18 ms·

Why I left

349 points by mbgaxyz 9y ago

danjoc 9y ago
>Things I have done for Aeternity If this really was implemented entirely by one person, they have no moat. >Instead the anonymous owner of Aeternity is deciding how the money is spent. Yeah, that's how capitalism works. The person with the capital owns you. And now, I look into my crystal ball... I see the anonymous owner is going to sue you for running off with his intellectual property and starting a competitor with it. Never heard of Aeternity, but this isn't going to end well for the author.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  Also: "If Aeternity is going to use the technology invented, and they wont pay me to make their software secure, then my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity."
  - giancarlostoro 9y ago
    Should of never written that one sentence, that is at the very least a plain as day admission and now he will hold any blame for any exploits used against Aeternity, whether involved or not.
    - hasenj 9y ago
      Seems like author is in a completely different part of earth where that court system will not affect him.
      - giancarlostoro 9y ago
        While that is true, it is also alarming that he would have to relocate completely over this whole matter. Curious where in the world your own words involving Computer Misused (or similar law) being admitted are not legally binding, especially considering the implications.
  - pmorici 9y ago
    The irony. He rants about the unethical behavior of his associates and then clearly states that he will himself engage in unethical behavior. The only thing this rant proves is that the ICO space is over run by ethically challenged scammers much like the Bitcoin ASIC space was 3 years ago.
    - anovikov 9y ago
      Well... isn't that is whole thing about it? I mean, ICO is a vehicle for scams, just another way to nicely package a Ponzi scheme? This is why they exist.
    - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
      It may be ironic, however it's not unethical to engage in unethical behavior specifically against unethical actors.
      - krirken 9y ago
        > it's not unethical to engage in unethical behavior OK.
      - humanrebar 9y ago
        Depends on your ethics. In mine that is absolutely unethical.
        flukus 9y ago
        I agree. Doesn't mean I wouldn't engage in that unethical behavior though, I just wouldn't try to justify it as ethical.
        angersock 9y ago
        Sounds like they broke, or tried to break, his leg. Seems reasonable to me to want to fight back.
        King-Aaron 9y ago
- sk5t 9y ago
  It seems as if the author might possibly own the IP here, having not been paid, nor contracted away copyright and other interests AFAICT.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- mhluongo 9y ago
  If they did a token sale and already have $77M from it in the bank... there will be very little need for a moat. Many of these teams are out to get a quick buck with little accountability.
evanslify 9y ago
Why the author doesn't call out widely for assistance even if physically threatened/assaulted, but choosing to avoid all confrontations instead?
- JonasJSchreiber 9y ago
  Passive behavioral trait. Shyness, unwillingness to engage in confrontation, I can empathize.
  - GalacticDomin8r 9y ago
    My impression was more passive-aggresive with a large dose of narcissism.
    - thegayngler 9y ago
      I didn't get that based on the fact that he moved to a whole other place where he felt safe. No one goes through that kind of hassle without having a good reason. His later actions justify or make me believe his story about the assault.
thdxr 9y ago
Did I read this correctly, he was physically assaulted? Can he not press for criminal charges? What's also interesting is I was approached by Aeternity at the end of June to join their team. Wonder if the timing coincided wtih the author's troubles
- sifex 9y ago
  That was my thought. If anything, I would advise him not to sell 0-days out of spite and take the CEO to court.
  - CareerUnlocks 9y ago
    He felt intimidated and left the continent before he felt he could talk about things. This is some crazy spook level shit.
- ww520 9y ago
  That's at least assault if not battery. Assault is the threat of physical violence, and battery is the actual physical act. It sounds like the owner has physically assaulted him. Either way, it's a felony. That's totally unacceptable.
King-Aaron 9y ago
> that he did something to me that both scared and injured me. I no longer feel safe working with this person. I am walking with a limp a week later. OP is happy to spill some pretty high-level corporate beans, but not detail a physical assault... I don't really know what to take from this article in all honesty. I feel there's a lot being left unmentioned.
- fred_is_fred 9y ago
  And instead of getting a lawyer to resolve this, he says he'll just 0-day exploits for it. Seems like a poor negotiation strategy to me.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    How does a lawyer resolve anything if there's no contract? And by extension, why should he refrain from publishing zero days if there's no contract? It's his software.
    - King-Aaron 9y ago
      > why should he refrain from publishing zero days if there's no contract? I can probably think of 77-million potential reasons that he might not be able to / want to.
      - 0xbear 9y ago
        None of those reasons apply to him.
    - knocte 9y ago
      It's not about the contract, it's about the injury.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - ben_w 9y ago
Girlang 9y ago
Huh? These blockchain people talk like penny stock boiler room folks.
myf01d 9y ago
