5 ms·

Pretty wild how much "just execute better" posts there are, one wonders if its the common response to a situation like this, from this community, and what that

Pretty wild how much "just execute better" posts there are, one wonders if its the common response to a situation like this, from this community, and what that says about trustworthiness in general of YC "founder" types!

jacquesm 3y ago
YC isn't responsible for the actions of the founders of every start-up that they fund. Even worse: after funding them they have very limited ability to influence the companies they funded, after all, YC has a small minority stake and founders could just ignore them. Obviously YC can cut them off from further capital and blackball them but that may not be sufficient.
- dtornabene 3y ago
  on the contrary! They are indeed very much responsible, if only in part, for the actions of the people they are giving money and sharing connections with! Pretty sure there's an entire corner of criminal law and civil code covering exactly those responsibilities! And yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff to make sure that these things don't happen, or at the very very least publicly demonstrate that they will not tolerate it from future "founders" by responding appropriately to this one. I am always freshly amazed, probably from naivete, each time people make excuses for the terrible behavior of SV tech "founders" and the VCs that prop them up. I shouldn't be, on this forum, and thats on me.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    As a seed investor and VC investor I'm happy to inform you that it very rarely happens that seed investors or VCs have a controlling interest in the company. You may have a board seat. And if you don't like what the company is doing your most powerful move is resign from the board. Another option is to force a shareholder vote, but if the founders still hold the majority (as they should, at this phase) that will be overruled. I'm freshly amazed by the lack of basic corporate law knowledge in the context of HN, this is really something that should be known if you partake of conversations like these. I agree they should respond appropriately, but depending on what happened that response may not satisfy you.
    - dtornabene 3y ago
      I don't care whether you invest, nor do I care about corporate law. Nor, really, is corporate law at the heart of this matter! But, hey, if it shuts down opposition on forum arguments I'm sure thats an easy card to try and pull out. So let me be crystal clear, no one needs to know corporate law to comment on whether or not a YC funded startup is ripping off another startup, a startup that had previously applied to YC and was turned down! The idea that YC is in some way not responsible for the companies which would not even exist if not for the money and connections provided by YC is dishonest in the extreme. You should be embarrassed but I know you won't. In half an hour or less this comment will likely be flagged out of existence and no one will the wiser.
danenania 3y ago
The alternative would pretty much be an end to startup innovation, since a large company with a team of lawyers could just claim that any new product that threatens them is a copy in some way and destroy the startup with legal bills regardless of whether there's any merit to the claims. Being copied sucks, and I agree that it should be looked down upon culturally, but I think "just execute better" really is the right answer. It's better for consumers and ultimately better for entrepreneurs too.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I've had something like this happen with a bunch of guys cloning my software and changing the URL to offer a competing service. I've also had a funded competitor copy our business model and attempt to compete. I sued the first one, the other one we outcompeted in spite of a 30:1 funding discrepancy. Regardless, these things are distractions and some funded bunch of cowboys destroying the market for you when you've spent a long time to get established can be a real problem. Even if they go under they'll do a lot of damage, not just to you, but also to their customers and possibly the whole field as a consequence of their activities. For instance: to offer the product for free because they're burning investor cash.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    Did anything come of the lawsuit?
  - danenania 3y ago
    I hear you, but what's the alternative? Are you advocating for software patents? If you're just saying that an API or a website is copyrighted and can't be ripped off verbatim, that sounds more reasonable to me. But still, it's trivial to copy but then make minor cosmetic changes (especially with AI). Then we're back to a very troublesome gray area.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      It all depends on what has been copied. If privileged info from the YC application was used they should be sued into the ground for that but I can't imagine that YC would ever let that happen. If they copied code, text or images from the product or webpages they should be slammed for that too. But if they just decided to clone the concept and did all the legwork themselves that would be a different matter. The fact that they infiltrated the OPs comms channels certainly doesn't make them look good.
ewe 3y ago
Yeah, it seriously sucks. I've been following YC for over 10 years, and this is so disappointing.

