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I don't understand what you think Facebook did wrong. They intend to enter this new space, using their technology and their people. As a courtesy they offered

by tjic 14y ago

I don't understand what you think Facebook did wrong. They intend to enter this new space, using their technology and their people. As a courtesy they offered to hire you / throw a lot of money at you. What would you have had them do instead? Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake? Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna, giving you your own team and allowing you to take your own technical direction? Why should Facebook - or any competitor - do either of these things? Seems to me like they acted pretty reasonably here. Of all the things you said, this struck me as the weirdest: > Strangely, your “platform developer relations” executive made no attempt to defend my position. What do you think the purpose of the “platform developer relations” executive is? To advocate AGAINST Facebook and for random outside developers? I'm not a fan of the Facebook app (not a member) or the company...but in this case, the firm seems to be acting 100% reasonably.

larrys 14y ago
"the firm seems to be acting 100% reasonably." And, as a for profit business, they don't even have to hit anywhere near 100%. They just have to do well enough in how they operate not to loose business or somehow jeopardize what they have. It's really that simple. This is a story that prior to the Internet nobody would ever hear about. No journalist would tell this story except in a magazine piece maybe that had an agenda and wanted to paint a picture. This tale goes nowhere near even scratching the surface of how business operates. Spying. Payoffs. "Cut off their air supply" (Microsoft/Netscape) Here's a story from when I started in business years ago. I called a friend of my fathers for a reference on someone who had worked with him in the past. He said "hmm, Bob left his job? Hmm." and then gave me a nice reference on him. Before I knew it he had hired Bob and basically told him "he's a startup you are wasting your time". I lost out on hiring Bob. This was a friend of the family. That may or may not be how any one of us would operate but in business as you say you can't be "a precious snow flake".
WiseWeasel 14y ago
It seems like Dalton was under the impression that he was rather explicitly threatened with being denied access to the Facebook platform through a change in terms of service, in a way that is critical to his business. That's a strong-handed negotiation tactic for a supposed business infrastructure provider.
- DevX101 14y ago
  Strong handed and entirely legitimate.
  - iamwil 14y ago
    Just because it's legitimate doesn't mean it's not asshole-ish. I could invite you over to my house for dinner, and then ask you to pay for the raw materials after you've eaten. Legitimate, but still asshole-ish. Legitimate is a low-bar.
  - ThomPete 14y ago
    But not very constructive.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
    All's fair in business is a bullshit perspective. It's the self justification of those who want to engage in behavior they know is sociopathic. Deception is occasionally a necessary tactic, but it would be insane to try to argue that it is a behavior that creates economic value. It should not be the expected default behavior, and in fact, is not. Which is why there are both civil and criminal penalties for fraud. Deceptive behavior that is less than fraud may not be illegal, but it's still shame worthy in my view.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      I've been seeing comments like the one you have responded to more and more here. Commenters seemingly confusing legality with ethics and politeness, or perhaps mistakenly thinking that the later two do not exist. If we swapped out companies with strangers and HN with facebook, would these people be responding to their friends posting venting comments about whistlers on the bus to work with "It's a free country, they are allowed to whistle on the bus, so shutup."? To be honest, I don't think so. I think the reason this reply is absurd is patently is likely obvious to them when the subject of the criticism does not involve a corporation. It seems as far as they are concerned, as soon as a company enters the picture, all criticisms become invalid if they do not involve law-breaking. Why this is the case I can only guess.
MayanAstronaut 14y ago
Totally agree with you. It's a game, FB used hard tactics, now he is using public sentiment. It is just an money game in the end. Blog posts like this just hurt both companies perceptions.
jedberg 14y ago
I think his issue was that the meeting was in bad faith. He was under the impression that he would be demoing his technology so it could get visibility within Facebook, not walking into a negotiation. If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he probably would have never gone. What do you think the purpose of the “platform developer relations” executive is? To advocate AGAINST Facebook and for random outside developers? Actually, yes. Usually that is what someone in that position does. They are the advocate for the customer, to help the company see things from the customer's point of view.