Start a new company and exploit somebody else while earning all the big bucks and credit, that's how capitalism works.
- lolsal 9y ago
  You left out an important part which requires trading capital for labor. It's not exploitation.
JonasJSchreiber 9y ago
I'm not sure why the negative reaction to this post. I found it completely plausible and have no reason to doubt the author. It sucks that there are crappy people like this but unfortunately that's the real world. People will exploit you if you allow them to. That said, threatening to sell exploits on the black market is a terrible way to fight back. Everything up to that point suggested the author had a case he could argue in court. If he does indeed proceed down that path he would likely find himself on the wrong side of the law.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  threatening to sell exploits on the black market is a terrible way to fight back My guess is that this is a clever way of destroying confidence in the coin and subverting the organization. He need not exploit the vulnerabilities; hell, they need not even exist. If he was really going to sell 0-days, it's not in his interest to announce it. As someone who once had the experience of being forced out of an organization by someone who thought software teams could be swapped out like the janitorial staff, I love this. It won't make you rich, but sometimes it's nice to just watch something burn.
  - chanux 9y ago
    Would you be in tears, though? :D https://coppermind.net/wiki/Hoid https://coppermind.net/wiki/Hoid
  - angersock 9y ago
    > It won't make you rich, but sometimes it's nice to just watch something burn. Cheers to this. :)
litzer 9y ago
It seems to be a mistake on the author's part to allow himself to be exploited at first (working without having any of the promises in legal writing). It's unethical but not uncommon and alone wouldn't produce the outrage for an article detailing it. The missing piece is why he doesn't feel pressing criminal charges and suing for IP is an option. The language seems to imply that the answer is for his physical safety. If he's writing this article because he feels safe enough to, then maybe he thinks battling in court requires people to be present and closes the distance safety net. He's able to list pretty concretely his contributions but is suspiciously vague about the cause of his fear. I'm inclined to believe that it's because he might not think the public would unequivocally agree his fear is sound.
- throwaway2554 9y ago
  From what I've gathered from some people working in the blockchain community, some of the altcoins that are geared towards being a ponzi schemes have investors with Russian oligarch/mafia or similarly shady backgrounds. I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't completely contained to the obious scams.
everdev 9y ago
> my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity. It sounds like a typical situation where a startup screws over a key early employee. Typically there are legal avenues to pursue if the author truly was taken advantage of. Threatening to sell 0-day exploits smells of immaturity and anger though. I'm not sure how the tech stack works or how long it was developed but $3.5MM to keep working there exclusively sounds either like the author insanely overvalues his work and skills or the technology is revolutionary in which case, they'll likely get huge and he could sue them for far more.
- noobermin 9y ago
  Is it any less mature than essentially screwing him over and assaulting him? Talk about blaming someone for slapping a guy ready to shoot you.
- mhluongo 9y ago
  Sounds like the company did a token sale for $77M based on his work. So, no- he's not overvaluing his contribution.
  - pg_is_a_butt 9y ago
    printing fake money is very easy...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
cm2187 9y ago
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it is written by someone who is highly immature and/or unstable. I mostly feel sorry for their investors who purchased yet another block chain hoping to make a quick buck with likely little to no diligence on what they buy. The more I hear about blockchains, the murkier it looks to me.
- wildrhythms 9y ago
  The author is effectively ousted from the "company", physically assaulted, signs nothing, then spends '5 days' with 'the Aeternity lawyer' mulling over a contract? All of this after not being paid while their colleagues are being 'paid regularly.' My question is what/where is the legal void that this company existed in?!
  - cm2187 9y ago
    Assuming you believe the OP. Things like "I didn't get paid so I am selling 0 days", or "I had to leave Europe to be safe because I fought with a guy", don't help me taking it seriously. Might be true. Might not be true. The only certainty is that this guy is a nutter.
    - Mithaldu 9y ago
      You're putting words into his mouth. Particularly the first one is not at all what he wrote.
      - cm2187 9y ago
        > If Aeternity is going to use the technology invented, and they wont pay me to make their software secure, then my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity No sane or honest person would ever write that.
        Mithaldu 9y ago
        Here's who would write it: A person sane and honest enough to realize how insane the proposition and their position is and who decides to state it to illustrate the point that they're completely out of options. You're jumping to wild conclusions that say more about you than you're trying to say about him.
billconan 9y ago