jacquesm 3y ago

YC isn't responsible for the actions of the founders of every start-up that they fund. Even worse: after funding them they have very limited ability to influence the companies they funded, after all, YC has a small minority stake and founders could just ignore them. Obviously YC can cut them off from further capital and blackball them but that may not be sufficient.

dtornabene 3y ago
on the contrary! They are indeed very much responsible, if only in part, for the actions of the people they are giving money and sharing connections with! Pretty sure there's an entire corner of criminal law and civil code covering exactly those responsibilities! And yeah, they can do all kinds of stuff to make sure that these things don't happen, or at the very very least publicly demonstrate that they will not tolerate it from future "founders" by responding appropriately to this one. I am always freshly amazed, probably from naivete, each time people make excuses for the terrible behavior of SV tech "founders" and the VCs that prop them up. I shouldn't be, on this forum, and thats on me.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  As a seed investor and VC investor I'm happy to inform you that it very rarely happens that seed investors or VCs have a controlling interest in the company. You may have a board seat. And if you don't like what the company is doing your most powerful move is resign from the board. Another option is to force a shareholder vote, but if the founders still hold the majority (as they should, at this phase) that will be overruled. I'm freshly amazed by the lack of basic corporate law knowledge in the context of HN, this is really something that should be known if you partake of conversations like these. I agree they should respond appropriately, but depending on what happened that response may not satisfy you.
  - dtornabene 3y ago
    I don't care whether you invest, nor do I care about corporate law. Nor, really, is corporate law at the heart of this matter! But, hey, if it shuts down opposition on forum arguments I'm sure thats an easy card to try and pull out. So let me be crystal clear, no one needs to know corporate law to comment on whether or not a YC funded startup is ripping off another startup, a startup that had previously applied to YC and was turned down! The idea that YC is in some way not responsible for the companies which would not even exist if not for the money and connections provided by YC is dishonest in the extreme. You should be embarrassed but I know you won't. In half an hour or less this comment will likely be flagged out of existence and no one will the wiser.

danenania 3y ago

The alternative would pretty much be an end to startup innovation, since a large company with a team of lawyers could just claim that any new product that threatens them is a copy in some way and destroy the startup with legal bills regardless of whether there's any merit to the claims. Being copied sucks, and I agree that it should be looked down upon culturally, but I think "just execute better" really is the right answer. It's better for consumers and ultimately better for entrepreneurs too.

jacquesm 3y ago
I've had something like this happen with a bunch of guys cloning my software and changing the URL to offer a competing service. I've also had a funded competitor copy our business model and attempt to compete. I sued the first one, the other one we outcompeted in spite of a 30:1 funding discrepancy. Regardless, these things are distractions and some funded bunch of cowboys destroying the market for you when you've spent a long time to get established can be a real problem. Even if they go under they'll do a lot of damage, not just to you, but also to their customers and possibly the whole field as a consequence of their activities. For instance: to offer the product for free because they're burning investor cash.
- tptacek 3y ago
  Did anything come of the lawsuit?
- danenania 3y ago
  I hear you, but what's the alternative? Are you advocating for software patents? If you're just saying that an API or a website is copyrighted and can't be ripped off verbatim, that sounds more reasonable to me. But still, it's trivial to copy but then make minor cosmetic changes (especially with AI). Then we're back to a very troublesome gray area.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    It all depends on what has been copied. If privileged info from the YC application was used they should be sued into the ground for that but I can't imagine that YC would ever let that happen. If they copied code, text or images from the product or webpages they should be slammed for that too. But if they just decided to clone the concept and did all the legwork themselves that would be a different matter. The fact that they infiltrated the OPs comms channels certainly doesn't make them look good.

ewe 3y ago

Yeah, it seriously sucks. I've been following YC for over 10 years, and this is so disappointing.