a competitor to their own neighbor is not necessarily a judgement on YC. I frankly don't know enough about the companies and products involved, which is why I couched my statement with "looked like."

It's more of a setup for my real question: where does YC stand with blatant ripoffs, copying, wholesale lifting of ideas, products, business plans, from other companies? Is that considered ethical? If yes, is there anything that's not fair game? Are there any lines beyond which the copying becomes an act that is disrespectful, is considered not upstanding behavior, or shows a lack of integrity?

You might want to add something about treating customers ethically, even when not required by law. I think with some of the bitcoin companies out there, there is increased potential for financial shenanigans that could negatively impact YC's reputation. (Frontrunning, etc.)

Enron's motto was "Respect, Integrity, Communication and Excellence." As we all know... it wasn't enough. Read their Code of Ethics, too. It's so ironic.

Perhaps an essay about why ethics are important to the long-term success of a start-up would be much more effective. Why not talk about the start-ups that encountered ethical dilemmas, the thought-processes and the outcomes? That would be super entertaining as well as enlightening. I love the essays by Paul Graham. He inspired me to pursue what I love and to think about problems in the world. To simply be told to do so would not be as motivating.

I think that as a technology start-up accelerator, there should be a greater purpose that is communicated. . . like improving the world with technology.

The business world needs more of these kinds of no bullshit, no footnotes, no qualifier statements.

The business world has enough of them already. What it needs are people within the companies to abide by them (inc senior leadership).

It's sad when trust, transparency, and honesty become differentiators instead of expected.

You are quite right. But my posting history has led some to label me as naive... I think it's closer to the truth to say:

Truth, Trust, and Transparency are always differentiators but the reality is they are only subjectively quantifiable, and therefore a problem waiting to happen if a majority of shareholders aren't exactly aligned.

Or, simply put, large companies generally are forced into an amoral "objective and quantifiable" position. Thus it has ever been.

As a founder, I have more control over my company's culture, but I have no illusions that I can set it in stone.

YC's generally good reputation has led me to take fewer steps to guarantee prompt payment when doing contract work for companies they've funded than I normally would with new clients. I'm happy to report that it has worked out well so far.

I'm so psyched to see this. It's incredibly heartening to see YC set a great example because of their visibility and the amount of respect we all have for them in the tech/startup community. As someone who's unsuccessfully worked on getting codes implemented, I think this is absolutely huge and predict others will do the right thing and follow suit.

I agree that this is pretty vague. I don't think the more nitty gritty details (how to make an incident report, who's responsible for handling it, etc.) have to be posted publicly, but hopefully the actual policy is being worked on behind the scenes.

Nice, but as they say, actions speak louder than words.

How does this apply to AirBnB?

That's long overdue. Now that they're in place that sort of thing will hopefully be a thing of the past, too many YC funded companies have been visibly in breach of these at some point in time. Winning is fine but not by any means possible.

Kinda sad that we have to explicitly write down the obvious. Things like 'be honest', 'say the truth', 'be polite', 'dont do illegal stuff' should all just go without saying.

YC founders are predominantly 'young' so it could be chalked to general mentorship.

"All founders in a company may be held responsible for the unethical actions of a single co-founder or a company employee, depending on the circumstances."

This sounds like a decree issued by the Russian government.

I can only assume this is to ensure that if an employee behaves unethically without repercussions, YC can hold the founder responsible for inaction.

Yeah I think this clause is about with-holding information about bad things done by others in the team. But this seems to have been covered by other points on the page. Something to be reworded.

As the old saying goes, "You are the company you keep."

In the spirit of being honest as requested, all of these are so vague and context-sensitive, basically they amount to nothing.

You'll have to do a lot more work and be more specific than this generic wishlist, if you want people to really abide by your understanding of ethics.

Oh and this one:

    - Keeping your word, including honoring handshake deals.

... is plain dangerous. Handshake deals are not deals. They're just a problem about to happen. Someone's neurons keeping the memory of a "handshake deal" will start misfiring.

Write it down. Even in an email after the meeting. If it's not written, it didn't happen.

I would say it's worse than that. Writing it down won't even be enough in all cases, because communication is a hard problem. It is very easy to come out of a conversation believing you know what the other person said, or believing that you accurately communicated your thoughts, desires, or plans and just be completely wrong on all counts.

There is a reason lawyers write contracts: it reduces the likelihood of a miscommunication about what each party expects.

The problem with vagueness is that the potential punishment for transgression is banishment from YC. It's not the end of the world, though. When governments pass non-objective laws that can be abused to persecute and punish individuals arbitrarily, that's terrifying. When private groups do similar things with vague rules, it's just sad.

