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I'll never understand the callousness some techies have for the less business-savvy of their own kind. Any time a head-to-desk, business-null developer gets ex

I'll never understand the callousness some techies have for the less business-savvy of their own kind. Any time a head-to-desk, business-null developer gets exploited, they say "just desserts", not realizing it weakens the bargaining position of developers as a whole. Really sad imo.

te_chris 10y ago
It can be both sad and stupid. Simultaneously. I generally pity people who are being exploited, as this guy clearly is, but if you're going into business you need to be better prepared. He should just suck it up and move on.
- UK-AL 10y ago
  Which is what he has done.
balabaster 10y ago
> Any time a head-to-desk, business-null developer gets exploited, they say "just desserts" This behaviour from anyone is just a really big black stain on humanity. It's one thing to leverage someone else's work for the gain of all, it's entirely another to totally exploit their good nature and hang them out to dry while you take all the benefit. Business is supposed to be a win-win-win situation not a win-but-screw-everyone-else-over-in-the-process situation. While I can see that the author was incredibly naive, I can totally understand his naivete, having been burned like this myself in my earlier years. Being burned like this obliterates any trust you have for working with founders on future startups and makes for a potentially toxic working relationship in any similar situation. Also, I think people's opinions of situations like this really lets their true colors shine through. Those who are victim blaming and shaming the author by pointing out the lack of apparent contract or that he should have known better are really just justifying the abhorrent behavior of the founders who have totally exploited someone else for their own material gain. The personality trait that lets you treat other people like that is sociopathic. Shame on them.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Sure. But naieve? Worked for weeks on the project, but only talked about ownership for what, 3 seconds? That was galactically bad due diligence. Had they asked anybody for advice, that advice would have universally been "You're being played; get something on paper!"
  - caminante 10y ago
    Also, this is HIS side of the story. At that, it doesn't come off favorably.
  - balabaster 10y ago
    I'm not saying it wasn't naive. Naivete is really only evaluated in hindsight. Before then it's either known or unknown risk and only the person in the situation is in a position to evaluate that. He may not have perceived he was being exploited, he may have been led up the garden path etc. etc. etc. Not everyone is business savvy, not everyone knows to do due diligence, or even what due diligence is. That doesn't mean you should exploit them, nor that they deserve to get exploited any more than the girl out at night wearing her clubbing attire deserves to get raped. The author won't make this mistake twice. But he equally could've come out far ahead here if the co-founders hadn't been total douchebags and had acted honorably towards him - but they didn't. Douchebags.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      There's no evidence they didn't mean exactly what they thought they'd said. "Will you be our employee with good stock options?" Name-calling isn't helping here. Its easy to take the side of the technologist here (on HN). I get that. I'd say the owners also learned a lesson - explain clearly what you mean! Don't leave an employee hanging, wondering if or assuming they will get more than you can give. And the 'rape' metaphor is inappropriate. We're talking business, which has rules. Its not what you deserve in business, its what you negotiate. That's all.
      - balabaster 10y ago
gautamdivgi 10y ago
Don't believe anyone says "just desserts"... but think about it this way. If you're learning a new technology and want to get it into production - won't you learn everything around it, even probably things like how to contribute to it, process around bugs, PRs and what not? This shouldn't be different. If you're getting into a role - especially as a shareholder/founder make sure things are well known and documented (term sheets) and well understood by everyone. In technology terms what he did sounds like - "a friend told me of this great software and I put it into production w/o any testing and it crashed and burned my entire customer base"...
- busterarm 10y ago
  > If you're learning a new technology and want to get it into production - won't you learn everything around it, even probably things like how to contribute to it, process around bugs, PRs and what not? There's only so much you can learn -- so far out you can go. This guy built their platform and an app pretty much himself. Give him some credit. I can count on one-hand the number of web developers out there I know that know all of the surrounding technologies related to what they work on. Talk to most "full stack" developers about Unix sockets and routing protocols and watch their eyes roll back into their heads.
  - gautamdivgi 10y ago
    Oh definitely... the poor guy got screwed. No two things about it. He worked hard and they screwed him. Shame on them. However, I hired a lawyer when I bought my house. I'm definitely hiring a lawyer if someone asks me to be a "shareholder" on something like this. I sympathize with him. I'm business-null as well. But there's people you can hire to make sure your exposure is limited.
caminante 10y ago
He's writing smiley faces in negotiations (sloppy) and caving unnecessarily. He's not being exploited. He's selling himself short and he acknowledges that in his closing reflection. I see it as constructive, all around.
eropple 10y ago
I tend to agree. It feels to me like crab-bucket thinking; my experience is that a lot of the sneering comes from folks in a similar position, or worse, to the person they're sneering at. It's very rare (not 'never', there are sociopathic pricks everywhere), in my experience, for someone who's actually been successful to cop this particular 'tude. Probably because they've been there, they know it's difficult, they know it's worth pulling together.

te_chris 10y ago

It can be both sad and stupid. Simultaneously. I generally pity people who are being exploited, as this guy clearly is, but if you're going into business you need to be better prepared. He should just suck it up and move on.