I had a brief conversation on github with Zack few years ago over cryptocurrency implementation, great guy and really knowledgeable about cryptocurrency. Knowing Aeternity had him on the team, I immediately told my friends who invest in cryptocurrency they should pay close attention to it. I also wanted to look into its code and help, but I'm not an erlang programmer. To be honest, when I checked Ae's official website and found out that only one member is a technical person, I thought the structure is weird. I too have been approached by non-technical people who wanted to form a team, but rely on me to come up with both the idea and the product. I don't trust people who can only talk.
- TomK32 9y ago
  What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months. -- Fred Brooks As a programmer, I'd be happy in a team to be the only programmer as long as the rest of the team are experts in their domains.
  - oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
    > As a programmer, I'd be happy in a team to be the only programmer as long as the rest of the team are experts in their domains. As someone in that position right now, let me just tell you that it's not all roses (not that I think you'd necessarily assume it was!). For one, you have to deal with the stigma of being 'the nerd' in the team. You'll also end up doing a lot of menial tasks because "you're the technical one" (e.g. trying to fix the printer, explaining basic tech to other members of the team). Finally, most importantly, other members of the team don't really understand what you do. They might devalue it, expect you to complete tasks in an unrealistic amount of time, or get frustrated when you're the bottleneck. There can be benefits of course — you can probably plan your work yourself without being told, quite as much, what to do — but, contrary to expectations, I've found it quite problematic: you are in a very isolated position.
    - TomK32 9y ago
      When you are in that role it's also your task to define the role. I can't fix your printer, I can take it apart (and it's usually 5 a year that suffer this faith for my hunger of cheap motors and axis to hack thing with). Your task is to implement a core asset of the company, not to fix a stupid printer. Estimates is a skill barely anyone is good at, put a higher estimate on tasks and tell the team that stuff is always work in progress and subject to change but change requests are the cheapest if the come early. Also, involve the team so they see the current state (and make it clear that this or that tiny functionality is still simplistic and will be improved later on).
austenallred 9y ago
This is probably obvious, but the easiest way this can be avoided is by investors not investing millions of dollars in something when the ownership of that thing is not clearly defined. Alternatively, if you don't know how ownership is to be divvied up, don't raise tens millions of dollars until you iron out the details.
gersh 9y ago
Isn't the code open source? Can he fork and start his own company?
- divbit 9y ago
  If his mental state of enthusiasm for working in this field is not completely wrecked by this occurrence... Your github is inspiring work Zack - I've ran across it several times in the past - I hope you get paid reasonably somehow or whatever you need to be happy.
- vit05 9y ago
  He already started a new company. Amoveo A scalable blockchain for financial derivatives. Optimized for scalability via smart contracts inside state-channels. Has a build-in oracle for integration with real-world data. Written in Erlang. https://github.com/zack-bitcoin/amoveo https://github.com/zack-bitcoin/amoveo
YouEatThatSoup 9y ago
"Why I left" No contract. "For about $3.5 million I was willing to work exclusively on Aeternity." This sounds very weird.
nabaraz 9y ago
Their new CTO did an AMA on reddit recently. https://www.reddit.com/r/Aeternity/comments/6vxiei/ama_session_with_joel_reymont_cto_of_%C3%A6ternity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Aeternity/comments/6vxiei/ama_sessi... The relevant parts: > There are no zero days. And we are not using any of Zack’s code in the new repo. Take a look at our Github. Zack’s leaving has zero effect on our technology and we are not using any of his code. > We have been working alongside Zack for quite some time now and understand the code. We felt that this is the right time to dump some accumulated and unwanted technical baggage. We are starting with a clean source code repository and will be bringing in pieces of code from the old repo as needed.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Lazare 9y ago
  Fascinating. That seems to confirm a lot of Zack's claims (not the physical assault parts, of course). Highly unusual to start over with an empty repo when your lead developer quits. Which makes me suspect that the answer to the asked-but-unanswered question: > Is this down to IP issues / lack of any contracts or legal agreements? Is "yes".
  - mickronome 9y ago
    Sure sounds like it. I've been through a somewhat similar (but less jarring) situation, mine was a customer silently started hiring people to clone a kind of trading system they licensed from us at the time, but the strangeness tastes the same way. A bit of story, might entertain someone: It started with them started asking somw weird questions, and generally behaving odd in our meetings about fixes and new features. Somehow, I came to the conclusion they had to be working on a clone, which I told everyone on the team. They were quite surprised by that, especially as I wasn't myself present at the strangest meeting. Que a year or so later, when my boss walked in. One sentence that said it all: - How the hell did you know ? Turned out I was right. But truth to be told, I couldn't answer his questions. It was simply the only possible reason I could imagine.
CalChris 9y ago
I don't understand why he didn't nail down his equity situation before doing any work. Yeah, it's pretty shifty of the 'founders' but then it's pretty basic for techies, especially early startup engineers.