- notJim 14y ago
  > If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he probably would have never gone. I don't understand why this is a big issue. What was the cost to him in going to this meeting? It would hardly have changed the outcome (outcome: he declines their offer and they build a service which clobbers his.)
  - fatbird 14y ago
    It was an ambush that was designed to give FB an advantage in negotiating with him. It was hardball tactics, carried out in bad faith. Why should Dalton feel neutral about being on the receiving end of that?
    - csallen 14y ago
      I don't understand how they gained an advantage through that meeting. It seems that, meeting or not, they already had the advantage by controlling the platform.
      - fatbird 14y ago
        Generally, negotiations favour the prepared. By ambushing him, FB was hoping to trick him into negotiating unprepared. Dalton, by experience or judgement or both, recognized the ambush and dealt with it well. Someone else might start talking terms because they accept what the FB execs are saying (and thus be intimidated or fearful, or grateful for what seems like a nice guy move by FB).
samstave 14y ago
While I agree with your assessment of how the platform dev relations guy should have been expected to toe the FB line, I do have to say that I highly respect Dalton for clearly stating he had no interest in the acquihire. In fact, this completely confirms my previous post from two weeks ago: >All these aquisitions are more insidious, they are being done by the big players to stifle diversity in the market and continue to solidify their leads on online services under the guise of talent acquisition to better their companies - rather its an effort to prevent that talent from building something that would be a detriment to their positions As well as: >The acquiring of the teams is defensive in that they take that team and their IP etc off the market from their competition. It is offensive in that it squashes any possibility that whatever service it was the startup had would compete for their similar service. And: >Attention is the resource that social services are harvesting from their users and monetizing. ... Companies that provide features, utility and services that keep the attention of users (especially when providing no physical product) are those that will have longevity. So, capturing those that would build things that direct user attention away from your product is critical to these huge companies. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272331 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272331
- tjic 14y ago
  > I do have to say that I highly respect Dalton for clearly stating he had no interest in the acquihire. Agreed.
JPKab 14y ago
By creating an open platform, Facebook has made the big picture decision that encouraging third party developers to build applications leveraging their social graph is beneficial to the company's bottom line, allowing them to be embedded in places where they otherwise wouldn't be. This is where utilizing a product company's platform can be very morally dicey. They offer a platform for others to build on, because it raises the value of their company by making it more pervasive. They also build their own products on top of their platform. Which takes precedence over the other? My view is this: in the long run, the developer platform is more valuable than any product Facebook can build themselves. The short term thinking that is demonstrated here leads to damaging the trust that developers have in the Facebook platform. It's one thing to use Facebook for authentication. It's easy and takes little investment. However, building a REAL product on the platform is a risk. If Facebook behaves like this, they show that it's a risk NOT worth taking, and they devalue their own platform, putting short term gain (product) over long term gain (platform).
- smashing 14y ago
  Except that it won't, i.e. Microsoft in the 90's and Apple on the iOS/Mac platform. Businesses will follow the markets which have the greatest opportunity to turn over profit. In fact Microsoft used to call their relationship an "ecosystem" because like a predator they would gobble up or crush the smaller players.
  - pfraze 14y ago
    Yeah, but that's why linux caught on. That said, the real difference is that Microsoft's platform was better. It offered more power for less risk.
- farinasa 14y ago
  I think that was the point of the meeting. They saw that there was a developer in the space they wanted to enter. They could have just undercut him without a thought, but instead offered to work with/buy out his product. This happens. Microsoft and Google are doing it with hardware. I imagine the phone/tablet manufacturers had a similar reaction as this guy, but didn't go blogging about it on the web. It's good for us that he did, because OEMs talk to each other in meetings. Small time devs best communicate a company's intentions via the web.
waterlesscloud 14y ago
I mostly agree with you, but I don't really buy the line that they were offering him millions of dollars for his company (I assume the aqui-hire would be in that range) as "a courtesy". What they'd really be paying for is avoiding exactly this situation they're in now, with him talking quite loudly about how they shut him down. Can't blame 'em for trying, but they need to suss out their target a bit better before threatening them.