UK-AL 10y ago
Which is what he has done.

balabaster 10y ago

> Any time a head-to-desk, business-null developer gets exploited, they say "just desserts" This behaviour from anyone is just a really big black stain on humanity. It's one thing to leverage someone else's work for the gain of all, it's entirely another to totally exploit their good nature and hang them out to dry while you take all the benefit. Business is supposed to be a win-win-win situation not a win-but-screw-everyone-else-over-in-the-process situation. While I can see that the author was incredibly naive, I can totally understand his naivete, having been burned like this myself in my earlier years. Being burned like this obliterates any trust you have for working with founders on future startups and makes for a potentially toxic working relationship in any similar situation. Also, I think people's opinions of situations like this really lets their true colors shine through. Those who are victim blaming and shaming the author by pointing out the lack of apparent contract or that he should have known better are really just justifying the abhorrent behavior of the founders who have totally exploited someone else for their own material gain. The personality trait that lets you treat other people like that is sociopathic. Shame on them.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Sure. But naieve? Worked for weeks on the project, but only talked about ownership for what, 3 seconds? That was galactically bad due diligence. Had they asked anybody for advice, that advice would have universally been "You're being played; get something on paper!"
- caminante 10y ago
  Also, this is HIS side of the story. At that, it doesn't come off favorably.
- balabaster 10y ago
  I'm not saying it wasn't naive. Naivete is really only evaluated in hindsight. Before then it's either known or unknown risk and only the person in the situation is in a position to evaluate that. He may not have perceived he was being exploited, he may have been led up the garden path etc. etc. etc. Not everyone is business savvy, not everyone knows to do due diligence, or even what due diligence is. That doesn't mean you should exploit them, nor that they deserve to get exploited any more than the girl out at night wearing her clubbing attire deserves to get raped. The author won't make this mistake twice. But he equally could've come out far ahead here if the co-founders hadn't been total douchebags and had acted honorably towards him - but they didn't. Douchebags.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    There's no evidence they didn't mean exactly what they thought they'd said. "Will you be our employee with good stock options?" Name-calling isn't helping here. Its easy to take the side of the technologist here (on HN). I get that. I'd say the owners also learned a lesson - explain clearly what you mean! Don't leave an employee hanging, wondering if or assuming they will get more than you can give. And the 'rape' metaphor is inappropriate. We're talking business, which has rules. Its not what you deserve in business, its what you negotiate. That's all.
    - balabaster 10y ago

gautamdivgi 10y ago

Don't believe anyone says "just desserts"... but think about it this way. If you're learning a new technology and want to get it into production - won't you learn everything around it, even probably things like how to contribute to it, process around bugs, PRs and what not? This shouldn't be different. If you're getting into a role - especially as a shareholder/founder make sure things are well known and documented (term sheets) and well understood by everyone. In technology terms what he did sounds like - "a friend told me of this great software and I put it into production w/o any testing and it crashed and burned my entire customer base"...

busterarm 10y ago
> If you're learning a new technology and want to get it into production - won't you learn everything around it, even probably things like how to contribute to it, process around bugs, PRs and what not? There's only so much you can learn -- so far out you can go. This guy built their platform and an app pretty much himself. Give him some credit. I can count on one-hand the number of web developers out there I know that know all of the surrounding technologies related to what they work on. Talk to most "full stack" developers about Unix sockets and routing protocols and watch their eyes roll back into their heads.
- gautamdivgi 10y ago
  Oh definitely... the poor guy got screwed. No two things about it. He worked hard and they screwed him. Shame on them. However, I hired a lawyer when I bought my house. I'm definitely hiring a lawyer if someone asks me to be a "shareholder" on something like this. I sympathize with him. I'm business-null as well. But there's people you can hire to make sure your exposure is limited.

caminante 10y ago

He's writing smiley faces in negotiations (sloppy) and caving unnecessarily. He's not being exploited. He's selling himself short and he acknowledges that in his closing reflection. I see it as constructive, all around.

eropple 10y ago

I tend to agree. It feels to me like crab-bucket thinking; my experience is that a lot of the sneering comes from folks in a similar position, or worse, to the person they're sneering at. It's very rare (not 'never', there are sociopathic pricks everywhere), in my experience, for someone who's actually been successful to cop this particular 'tude. Probably because they've been there, they know it's difficult, they know it's worth pulling together.