Mark Pincus at a Startup @ Berkeley Mixer | Hacker News Reader

Mark Pincus at a Startup @ Berkeley Mixer

krutal.com

37 pointskrtl13 comments

I remember years ago when installing RealPlayer, the current streaming media standard at the time, the installer would sign you up for all kinds of mailing lists if you didn't scroll down on the "Offers List". All of the offers that were beyond the fold were selected.

Not to mention that back then, say 1999, every company would freely sell your email address to spammers.

I'm glad we stopped putting up with that.

i'll be the third person to say it: editorializing in titles is frowned on here. "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks for the heads up.

I was at the talk and I feel this title is misleading -- that didn't seem to be the main point he was emphasizing in his talk.

Ya his main point was recruiting. You need to go through the junior leagues before you can become a professional athlete he says.

While this is certainly a behavior that should be frowned upon I'm not sure it should be completely castigated in the way that it is. I've met quite a few entrepreneurs and many of them have told me that early on they either bent or broke many rules including doing things that are unethical.

I'm not sure if this is just from poor sample size, but it seems to be somewhat necessary to succeed as an entrepreneur. For what it's worth, many of the entrepreneurs I know became increasingly more legitimate as they got out of startup mode. I think to some degree it's just a part of the game, the odds are against you so you need to do everything in your power to increase your chances of success.

I would really like to hear what other founders think. Is this commonplace or are the people that I've talked to borderline criminals?

It's commonplace in my experience. I wouldn't call it borderline criminal, but many startups cross moral lines. I find it absolutely despicable, that people can rationalize their ethics away. "I know what I'm doing is wrong, but when we have revenue we can afford to do the right thing.", and other the-end-justifies-the-means rubbish.

It's easy (and perhaps even tempting) to cut corners but what good are ethics when you throw them out the moment they become inconvenient?

So yes, the behavior is to be castigated, and I have no respect for people who're willing to fuck their customers/users/suppliers in order to make it as an entrepreneur.

Wait, I clicked on this link and moved all the way to the right time to hear exactly what the title says? That could mean tons of things, but kudos for having nothing better to do then dig through old footage to find one sentence that could now mean something more sinister.

Did you hear the part about the toolbar he couldn't remove?

TechCrunch has excerpted the relevant section of the video here: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pi...

Prostitutes do ANYTHING for revenue. Mark Pincus maybe did a few things he didn't want to.

At least prostitutes engage in a mutually beneficial and consensual arrangements. Pincus' tactics were (are?) neither mutually beneficial nor consensual.

Prostitutes do not do anything for revenue. Most of them have clearly defined limits as to what they will and won't do.

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