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No, that’s not true at all. I consider myself to be an ethical and reasonable human being and have never observed a startup I’ve been a part of - in positions w
by dvdhnt 9y ago
No, that’s not true at all. I consider myself to be an ethical and reasonable human being and have never observed a startup I’ve been a part of - in positions where I am aware of operations, finances, privacy, etc - do anything “bad” like what HN keeps apologizing for. Maybe that’s a SV or big city thing, but here some of us have ethics.
- fixermark 9y agoI should probably walk that back to "wager most startups do bad things," i.e. "Not everyone is just continuously breaking the law, but if you have to place money that a randomly-chosen startup broke some law, bet on 'yes.'" In particular, I'd put the odds that 100% of software most startups use to generate product is correctly and completely licensed at "low." License compliance is expensive, and it's an easy responsibility to dodge if you can trust the aggrieved parties won't sue because your company's entire valuation isn't worth the price of their lawyers' time.
- dvdhnt 9y agoFair enough, that's a much better way to convey your point, and it's one I agree with. If we consider each domain, from hiring to operations, finance to development, I'll take your 100% odds - there are just too many areas of concern for a handful of people to get exactly right. We could also get into a social discussion, but I won't, and instead will just say I suppose technically that makes what the startup is doing criminal. However, I personally, which is irrelevant since I'm not running the whole system, find the types of things Uber has done to be magnitudes more criminal than incorrect usage of a software license. That said, I concede that it is indeed illegal, and therefore, your estimate probably isn't too far off from the truth. :)