- Deestan 9y ago
  Because of "don't worry - it'll be fine" thinking. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155068
- donovanm 9y ago
  Yeah this is very ugly on both sides. A basic contract would've saved everyone a lot of grief.
- ben_w 9y ago
  I've been there. Verbal agreement to substitute most of my usual pay for three months in exchange for shares, only that part of the agreement wasn't written down, the shares never came, and when the three months ended the CEO was shocked, shocked, by the significantly higher invoice. Fortunately, I had written proof that I'd told them this was going to happen (the bottom of the previous invoice), so I did get paid, but I never did see those shares. Shares are a gamble anyway, and if the CEO doesn't read invoices I don't see them lasting very long — I don't loose sleep over this mistake, just use it as a lesson for the future.
hitekker 9y ago
Particularly alarming section: > August 17- Aeternity finally makes an offer to hire me that I am comfortable with. In the process of negotiating my employment, the owner of Aeternity was asking me technical questions, and the honest answers I gave made him angry. He wished that universe worked differently, and he blamed me, the messenger of bad news. The owner of Aeternity was so upset by the technical limitation, that he did something to me that both scared and injured me. I no longer feel safe working with this person. I am walking with a limp a week later. He implies that a violent struggle took place but without saying so explicitly. Which is odd since a detailed description of a physical assault would draw immediate sympathy from we, the public-at-large.
- schtitt 9y ago
  When I read this I though a violent struggle didn't happen but that he wanted to imply that it did. The reason is that it reminds me of similar techniques that my more drama-loving acquaintances use,and based on the way this is written, this guy has a flair for drama. My guess is that something happened where the author got scared and as a side effect hurt himself. Meaning he can garner sympathy and still not technically lie about what happened, but make you fill in the blanks with stuff that didn't happen. I would love to stand corrected on this, though.
- mungoid 9y ago
  The vagueness of that part reminded me of a time I worked at a small startup several years ago, and the owner got angry about something and kicked a chair which partly hit a couple of us. The damage was pretty mild but one of us did get banged in the knee so he limped slightly for a couple days. I can only really imagine something similar happened in this case too
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    Eh. So if someone walks into your office and demands $3.5 million or they walk, and you don't think they're worth it, two reasonable responses are to laugh in their face or to calmly explain why their expectations are unrealistic. Kicking something across the room, punching the wall, yelling and screaming, or other displays of violent temper are not. I think it is reasonable to be scared for your physical safety if someone becomes violently angry around you, even if they do not initially direct that violence at you.
noncoml 9y ago
It’s amazing how we, geeks, fail to negotiate and secure our equity before delivering our work and lose all leverage. After countless examples where tech people have been exploited by business people, Tesla pops into mind as the most famous one, we still haven’t learned our lesson!
- intoverflow2 9y ago
  Think if you're dealing with the sort of types who work in ICOs you need to be beyond business savvy and more expect to be screwed at every turn.
vit05 9y ago
The fun part is that the owner of Aeternity calls himself Godfather of Ethereum. https://medium.com/@yanislav/king-of-bitcoin-godfather-of-ethereum-a9af9ecf56d5 https://medium.com/@yanislav/king-of-bitcoin-godfather-of-et...
- Grangar 9y ago
  Delusional.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
cyphunk 9y ago
huh? I swear I just looked at the team page 5 minutes ago and still saw Zack listed as "Tech Lead", where now it shows Joel Reymont as CTO
- dsincl12 9y ago
  Yup, I still had the page open before I reloaded -> https://pasteboard.co/GINcLYZ.png https://pasteboard.co/GINcLYZ.png
z3t4 9y ago
It's all fine when your startup is not making any money, but when millions of dollars starts to roll in things can get ugly. So always make sure you have the vesting worked out beforehand, and put it on a paper and have everyone sign it.
arisAlexis 9y ago
don't understand how you can find zero-day exploits if your codebase was solid. If it wasn't maybe it's better that they don't use your code?
- mindhash 9y ago
  Exploit could be from dependant libraries or os related..
lz400 9y ago
No proof or evidence of anything. I've no idea about what happened here and I don't care but this post makes my BS detector fire in several places.
rwallace 9y ago
Upvoted this submission because it contains three very important lessons for technologists: 1. Never, ever accept a cofounder arrangement where you deal with the code and someone else deals with all the money. 2. If someone starts trying to exploit you, get a lawyer. The last thing you want is for the law to be on your enemy's side. 3. If this is your hard lesson in the first two rules, and the bad guys offer you a substantial chunk of cash to walk away (and $300,000 is a substantial chunk of cash), take it. It's by far the least bad outcome for you.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kaonashi 9y ago
If you're going to go to work on a ponzi scheme, don't be surprised when you end up working with entirely unscrupulous people.

