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OP here. Bankruptcy fear was real at the time. Google has at least a few thousand lawyers on payroll. They probably also have a process of handling delinquenci

by sudcha 6y ago

OP here. Bankruptcy fear was real at the time. Google has at least a few thousand lawyers on payroll. They probably also have a process of handling delinquencies and sending them notices. A quick look at the lawyer fee to just manage the case, let alone fight it, is enough for bootstrapped company to raise hands. +1 to bad actors possibility. I shared this with Google team, I'm not sure what they have done since. We are out of that situation and I wrote the post so others, relatively new to Cloud don't make same mistakes. Fail fast is a very bad idea with Cloud.

Alupis 6y ago
All true, and good points you raise. However, Google's army of lawyers costs them real money, where your bill is largely made up numbers. Perhaps the true cost is still enough to warrant sic'ing their lawyers on your company. Even in that situation, a wait-and-see approach is still pretty advisable. The worst case scenario was already known to you - bankruptcy. Nothing Google or their lawyers do would change that worst-case outcome, and if Google was aware you literally don't have $72k, and might just declare bankruptcy and walk away, they'll be much more eager to negotiate a more reasonable bill and settle your account. It's exactly as J. Paul Getty said... Very glad it's being worked out and you will not have to go down that path.
- donmcronald 6y ago
  > Even in that situation, a wait-and-see approach is still pretty advisable. The worst case scenario was already known to you - bankruptcy. You could even go scorched earth, represent yourself, and drag it out as long as possible. "Your honor, I'm a free man on the land and all I was doing was travelling the information super highway. I'm not bound by your laws!" Haha.
xwdv 6y ago
This is why you create a shell company to use cloud services with while your real company leases the servers from that company. As soon as you run up a bill you can’t pay you shut down the whole shell company and reopen a new one.

by sudcha 6y ago

Alupis 6y ago

All true, and good points you raise. However, Google's army of lawyers costs them real money, where your bill is largely made up numbers. Perhaps the true cost is still enough to warrant sic'ing their lawyers on your company. Even in that situation, a wait-and-see approach is still pretty advisable. The worst case scenario was already known to you - bankruptcy. Nothing Google or their lawyers do would change that worst-case outcome, and if Google was aware you literally don't have $72k, and might just declare bankruptcy and walk away, they'll be much more eager to negotiate a more reasonable bill and settle your account. It's exactly as J. Paul Getty said... Very glad it's being worked out and you will not have to go down that path.

donmcronald 6y ago
> Even in that situation, a wait-and-see approach is still pretty advisable. The worst case scenario was already known to you - bankruptcy. You could even go scorched earth, represent yourself, and drag it out as long as possible. "Your honor, I'm a free man on the land and all I was doing was travelling the information super highway. I'm not bound by your laws!" Haha.

xwdv 6y ago

This is why you create a shell company to use cloud services with while your real company leases the servers from that company. As soon as you run up a bill you can’t pay you shut down the whole shell company and reopen a new one.