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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

As a co-founder who got screwed on a large acquisition, it makes me happy to see that Snapchat finally settled. However, a settlement doesn't change the fact that Evan Spiegel really went out of his way to intentionally screw the guy that actually invented Snapchat's model - and seemed to enjoy doing it. He's definitely not someone I'd ever do business with.

http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-lawsuit-video-deposi...

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What's more frightening to me is how many VCs and other investors who went along with the charade and did not care that this criminal was a representative of them.

Investors in general have limited say in what the founders arrange amongst themselves. For all we know the settlement was reached after pressure from investors or maybe the exact opposite happened.

I'm an investor in a small company (< 50 employees) that went through a very rough time in the beginning because of co-founder issues and it got resolved mostly because of investors working hard to save the company from going under.

You could cynically conclude that that was done to protect our investment (and that might even be the right conclusion).

What founders have been up to is not always immediately clear when you invest, sometimes the proverbial skeleton in the cupboard can be hidden quite well. I make a living digging such stuff up so I was fairly well prepared but the degree to which these things can blow up still surprised me.

Whoa, slow your roll. i) this is a civil matter, ii) both parties settled, with probably no admission of any wrongdoing by either party. Throwing around labels such as "criminal" is not something one does lightly. If you're not careful you could be soon facing a civil action of your own for libel.

A few friends of mine saw Evan speak at Stanford this past spring. He was in a room with Eric Schmidt and Sam Altman (IIRC) and his attitude towards them was nothing short of smug. I don't remember the specifics of what he said but my friends said he basically "told Eric, Sam and other prominent VCs on the panel off because he thought he was more successful than them".

Take that for what it's worth.

>Take that for what it's worth.

Which is nothing. We don't have the context and it's always amazing how people, even just observers with no skin in the game, will have wildly divergent interpretations of the same events. There's definitely some interpretation going on here as Snapchat guy almost assuredly didn't say "I'm more successful than you".

It was a room full of Stanford students, many of which had zero context of who he was or what his reputation was. They were there to learn from successful VCs/Founders/etc and every student I spoke with generally agreed he was smug, off putting and dismissive not only to the students but also the other panel members.

Given it's consistent with the public's perception of how Snapchat operates, I'm simply reinforcing the parent comments sentiment.

You don't need expertise in a particular profession to come to the conclusion that someone is being smug, rude, etc. If I saw someone on the street being disrespectful, is it unfair for me to come to that conclusion because I don't fully understand their field of work?

I didn't say anything about the field of work, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. We don't have the context of the conversation or panel in which the supposedly dismissive and/or smug comments occurred and we don't have enough information to make our own conclusion on the behavior or the reliability of the assessment given here.

There are many reasons someone may feel that a speaker is smug. Some may be warranted and some may not. Since we don't know what happened and can't evaluate whether the parent's friends made a correct assessment or not, with this type of matter, it's best to just ignore it entirely. It has nothing to do with our familiarity with anyone's line of work.

> with no skin in the game

I took that as referring to field expertise. If that wasn't the intent, my mistake.

I get what you're saying, but there isn't video documentation of everything, so at some point you take the words and recollections of others.

Anecdotes wherein the spokesman wasn't even present intrigue me, particularly when it's gossip about notable figures. I'm not sure what value you expect us to find in a retelling of your friend's subjective experience. Hell, for all we know, you could be making the entire story up.

One time I saw Sergey Brin be mean to someone. Take that for what it's worth. Maybe he's EVIL.

Don't read my comment as defending anyone. I really couldn't care less about Evan Spiegel, so I don't dance on his settlement like most comments here are doing, but this whole TMZ "we got video of Evan being smug at a panel, CLICK HERE" comment thread is just the worst of this industry. Ask yourself if you've contributed to life in the manner you expect as you typed out that comment.

I saw a user testimony prominently featured on mbesto’s startup homepage. Turns out the testimony is quoting himself on how great his startup is.

Take that for what it’s worth.

I've heard nothing but bad things about him from people who have "experienced" him person. It's a shame but douchey, sociopathic behavior is often rewarded in our system.

Not to defend the guys at Snapchat, but can we stay away from second-hand rumor & innuendo?

I wonder how such things become possible. As co-founders shouldn't you have a written (and lawyer checked) agreement on how the company is shared amongst you?

How can one betray the other besides of letting him/her unknowingly sign an unfortunate contract?

Projects like that are usually made between friends and aren't really expected to become THAT big. Plus, it doesn't really matter, they took the guy out of the business and took away his rightful part of it. Good thing they settled.

So you're the three of em just had a verbal arrangement and not a signed contract detailing company divisions?

You can read all the sordid details here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-in...

"At this point, Brown and the Individual Defendants…entered into an explicit oral agreement as to their respective interests in their joint undertaking to develop the Application…That explicit agreement was that their interests in the venture would be equally distributed, i.e. each of them would have 1/3 ownership and profit interests in the joint venture/partnership."

Yeah, verbal agreements aren't worth squat. At best, you get a settlement, at worst you get nothing. I'm surprised these guys didn't sign contracts amongst themselves.

Agreed - It seems like verbal agreements are just invitations to future abuse. Humans are very good at ignoring limitations when convenient. Codifying them is the only way we keep things fair.

They did, but shared the document via Snapchat.

Contracts (written just as much as verbal) don't magically enforce themselves. They just provide evidence of the substance of an agreement in the legal action when one side thinks they were violated.

And friends starting something together often don't anticipate it becoming a source of friction in the future, and don't do what you'd expect people in an arms-length relationship to do. Sure, anyone whose been around the block once will likely have learned -- and lots of people will learn before they've been around the block themselves. But quite a lot of people won't, or will learn but think that it doesn't really apply to the little project their doing with their friends, and by the time they realize that they should have, they'll be enough money already involved that what one side sees as a "reasonable division" will be what the other side sees as "cheating me out of what I am due".

From the Businessweek link, Brown seemed to contribute an idea. And that's it.

Nothing unique (disappearing photo apps existed before, see the rest of the thread).

No programming expertise, he didn't make anything.

read their statement carefully:

“We acknowledge Reggie’s contribution to the creation of Snapchat and appreciate his work in getting the application off the ground.”

I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea.

"I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea."

That's exactly the sort of thing that was likely specified in the settlement agreement itself, probably in exchange for a lower financial cost of settling.

The founders didn't think he had the technical expertise to make the app so they didn't involve him in that. A legal statement, made to placate a litigant does not change that.

nevertheless, he made them to put that sentence into their settlement. good for him.

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