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> In a distressing early sign for Zoox’s investors, Kentley-Klay also spent $16,000 on a Sub-Zero office refrigerator because he thought it looked cool. Let's

> In a distressing early sign for Zoox’s investors, Kentley-Klay also spent $16,000 on a Sub-Zero office refrigerator because he thought it looked cool. Let's say I'm an investor and a founder of a company in my portfolio does this. What would be an appropriate response? This seems like a cartoonishly gratuitous waste of capital.

throwawayjava 8y ago
What would you do if literally any other employee with a company card did this? You'd either fire them on the spot. Or, if that's not an option [1], quietly figure out a longer-term strategy for eventually firing them. Or, if you're a Nice Guy, you'd offer to let them stay on if they return the gratuitous waste of capital and/or pay the company back. I'll never quite understand why founders are treated as an exceptional case by capital. Especially in hard tech fields like self-driving where the idea is literally obvious to a five-year-old but the execution requires courting `the best humans available. -- [1] e.g., an engineer with mostly undocumented knowledge of key parts of your software or sales rep with close relationships to a client during a critical time period.
Fricken 8y ago
It's like when a municipality spends some piddling sum on public art, you always get this chorus of idiots asking "what are they doing blowing taxpayer money on art when there's potholes to fill?"
an4rchy 8y ago
It might have been budgeted in or part of some other discretionary spending limit (employee perks, parties etc) and this is so small that it doesn't matter. I have seen termsheets where the founders need board/investor approval for spend over $XXXK, so that it stops/limits misuse of capital. This could have been board approved, if it needed to be or else investors/boards can always ask for it to be returned and mandate approval for future spends above $X in categories outside of regular business spending.

throwawayjava 8y ago

What would you do if literally any other employee with a company card did this? You'd either fire them on the spot. Or, if that's not an option [1], quietly figure out a longer-term strategy for eventually firing them. Or, if you're a Nice Guy, you'd offer to let them stay on if they return the gratuitous waste of capital and/or pay the company back. I'll never quite understand why founders are treated as an exceptional case by capital. Especially in hard tech fields like self-driving where the idea is literally obvious to a five-year-old but the execution requires courting `the best humans available. -- [1] e.g., an engineer with mostly undocumented knowledge of key parts of your software or sales rep with close relationships to a client during a critical time period.

Fricken 8y ago

It's like when a municipality spends some piddling sum on public art, you always get this chorus of idiots asking "what are they doing blowing taxpayer money on art when there's potholes to fill?"

an4rchy 8y ago

It might have been budgeted in or part of some other discretionary spending limit (employee perks, parties etc) and this is so small that it doesn't matter. I have seen termsheets where the founders need board/investor approval for spend over $XXXK, so that it stops/limits misuse of capital. This could have been board approved, if it needed to be or else investors/boards can always ask for it to be returned and mandate approval for future spends above $X in categories outside of regular business spending.