swampthing

At the beginning of the article, the authors cite 3 anonymous sources:

> ... according to three people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the details are private...

Then, the end of the article mentions 3 VCs:

> Two venture capitalists, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private, expressed concern that Robinhood's ties to high-frequency traders might undermine its image and stymie expansion plans. A third said it was the reason he didn't invest.

I wonder if this article is the product of some VC sour grapes.

What restaurant was it in Kirkland?

Honestly, I didn't know what you meant. I actually thought your comment might have been sarcasm.

His strategy of obtaining a HN comment from me 7 years later?

Before he started Vidpresso, Randall was helping out my YC batch with feedback on their demo day pitches. It wasn't his job - he was just being helpful. The nicest guy you'd ever meet.

Props to Randall on all the hard work building Vidpresso over the years - and congrats on the exit!

Hi there! I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky - this is actually exactly what we offer with our Formation products. You can learn more here: https://www.clerky.com/formation

Let me know if you have any questions!

I remember Sean showing this to me earlier this year - it's really cool to see this work in real-time. It's like magic. Congrats on launching!

It depends based on the country. Some countries require an addendum to your stock plan, or other changes. So you would really need to talk to a compensation and benefits attorney to be safe.

I was referring to the title of the article.

... and that it's not his beach, unless you are only counting the part above the high tide line (which would be an uncommon definition of the word "beach").

This is a great idea, and something I always wished existed - kudos! Seems like there's some great opportunities for SEO and advertising here as well - keep rocking!

Thanks! B Lab actually wrote a blog post recently about that topic: https://bthechange.com/how-investors-really-feel-about-b-cor...

> Let’s look at some B Corp investment activity from the past few months: Altschool, an education company that has already raised $130M from the venture community, announced a $40M raise just this month. In April, Lemonade, a peer-to-peer personal insurance startup, received a strategic investment from Allianz, after having closed a $34 million Series B round in December. In March, Data.world, an Austin-based tech startup, announced that it had secured a $19M Series B round from Chicago Ventures, Fyrfly Venture Partners, Hunt Technology Ventures LP, LiveOak Venture Partners, Shasta Ventures, and Sherpa Asset Management AG. Other venture investors in B Corps include Benchmark Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, GV, Prelude Ventures, Tao Capital Partners, Khosla Ventures, S2G, Collaborative Fund, Blueberry Ventures, Thrive Capital, General Catalyst and Sequoia.

This maps to what we've been seeing at Clerky too - there could be some investors who have questions about PBCs or B Corps (we haven't come across them personally), but there are definitely investments being made by top-tier investors.

Hi everyone, I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky. We are super excited to be partnering with B Lab to launch this!

For those that may be unfamiliar with PBCs, the high level overview is that they make it easier for founders to build mission-driven companies. With a normal Delaware corporation, you're supposed to maximize stockholder value - but with a Delaware PBC, you're supposed to balance that with the public benefit(s) you chose, and with the interests of anyone materially affected by your company's actions.

B Lab is the non-profit organization that spearheaded public benefit legislation in the US, including in Delaware. They're also the folks that certify B Corporations (some famous ones include Kickstarter, Patagonia, Method (the soap company), and Plum Organics).

This launch is exciting for us because up until now, Delaware PBC startups had no way to get all their formation paperwork done online (there are some incorporation services, but that doesn't give you everything you need as a startup).

If anyone has any questions on the legal details, or in general, feel free to ask :)

I don't think it's realistic to expect this company to now treat their employees less like replaceable cogs than they were previously (to the extent they were at all). What is far more likely is that this company will now just have more red tape in place to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

Agreed - so is it more fair to have everyone living at the same sustainable level, or is it more fair to restrict people with a low carbon footprint from increasing their footprint, so that the people with a large carbon footprint can sustain their way of living?

Obviously, as a country, you want to get away with whatever you can. I'm just saying it's difficult to get people to agree to something that they think is unfair to them.

I don't really understand why the fact that they drag down the per-capita numbers is a rationale for excluding them. Why is it that the people producing no emissions should not be allowed to raise their standard of living to that of people in the US?

I'm not saying they're more important.

But as for why they are important, I think that there is some relationship between how people live and per-capita emissions. So if you ignore the population size and only look at net emissions, the people in larger countries would be held to a higher standard than the people in the smaller countries.

What would be the rationale for doing so?

Should we also exclude the half of the US population that uses the least carbon emissions?

I'm not saying that we shouldn't exclude them - these aren't rhetorical questions. I'm just trying to understand your reasoning.

They could ask the same question - why is the US allowed to have higher per-capita emissions?

I think what this misses is that the per-capita emissions matter too, not just overall emissions. It's kind of unrealistic to ask a country to lower its emissions when its per-capita emissions are already just a fraction of yours.

To give a more concrete analogy - suppose there are two countries, A and B. People in both countries like eating tuna. A has far fewer people than B, but the average person in A eats 10x more tuna than the average person in B. As tuna supplies dwindle, would it be reasonable for A to ask B to reduce their consumption of tuna?

Thank you - the insight is very helpful! You are correct in that we are much more focused on the legal side of things, and have no plans to expand into accounting or anything like that. But I like to think we do the best job on the legal part :)

Hi, I'm one of the cofounders of Clerky... we started this whole rise :) Out of curiosity, what is the "sort of" part?

There isn't really a standard definition of the word "startup". But many in Silicon Valley think of it as how PG defined it:

http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html

> A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

Does it really matter what it's called if everyone knows what it means? And what BoD expenses are you talking about?

We actually only partner with one for new formations, and it's a great one. But yea, if you only need a registered agent, it wouldn't make sense to use us. However, if your goal is to set up a startup properly (i.e. how good attorneys in Silicon Valley would do it), then we've got what you need :)

I'm pretty sure that isn't available to the general public, unfortunately.

Not sure if you already saw this, but it does look like there will be group and 1-1 office hours:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13803069

Wouldn't a guy like Mao coming along render this saying even more true? But to be clear, the saying has nothing to do with government seizure or anything like that - it's about the nature of mankind.

Hey there - actually, it is completely not public, but we do have a private beta for PBCs. Feel free to ping us at support@clerky.com and we'll set you up!

Why don't the doctors just tell him that they need more time to address his concerns properly, rather than dismissing his concerns?