I'd like to add a few ethical principles pertaining to employee relationships.

    * Not misleading prospective employees using "bait and switch" tactics regarding 
      the position or nature of the work.
    * If an employee requests an introduction, grant it. 
    * Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of an employee or ex-employee. 
    * Separating with fair severance relative to the means of the company (possibly 
      $0.00 and a good reference, pre-A; cash severance expected once rich).
    * Using open allocation if possible.
    * Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt.
    * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible.

> * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible.

That's an awfully large blanket statement that isn't right for many companies. Zappos places the emphasis on customer service and they're doing fine just as an example.

I don't know why that got downvoted, because you're absolutely right. It's not necessarily the case that every company needs to prioritize "being engineer focused". As painful as it may be for some of us to acknowledge, if a company has a made a conscious decision to pursue a certain value discipline ("customer intimacy" for example), then it may not be terribly important to have an engineering focused culture.

However, to be fair, michaelochurch did say "keeping the company engineer driven as far as possible", which is not a blanket statement that every company must be totally engineer focused.

At the end of the day, every company has to make a series of tradeoffs and weigh different priorities against others. And the right choice of tradeoffs is (or should be) driven by a conscious decision about the company's value discipline and strategy.

Thanks for adding this. When I first finished reading the original guidelines, I thought I read through the entire thing without seeing any mention of the startup's employees. Upon second scan, I saw there was one mention.

So many companies are treated like the personal fiefdoms of the founders. I'd love to see a business world where companies act like commonwealths for all stakeholders -- not just founders and big-time shareholders, but employees and the community.

With many of the brightest startups flocking to it, YC is in a unique position of having the potential to be a major influence on the next 100 years of capitalism. I'd love to see it take an even more powerful stand on founder ethics.

Of this list, only item #1 involves ethics of any sort.

Someone on the Internet also wants The Joel Test added to the list of Founder Ethics, but that doesn't make Hallway Usability Tests an ethical issue.

#4 seems an ethics question to me. Severance compensation should be done on a fair basis relative to the resources the company has available.

Severance is compensation. Compensation is a contracts issue, done at market terms. His first point captures all the ethical concerns required to fairly negotiate contracts. Near as I can tell, formal severance guarantees are also rare, meaning that you're often negotiating for it against other candidates who won't demand it.

Employees aren't intrinsically entitled to severance pay, as some sort of natural law of business.

Another way to rebut the idea that severance is an ethical requirement is to say that the same ethics would demand giving engineers raises, or paying them the maximum amount the business can bear paying. That's sometimes true, but often not, depending on the role of engineering in the company.

I take it more to be a point about the size of the severance compensation relative to the company's resources. IE, don't claim poverty (and thus no severance) when you've been funded. Basically a variation on "Don't lie to your employees about money".

I would say #3 is pretty close too.

A bad reference damages the reputation of a previous employee, but honesty and duty can compel an officer of a company to furnish a bad reference.

If I ask you to be my reference then you can say "Sorry mate I won't give you a positive reference because I don't believe you produce quality work. HR can confirm your start and finish date but if they talk to me I won't have anything positive to say." And that's completely ethical.

On the other hand if you say "Yeah great mate no problem" and then tell my potential new employer they shouldn't hire me you are acting like a scumbag.

Lying is always unethical. We don't need a special "reference lying" ethical rule.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I'm not talking about or supporting lying. I'm saying an employer needs to be professional when providing a reference.

If you cannot be professional about it and understand that context is very difficult to convey over the phone with somebody you don't know then let HR handle it and at least be upfront that you aren't going to provide a good reference.

That also applies to "Not behaving in a way that damages the reputation of his/her company or of YC."

I agree with what you say downthread about "the demands of honesty", and so insofar as mchurch believes what you believe he believes, I disagree with him (ha, how convoluted).

But I think that it's an ethical issue to grant employees and ex-employees the same sort of reputational respect that you would grant your company, or YC, etc.

Absolutely agree! For what it's worth: though I have received an unfavorable reference at least once in my career, I've never actually given one.

A bad reference damages the reputation of a previous employee, but honesty and duty can compel an officer of a company to furnish a bad reference.

Wrong.

What I said last time about this:

What I have to say about your perspective on references is that I will never, under any circumstances, work with, for, or over someone who believes what I think you're saying you believe about references. "Bad reference => war", to me, is essentially an endorsement of professional dishonesty.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433552

At any rate, thank you for confirming my suspicion that your third "ethic" was "the ethic of not providing bad references ever".