349 points by mbgaxyz 9y ago

>Things I have done for Aeternity If this really was implemented entirely by one person, they have no moat. >Instead the anonymous owner of Aeternity is deciding how the money is spent. Yeah, that's how capitalism works. The person with the capital owns you. And now, I look into my crystal ball... I see the anonymous owner is going to sue you for running off with his intellectual property and starting a competitor with it. Never heard of Aeternity, but this isn't going to end well for the author.

humanrebar 9y ago
Also: "If Aeternity is going to use the technology invented, and they wont pay me to make their software secure, then my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity."
- giancarlostoro 9y ago
  Should of never written that one sentence, that is at the very least a plain as day admission and now he will hold any blame for any exploits used against Aeternity, whether involved or not.
  - hasenj 9y ago
    Seems like author is in a completely different part of earth where that court system will not affect him.
    - giancarlostoro 9y ago
      While that is true, it is also alarming that he would have to relocate completely over this whole matter. Curious where in the world your own words involving Computer Misused (or similar law) being admitted are not legally binding, especially considering the implications.
- pmorici 9y ago
  The irony. He rants about the unethical behavior of his associates and then clearly states that he will himself engage in unethical behavior. The only thing this rant proves is that the ICO space is over run by ethically challenged scammers much like the Bitcoin ASIC space was 3 years ago.
  - anovikov 9y ago
    Well... isn't that is whole thing about it? I mean, ICO is a vehicle for scams, just another way to nicely package a Ponzi scheme? This is why they exist.
  - em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
    It may be ironic, however it's not unethical to engage in unethical behavior specifically against unethical actors.
    - krirken 9y ago
      > it's not unethical to engage in unethical behavior OK.
    - humanrebar 9y ago
      Depends on your ethics. In mine that is absolutely unethical.
      - flukus 9y ago
        I agree. Doesn't mean I wouldn't engage in that unethical behavior though, I just wouldn't try to justify it as ethical.
      - angersock 9y ago
        Sounds like they broke, or tried to break, his leg. Seems reasonable to me to want to fight back.
        King-Aaron 9y ago
sk5t 9y ago
It seems as if the author might possibly own the IP here, having not been paid, nor contracted away copyright and other interests AFAICT.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
mhluongo 9y ago
If they did a token sale and already have $77M from it in the bank... there will be very little need for a moat. Many of these teams are out to get a quick buck with little accountability.

evanslify 9y ago

Why the author doesn't call out widely for assistance even if physically threatened/assaulted, but choosing to avoid all confrontations instead?

JonasJSchreiber 9y ago
Passive behavioral trait. Shyness, unwillingness to engage in confrontation, I can empathize.
- GalacticDomin8r 9y ago
  My impression was more passive-aggresive with a large dose of narcissism.
  - thegayngler 9y ago
    I didn't get that based on the fact that he moved to a whole other place where he felt safe. No one goes through that kind of hassle without having a good reason. His later actions justify or make me believe his story about the assault.

thdxr 9y ago

Did I read this correctly, he was physically assaulted? Can he not press for criminal charges? What's also interesting is I was approached by Aeternity at the end of June to join their team. Wonder if the timing coincided wtih the author's troubles

sifex 9y ago
That was my thought. If anything, I would advise him not to sell 0-days out of spite and take the CEO to court.
- CareerUnlocks 9y ago
  He felt intimidated and left the continent before he felt he could talk about things. This is some crazy spook level shit.
ww520 9y ago
That's at least assault if not battery. Assault is the threat of physical violence, and battery is the actual physical act. It sounds like the owner has physically assaulted him. Either way, it's a felony. That's totally unacceptable.

King-Aaron 9y ago

> that he did something to me that both scared and injured me. I no longer feel safe working with this person. I am walking with a limp a week later. OP is happy to spill some pretty high-level corporate beans, but not detail a physical assault... I don't really know what to take from this article in all honesty. I feel there's a lot being left unmentioned.

fred_is_fred 9y ago
And instead of getting a lawyer to resolve this, he says he'll just 0-day exploits for it. Seems like a poor negotiation strategy to me.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  How does a lawyer resolve anything if there's no contract? And by extension, why should he refrain from publishing zero days if there's no contract? It's his software.
  - King-Aaron 9y ago
    > why should he refrain from publishing zero days if there's no contract? I can probably think of 77-million potential reasons that he might not be able to / want to.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      None of those reasons apply to him.
  - knocte 9y ago
    It's not about the contract, it's about the injury.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- ben_w 9y ago

Girlang 9y ago

Huh? These blockchain people talk like penny stock boiler room folks.

myf01d 9y ago

Start a new company and exploit somebody else while earning all the big bucks and credit, that's how capitalism works.

lolsal 9y ago
You left out an important part which requires trading capital for labor. It's not exploitation.

