cmapes

That was a great read, I usually HATE stories that come from Slate but this partially redeemed them in my mind.

This is ballsy but cool. Being a full stack business guy, full stack developer, and someone who had done years of freelance in the past, I'd be afraid of the scope creep and complexity issues that are going to rear their head. But more power to you for choosing to try to tackle them, I hope you end up on top.

You're correct. If I'm not mistaken the RAD750 is a chip made by a BAE systems.

Sadly that's probably pretty accurate.

The biggest question is what was you and your co-founders' legal agreement in the bylaws/operating agreements regarding equity given in exchange for assigning your IP (earlier code hackery) to the entity?

If you don't have any sort of a defined equity arrangement in legal contracts, then you have a problem. It's time to speak with an attorney.

If you have some sort of share vesting schedule which will grant you an equity ownership percentage that you consider "fair" then you should consider moving from your current operational position as a software engineer to somewhere else if you want to stay in operations. Otherwise you can sit it out, keep your equity, and participate at the board level.

There will be lots of advice to just "forget about it and walk away". I believe the advice to essentially just "sit back and take it" to be idiotic. If your original positioning on the team was to be "the guy who programs the first iteration of the software that gets us to market" and you failed at that, I can understand where they're trying to push you out as a co-founder. You essentially were a technical co-founder who only partially fulfilled his/her original promise. No offence. In their eyes, you misrepresented yourself, even if that's untrue because they scope-creeped way past your skill level. But the fact is that there WAS some weight that was pulled by you. So you deserve at least partial compensation, whether or not its in the form of equity (if this was promised to you) or payment, or both.

There's some important variables here that have't been covered (mainly current legal agreements) but the main point I'd drive home is stand up for yourself and don't allow yourself to get power played. Yes the situation is sour, but you should be able to get the rest of your founders to agree that you DID contribute something, (as evidenced by the fact that the CTO wants you to leave in the future, not now) so you deserve some equity/payment even if you end up just leaving with it and participating in a liquidity event in the future.

TL;DR If no legal agreements: attorney. If legal agreements w/vague equity terms: attorney. If legal agreements w/ defined equity program you can live with: leave operations, participate at the board level, get bought out at a premium, or just hold equity and wait for a liquidity event.

Make sure there's some restrictions keeping the board from authorizing 1000000000000000 shares and diluting you out too. Good luck!

This is the important question. I've seen copy for largely untargeted convert at wildly different rates dependent on the copy quality and the quality of what's being offered.

No one has a rom? Seems less messy.

I realized that 2048 has quickly become the first code-meme of HN.

You really should do a blog post about it, the first thing I did after admiring the animation was pull open the inspect panel to see how it was done haha. I would love to read more about it.

At 1023 pages, this book should do the job.

Come down to LA. I don't have enough tech entrepreneur friends down here. We'll create a young CEO's club, it'll be fun I promise.

This is a key point. I'm sure Facebook carries a trade credit insurance policy and those policies require collections and court if a person/entity doesn't pay. So in other words they certainly ate the bill if they didn't make him pay.

The only logical reason to do this is fear of the truth coming out in court and the ensuing press coverage to damage their stock value.

Anyone have an idea about FB's liability if they were subpoenaed for fraud and the investigators found internal emails discussing the fake click problem and their decision to ignore it. Seems criminal to me.

slow clap I am genuinely impressed with how many people were trolled by your well-placed satirical comment.

They [drug companies] are satisfied with the status quo because they ARE making money. The problem is that the FDA makes it near impossible for biotech startups to develop revolutionary and competitive oncology tech. Investors don't want to invest in early/mid stage biotech companies due to the extreme risk. Essentially these startups could have a viable product, yet get stonewalled by the FDA for years while waiting for trials and run out of money and dry up.

In many cases it's not really the research that drives the cost, but rather the ability to charge the cost they do because people want to live. I understand that perspective is controversial and some will down-vote me for it. One instance was when my Dad had Metastatic Melanoma and was on DTIC therapy (Dacarbazine). It was nearly $20k per infusion. Are you kidding me, $20K/infusion!? They did 8-10 infusions. Unfathomably expensive. Oh and DTIC is one of the crappy old drugs from the 1970's. Anyone who believes that the cost to produce the drug is anywhere within several orders of a magnitude of what it costs patients is delusional.

TL;DR The FDA and their non-startup friendly political processes are suppressing new players from emerging in the medical field who could create companies with revolutionary treatments. These treatments would bring a natural balance back to medical pricing through free market principles. Instead we're stuck with the current oligopoly where there's no major inventive to create cures which would cost billions in research while simultaneously ending hundreds of billions per year in recurring revenue on current semi-effective treatments.

/rant

I think you're right. Then the next huge $bn+ company will be the ones who are able to solve the mathematical challenge of optimizing the symphony of orders, autonomous vehicles, drones, and hindering variables such as traffic and weather to maximize system throughput (and thereby profit) in near real-time. If there are multiple competitors and one figures this out better than the others, they will ultimately win.

Spot on, California employment laws and Federal laws in the US will absolutely devastate your business if you try your hand at pulling this kind of shit.

Trial by declaration is the way to go. I've won 3/4 tickets that I've gotten since I began driving, and I've won multiple for others.

"Why yes, I shall protect myself and others who work for the public from accountability by banning cameras that document our work."

Perfect, you can just watch the culture trickle spread from the Federal Government to the local ones.

Sensationalist title designed to gain unjustified views. Accurate title would be "$200-$300 buys you an off the shelf polygraph test". Same principles, this has been known as a "lie detector" test for years.. and it's defeatable..

"Yes, we scam!"

Surprise, surprise. No one is doing anything useful with the majority of them, just like many other potentially useful domain names online.

I remember how pissed I was in 1998 when I tried to register my first website and found most names were squatted already. Truth be told, I'm still bitter at domain squatters.

I think it becomes unethical once we see strong evidence that the system could be self-aware. Before that, it's just a simulation. Simulating storm activity doesn't make it rain.