Related to the earlier thread: how do you (tptacek, moc, or others) feel about hiding expunged criminal convictions. Or vacated ones. e.g. if you were Randall Schwartz, or weev.

It depends way, way too much on the circumstances. What we're really asking is, do customers and clients have a right to know?

I actually think I'm sympathetic to not putting even a regular felony on a resume, or disclosing it to HR/early screening; only bringing it up later in the process, but before accepting the job.

I'd personally try to bring it up after I've "sold" the company on tech/etc. skills, but before offer letter is prepared. This is assuming it's not asked earlier in the process -- I've never seen "applications" for real jobs (where job app forms often do include "have you been arrested? convicted of a felony?). Even if it is asked I'd rather leave it blank or asterisk or whatever vs. a simple "yes" at the screening stage.

But that's about as far as I'd bend things. (and IMO it's wrong to even waste people's time if a felony is obvious disqualification, like for a national security job.)

In infosec, it seems like a weird dichotomy between CFAA being a clear "cannot possibly be hired" or "wow, kinda cool". What would be shitty is having a non-professional non-minor-drug-or-traffic conviction, like some kind of sex crime. Finding a job even in infosec with even a minor sex crime on one's record has to suck.

I have no ethical problem with people lying to get jobs, as long as the lies don't pertain to the job itself.

Job fraud (getting a job you can't perform, or where the risks are too high) is unethical. If you claim you're a doctor and you're not (quackery) or lie in a government security clearance process, you're doing something immoral (and also quite illegal).

However, people often lie, in effect, (a) to inflate their social status, (b) to simplify a complicated story under the (correct) assumption that most people are shallow and averse to complexity, (c) to improve their apparent leverage in negotiation, and (d) to hide embarrassments that are irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I have no problem with people who do that, even if they're lying about objective facts (job titles, performance reviews, dates of employment). The currencies they are counterfeiting (workplace social status, managerial blessing) have no legitimacy anyway.

Why? BTW can you write the essay mentioned in the end of http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/04/06/the-right-and...

"* Not accumulating unreasonable technical debt. * Keeping the company engineer-driven as far as possible."

Are these ethical issues?

I would say so, at least for the first (the second is more of a subjective preference). Accrual of technical debt usually comes out of a conflict of interest between management and engineers, and when the time-bomb goes off, it's usually engineers whose careers suffer.

How will open allocation for janitorial duties work? Supposing that just gets contracted out, how about the role of CEO? Just goes to whomever openly allocates it to himself?

> How will open allocation for janitorial duties work?

This would probably not be done via open allocation but I'm not sure it's unreasonable. Just hire a janitor. If they have other skills and they figure out they are more valuable doing other work, then hire a new janitor.

Netflix's culture document ca 2010 suggested that everyone is responsible for janitorial duties

I await Social Justice Warrior attacks using this new weapon. It's bound to happen. Let's fill every organization's charter with vague rules which can then be exploited by power-hungry self-righteous pricks. Brilliant idea.

What's a "Social Justice Warrior"?

A "Social Justice Warrior" is what happens when you take liberalism to an extreme. When you take Conservatism to an extreme you end up with "Religious Patriotic Fanatics" who desperately want to be their own group's hero at the expense of other groups. While Social Justice Warriors desperately want to be someone else's hero at their own group's expense.

Both are extremes, unhealthy, and start out with good intentions. Social Justice Warriors often times fantasize about making bullying, name calling, and stereotyping illegal. They can be found in high concentration at places like Reddit, Vice, & Gawker Media sites constantly talking about race/gender/class while ignoring statistics on race/gender/class. They demand that you are politically correct in everything you say. Their favorite insults are "you're racist" and "you're sexist". Basically "the thought police".

Example; When Paul Graham of Y-Combinator mentioned how strong foreign accents can hinder a founder's ability to communicate with his team (which is common sense) he was attacked by silicon valley news outlets for being anti-immigrant, possibly racist, and xenophobic. When he later gave his opinion on why there's so few women in tech he was again attacked and called sexist. This is the problem with Social Justice Warriors, they are warriors, warriors are willing to go to extremes to achieve hero status.

In moderation social justice isn't bad. Religion or patriotism isn't bad either. Neither is conservatism or liberalism. But when taken to an extreme these ideologies end up becoming illogical, irrational, and causing damage to a society's expressive or civil freedoms.

It is a pejorative term for civil rights activists.

Not every possible thing in the universe should be seen through the filter of "how will this affect the people who are in The Other Tribe." It's not healthy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com