JonasJSchreiber 9y ago

I'm not sure why the negative reaction to this post. I found it completely plausible and have no reason to doubt the author. It sucks that there are crappy people like this but unfortunately that's the real world. People will exploit you if you allow them to. That said, threatening to sell exploits on the black market is a terrible way to fight back. Everything up to that point suggested the author had a case he could argue in court. If he does indeed proceed down that path he would likely find himself on the wrong side of the law.

stickfigure 9y ago
threatening to sell exploits on the black market is a terrible way to fight back My guess is that this is a clever way of destroying confidence in the coin and subverting the organization. He need not exploit the vulnerabilities; hell, they need not even exist. If he was really going to sell 0-days, it's not in his interest to announce it. As someone who once had the experience of being forced out of an organization by someone who thought software teams could be swapped out like the janitorial staff, I love this. It won't make you rich, but sometimes it's nice to just watch something burn.
- chanux 9y ago
  Would you be in tears, though? :D https://coppermind.net/wiki/Hoid https://coppermind.net/wiki/Hoid
- angersock 9y ago
  > It won't make you rich, but sometimes it's nice to just watch something burn. Cheers to this. :)

litzer 9y ago

It seems to be a mistake on the author's part to allow himself to be exploited at first (working without having any of the promises in legal writing). It's unethical but not uncommon and alone wouldn't produce the outrage for an article detailing it. The missing piece is why he doesn't feel pressing criminal charges and suing for IP is an option. The language seems to imply that the answer is for his physical safety. If he's writing this article because he feels safe enough to, then maybe he thinks battling in court requires people to be present and closes the distance safety net. He's able to list pretty concretely his contributions but is suspiciously vague about the cause of his fear. I'm inclined to believe that it's because he might not think the public would unequivocally agree his fear is sound.

throwaway2554 9y ago
From what I've gathered from some people working in the blockchain community, some of the altcoins that are geared towards being a ponzi schemes have investors with Russian oligarch/mafia or similarly shady backgrounds. I wouldn't be surprised if that isn't completely contained to the obious scams.

everdev 9y ago

> my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity. It sounds like a typical situation where a startup screws over a key early employee. Typically there are legal avenues to pursue if the author truly was taken advantage of. Threatening to sell 0-day exploits smells of immaturity and anger though. I'm not sure how the tech stack works or how long it was developed but $3.5MM to keep working there exclusively sounds either like the author insanely overvalues his work and skills or the technology is revolutionary in which case, they'll likely get huge and he could sue them for far more.

noobermin 9y ago
Is it any less mature than essentially screwing him over and assaulting him? Talk about blaming someone for slapping a guy ready to shoot you.
mhluongo 9y ago
Sounds like the company did a token sale for $77M based on his work. So, no- he's not overvaluing his contribution.
- pg_is_a_butt 9y ago
  printing fake money is very easy...
deleted 9y ago
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cm2187 9y ago

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it is written by someone who is highly immature and/or unstable. I mostly feel sorry for their investors who purchased yet another block chain hoping to make a quick buck with likely little to no diligence on what they buy. The more I hear about blockchains, the murkier it looks to me.

wildrhythms 9y ago
The author is effectively ousted from the "company", physically assaulted, signs nothing, then spends '5 days' with 'the Aeternity lawyer' mulling over a contract? All of this after not being paid while their colleagues are being 'paid regularly.' My question is what/where is the legal void that this company existed in?!
- cm2187 9y ago
  Assuming you believe the OP. Things like "I didn't get paid so I am selling 0 days", or "I had to leave Europe to be safe because I fought with a guy", don't help me taking it seriously. Might be true. Might not be true. The only certainty is that this guy is a nutter.
  - Mithaldu 9y ago
    You're putting words into his mouth. Particularly the first one is not at all what he wrote.
    - cm2187 9y ago
      > If Aeternity is going to use the technology invented, and they wont pay me to make their software secure, then my only way to get paid is by selling zero-day exploits for people who want to attack Aeternity No sane or honest person would ever write that.
      - Mithaldu 9y ago
        Here's who would write it: A person sane and honest enough to realize how insane the proposition and their position is and who decides to state it to illustrate the point that they're completely out of options. You're jumping to wild conclusions that say more about you than you're trying to say about him.

billconan 9y ago

I had a brief conversation on github with Zack few years ago over cryptocurrency implementation, great guy and really knowledgeable about cryptocurrency. Knowing Aeternity had him on the team, I immediately told my friends who invest in cryptocurrency they should pay close attention to it. I also wanted to look into its code and help, but I'm not an erlang programmer. To be honest, when I checked Ae's official website and found out that only one member is a technical person, I thought the structure is weird. I too have been approached by non-technical people who wanted to form a team, but rely on me to come up with both the idea and the product. I don't trust people who can only talk.

