fredfoobar42

Whatever your opinion on Shanley Kane, nobody deserves this kind of treatment. It amazes me, continually, that the same sort of people who are quick to defend the "meritocracy" of technology are also the sort who are equally quick to violently silence anyone who disagrees.

And that's assuming your founder is scrupulous and actually gives you the promised equity, and it vests.

No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

So she managed to graduate without student loans? All her obligations were rent? Good for her. Most 20-somethings coming out of college have a shitload of student loan debt. Myself included. Equity sounds nice, but it doesn't stop Sallie Mae from calling and demanding her money back, plus interest.

There's Jonathan Coulton, who at one point was pulling in $500,000/yr... and there's uh...

Erm...

Oh, look! I'm needed in the basement!

> If your community has a "manager", it isn't being treated as a community and probably isn't a community to begin with. A better description might fall within: a) a con job where someone is attempting to get people to participate on their terms for their benefit while trying to convince them that isn't the case at all and everyone is equally in it together; b) a cult organization; c) a captive audience being actively groomed for marketing purposes ... perhaps a mix of the above. Not, however, a community.

Oh, man... This has been my experience, completely. I was hired as a "Community Associate" and later promoted to "Community Lead" for a FinTech startup in NYC. "Con Job" is the perfect way to describe it. The company's idea to increase user growth was to simply BUY contact information of people in the field the product was targeted for, and add them to their MailChimp list. After getting promoted (well, after my boss was fired), I fought vociferously to end the practice, knowing it would bite them in the ass. I left in October of 2013, and I've kept an eye waiting for the other shoe to drop.