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Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes: 1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people wh
by woofie11 7y ago
Law suits. The big one missing is law suits. That's a higher level of fame than this blogger has hit. That includes:
1) Nuts and idiots. For example, people who genuinely believe what you're doing is out to get them.
2) Jackals and vultures. People want what you've built, and see the legal system as a good way of extorting you to get it.
I hit this level of fame, and quickly backed down from anything which might give me more visibility.
I also stopped believing random accusations of famous people until there's proof or unless the accusers are really close. If someone is CEO of a 20,000 person company, and their closest associates accuse them of sexual harassment, exploitation, fraud, or otherwise? That's a plausible accusation. If someone runs a 20,000 person company, and 20 seemingly random people do? Well, that's almost guaranteed by statistics.
- ikeboy 7y agoMy understanding is even without fame, if you get anywhere interesting in the business world you'll need to get comfortable with litigation. Every wealthy person is entangled in it, even people you've never heard of that "only" have 50 million.
- dman 7y agoThis is an eye opener, I didnt realize it was that bad.
- swat535 7y agoI personally know some "law firms" (notice the quotes) that specialize in bogus class action lawsuits. They just gather whatever random evidence they can, from news paperclips to emails and then threaten big companies. Then quickly settle for ~700k-2M as a cash grab instead of going to court. Majority of big companies pay up instead of going to court. To cut costs, these firms also operate on only free interns and maybe have 1 or 2 actual lawyers.
- mam2 7y agoSeems like a nice side project
- spurdoman77 7y agoBut not passive income though
- mam2 7y agoAlmost no ? With the interns
- lacker 7y agoIt is certainly not true that every wealthy person is entangled in litigation. Your typical not-famous, post-exit startup founder just doesn’t have any reason to get sued by anybody.
- ikeboy 7y agoIf they completely retire and just live off interest, sure. If they invest in real estate, other businesses, etc? They're going to be involved. I'm sure there's some exceptions.
- vjeux 7y agoFyi, lacker who commented is the co-founder of Parse which got sold to Facebook and likely is in touch with a lot of founders with similar experience.
- ikeboy 7y agoI've been in touch with lots of business owners who have been involved in litigation, and I'm currently in one myself.
- toast0 7y agoSure, but if you rent out anything, you're going to be in court sooner or later. There's usually some wealth component to having something to rent out, but you don't need Internet Millions to do it.
- ikeboy 7y agoAgreed. Can stick with stocks and REITs to avoid that.
- danbmil99 7y agoThis. Any company with any kind of marketing footprint is going to be the target of numerous lawsuits, from disgruntled employees, investors, shareholders, customers Etc. The people who do best with Fame are like Bill Clinton, who ignored impeachment and went on to be a popular ex-president. You have to be able to compartmentalize. If you're the sort of person who takes things personally, let's things get under your skin, well, I think the public life is simply not for you.
- sneak 7y agoOne of the mitigating strategies here is to have a liability waiver that people sign to enter your office or home. Mine also has an NDA with a nondisparagement provision. It has been useful for dating, too.
- grawprog 7y agoPersonally, the only time i've had to sign a waiver is right before i've been doing something dangerous or life threatening. If a date made me sign a waiver before entering their home I'd be wondering what kind of fucked up things they've got planned and probably turn around and leave right there.
- sneak 7y agoI have yet to encounter anyone who had any issue with it. Personally, I work at home and wouldn’t want anyone in the building who potentially had access to my office (it’s locked, but still) to not be under NDA at the very least. Opportunistic lawsuits make the liability waiver part important. Hurt feelings when dating necessitates the non-disparagement clause. Several times I’ve had people I’ve politely rejected say all manner of false things about me, sometimes years after the fact. I make it clear to anyone who participates in my life in any meaningful social capacity that they do so only on the condition of privacy and discretion. Those are the terms made plain up front. No one is required to participate. Really though it comes down to physical safety. If someone doxes me, I incur approximately $40k in instantaneous expenses because I suddenly have to move, injunctions on posting or no, thanks to the internet. Having a document in place to be able to (somewhat) protect against or recover from that is a little bit of peace of mind.