TomK32 9y ago
What one programmer can do in one month, two programmers can do in two months. -- Fred Brooks As a programmer, I'd be happy in a team to be the only programmer as long as the rest of the team are experts in their domains.
- oneeyedpigeon 9y ago
  > As a programmer, I'd be happy in a team to be the only programmer as long as the rest of the team are experts in their domains. As someone in that position right now, let me just tell you that it's not all roses (not that I think you'd necessarily assume it was!). For one, you have to deal with the stigma of being 'the nerd' in the team. You'll also end up doing a lot of menial tasks because "you're the technical one" (e.g. trying to fix the printer, explaining basic tech to other members of the team). Finally, most importantly, other members of the team don't really understand what you do. They might devalue it, expect you to complete tasks in an unrealistic amount of time, or get frustrated when you're the bottleneck. There can be benefits of course — you can probably plan your work yourself without being told, quite as much, what to do — but, contrary to expectations, I've found it quite problematic: you are in a very isolated position.
  - TomK32 9y ago
    When you are in that role it's also your task to define the role. I can't fix your printer, I can take it apart (and it's usually 5 a year that suffer this faith for my hunger of cheap motors and axis to hack thing with). Your task is to implement a core asset of the company, not to fix a stupid printer. Estimates is a skill barely anyone is good at, put a higher estimate on tasks and tell the team that stuff is always work in progress and subject to change but change requests are the cheapest if the come early. Also, involve the team so they see the current state (and make it clear that this or that tiny functionality is still simplistic and will be improved later on).

austenallred 9y ago

This is probably obvious, but the easiest way this can be avoided is by investors not investing millions of dollars in something when the ownership of that thing is not clearly defined. Alternatively, if you don't know how ownership is to be divvied up, don't raise tens millions of dollars until you iron out the details.

gersh 9y ago

Isn't the code open source? Can he fork and start his own company?

divbit 9y ago
If his mental state of enthusiasm for working in this field is not completely wrecked by this occurrence... Your github is inspiring work Zack - I've ran across it several times in the past - I hope you get paid reasonably somehow or whatever you need to be happy.
vit05 9y ago
He already started a new company. Amoveo A scalable blockchain for financial derivatives. Optimized for scalability via smart contracts inside state-channels. Has a build-in oracle for integration with real-world data. Written in Erlang. https://github.com/zack-bitcoin/amoveo https://github.com/zack-bitcoin/amoveo

YouEatThatSoup 9y ago

"Why I left" No contract. "For about $3.5 million I was willing to work exclusively on Aeternity." This sounds very weird.

nabaraz 9y ago

Their new CTO did an AMA on reddit recently. https://www.reddit.com/r/Aeternity/comments/6vxiei/ama_session_with_joel_reymont_cto_of_%C3%A6ternity/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Aeternity/comments/6vxiei/ama_sessi... The relevant parts: > There are no zero days. And we are not using any of Zack’s code in the new repo. Take a look at our Github. Zack’s leaving has zero effect on our technology and we are not using any of his code. > We have been working alongside Zack for quite some time now and understand the code. We felt that this is the right time to dump some accumulated and unwanted technical baggage. We are starting with a clean source code repository and will be bringing in pieces of code from the old repo as needed.

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Lazare 9y ago
Fascinating. That seems to confirm a lot of Zack's claims (not the physical assault parts, of course). Highly unusual to start over with an empty repo when your lead developer quits. Which makes me suspect that the answer to the asked-but-unanswered question: > Is this down to IP issues / lack of any contracts or legal agreements? Is "yes".
- mickronome 9y ago
  Sure sounds like it. I've been through a somewhat similar (but less jarring) situation, mine was a customer silently started hiring people to clone a kind of trading system they licensed from us at the time, but the strangeness tastes the same way. A bit of story, might entertain someone: It started with them started asking somw weird questions, and generally behaving odd in our meetings about fixes and new features. Somehow, I came to the conclusion they had to be working on a clone, which I told everyone on the team. They were quite surprised by that, especially as I wasn't myself present at the strangest meeting. Que a year or so later, when my boss walked in. One sentence that said it all: - How the hell did you know ? Turned out I was right. But truth to be told, I couldn't answer his questions. It was simply the only possible reason I could imagine.

CalChris 9y ago

I don't understand why he didn't nail down his equity situation before doing any work. Yeah, it's pretty shifty of the 'founders' but then it's pretty basic for techies, especially early startup engineers.

Deestan 9y ago
Because of "don't worry - it'll be fine" thinking. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15155068
donovanm 9y ago
Yeah this is very ugly on both sides. A basic contract would've saved everyone a lot of grief.
ben_w 9y ago
I've been there. Verbal agreement to substitute most of my usual pay for three months in exchange for shares, only that part of the agreement wasn't written down, the shares never came, and when the three months ended the CEO was shocked, shocked, by the significantly higher invoice. Fortunately, I had written proof that I'd told them this was going to happen (the bottom of the previous invoice), so I did get paid, but I never did see those shares. Shares are a gamble anyway, and if the CEO doesn't read invoices I don't see them lasting very long — I don't loose sleep over this mistake, just use it as a lesson for the future.

hitekker 9y ago

Particularly alarming section: > August 17- Aeternity finally makes an offer to hire me that I am comfortable with. In the process of negotiating my employment, the owner of Aeternity was asking me technical questions, and the honest answers I gave made him angry. He wished that universe worked differently, and he blamed me, the messenger of bad news. The owner of Aeternity was so upset by the technical limitation, that he did something to me that both scared and injured me. I no longer feel safe working with this person. I am walking with a limp a week later. He implies that a violent struggle took place but without saying so explicitly. Which is odd since a detailed description of a physical assault would draw immediate sympathy from we, the public-at-large.

schtitt 9y ago
When I read this I though a violent struggle didn't happen but that he wanted to imply that it did. The reason is that it reminds me of similar techniques that my more drama-loving acquaintances use,and based on the way this is written, this guy has a flair for drama. My guess is that something happened where the author got scared and as a side effect hurt himself. Meaning he can garner sympathy and still not technically lie about what happened, but make you fill in the blanks with stuff that didn't happen. I would love to stand corrected on this, though.
mungoid 9y ago
The vagueness of that part reminded me of a time I worked at a small startup several years ago, and the owner got angry about something and kicked a chair which partly hit a couple of us. The damage was pretty mild but one of us did get banged in the knee so he limped slightly for a couple days. I can only really imagine something similar happened in this case too
- saalweachter 9y ago
  Eh. So if someone walks into your office and demands $3.5 million or they walk, and you don't think they're worth it, two reasonable responses are to laugh in their face or to calmly explain why their expectations are unrealistic. Kicking something across the room, punching the wall, yelling and screaming, or other displays of violent temper are not. I think it is reasonable to be scared for your physical safety if someone becomes violently angry around you, even if they do not initially direct that violence at you.

noncoml 9y ago

It’s amazing how we, geeks, fail to negotiate and secure our equity before delivering our work and lose all leverage. After countless examples where tech people have been exploited by business people, Tesla pops into mind as the most famous one, we still haven’t learned our lesson!

intoverflow2 9y ago
Think if you're dealing with the sort of types who work in ICOs you need to be beyond business savvy and more expect to be screwed at every turn.

vit05 9y ago

The fun part is that the owner of Aeternity calls himself Godfather of Ethereum. https://medium.com/@yanislav/king-of-bitcoin-godfather-of-ethereum-a9af9ecf56d5 https://medium.com/@yanislav/king-of-bitcoin-godfather-of-et...

Grangar 9y ago
Delusional.
- deleted 9y ago
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cyphunk 9y ago

huh? I swear I just looked at the team page 5 minutes ago and still saw Zack listed as "Tech Lead", where now it shows Joel Reymont as CTO

dsincl12 9y ago
Yup, I still had the page open before I reloaded -> https://pasteboard.co/GINcLYZ.png https://pasteboard.co/GINcLYZ.png

z3t4 9y ago

It's all fine when your startup is not making any money, but when millions of dollars starts to roll in things can get ugly. So always make sure you have the vesting worked out beforehand, and put it on a paper and have everyone sign it.

arisAlexis 9y ago

don't understand how you can find zero-day exploits if your codebase was solid. If it wasn't maybe it's better that they don't use your code?

mindhash 9y ago
Exploit could be from dependant libraries or os related..

lz400 9y ago

No proof or evidence of anything. I've no idea about what happened here and I don't care but this post makes my BS detector fire in several places.

rwallace 9y ago

Upvoted this submission because it contains three very important lessons for technologists: 1. Never, ever accept a cofounder arrangement where you deal with the code and someone else deals with all the money. 2. If someone starts trying to exploit you, get a lawyer. The last thing you want is for the law to be on your enemy's side. 3. If this is your hard lesson in the first two rules, and the bad guys offer you a substantial chunk of cash to walk away (and $300,000 is a substantial chunk of cash), take it. It's by far the least bad outcome for you.

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kaonashi 9y ago

If you're going to go to work on a ponzi scheme, don't be surprised when you end up working with entirely unscrupulous people.