- hollerith 14y ago
  So, you think Dalton refused a few million dollars (almost all acqui-hires would enrich a founder that much) so that he could complain publicly? Or is Dalton complaining publicly now in the hopes that Facebook will pay him more later than they would have if he'd just gone along with their proposal now? (Honestly curious: I do not have an opinion yet.)
  - waterlesscloud 14y ago
    I don't really think anything about Dalton's motivations, I was commenting more that FB was attempting to buy an amicable outcome. They sort of made a mess of it, but I think that was their intent. When I do think about Dalton's motivations, I think he made a very risky bet and lost, and he's probably a bit angry with himself as much as he is with anyone else. Nothing wrong with that, I'd probably feel the same way.
  - jenius 14y ago
    I think Dalton is in it for a cause, and a belief. A belief that he has strengthened and reinforced in his mind for months. One that he is totally convinced is true. And right here he demonstrated the strength of that belief and of his cause. He could essentially have sold his soul to the devil and been rich and happy, or stuck with his belief, and he stuck with it. Whether or not he is right, I'll give him a lot of respect for sticking with his guns and turning down something so outrageously tempting that hardly anyone else has turned down ever, just to chase his dreams. Props Dalton, and whether or not you get it, you deserve congrats and success for this.
jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
He's pissed because the conversation went from "Hey, this is great for both of us, what can we do to help you build it?" to "Join us or die". If Facebook went from expressions of support for the project to hostility, I think anyone would feel they'd acted in bad faith. It's not illegal, and it's a fair point that developers should anticipate Facebook's conflicting interests. But it's also fair to publicly shame sleazy behavior when you see it.
- petegrif 14y ago
  Exactly. It is a breach of faith that goes to the heart of what a platform is supposed to be.
gruseom 14y ago
Would you please stop being gratuitously rude? Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake and Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna, etc. add nothing other than nastiness to Not compete with you and Acquire you, etc.
- klbarry 14y ago
  I just downvoted you by accident on mobile, it should have beeb an upvote.
- unreal37 14y ago
  I didn't view that as rude. Eye of the beholder I guess.
  - 16s 14y ago
    Nor did I. He was likely trying to describe the self-entitlement of the younger generation. Which I totally agree with. You/we are not entitled to anything and you/we are not special snowflakes. I think that's all he meant to convey.
    - ktizo 14y ago
      Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah. And you try and tell the young people of today that, they won't believe you. http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm
    - gruseom 14y ago
      Perhaps it would be helpful to unpack this. "You" did not refer to a generation, but to a person, so the language was personally insulting. The bar for personal insult is much higher and this comment doesn't pass it. First, the OP did nothing to deserve it, so it was out of place. Second, delete the insulting language and the comment not only doesn't lose information, its point (defending Facebook) becomes clearer. There was no need for arbitrary sticks in the eye. That's the meaning of "gratuitously rude".
ryguytilidie 14y ago
It is absolutely stunning to me how badly people miss the point on here. You really wouldn't be annoyed if I scheduled a meeting with you, decided to make the meeting about something else and then basically acted like I was being a good guy when it was clear I was trying to milk as much as possible out of the deal in a meeting I lied about the purpose of while I was wasting your time? Would you then want some angry asshole on the internet to mock you and call you a precious snowflake? You wouldnt? Bizarre, you seemed to think being an ass like that was pretty reasonable.
- grecy 14y ago
  > You really wouldn't be annoyed..... You're absolutely right, I would. The OP has a point. But let's be honest here, we're talking about a multi billion dollar company with thousands of employees, now traded on the stock market, so presumably aggressively trying to spin a profit. Expecting said company to be "nice" is naive at best.
  - dedward 14y ago
    It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? I expect honesty in business dealings, large or small. That doesn't preclude me from having some mean lawyers on my side to ensure I'm covered, but the up-front negotiations aren't driven by them. I'd walk out too.
    - grecy 14y ago
      > It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? Yes, I agree that it is a sad state of affairs. Whether you accept it or not, this is the world we've created for ourselves. (Obviously you do accept it, as evidenced by the lawyers you mention)
      - ricardobeat 14y ago
        The world hasn't ended yet; not accepting things you think are wrong is what creates the world for ourselves.
downandout 14y ago
> "Your team doesn’t seem to understand that being “good negotiators” vs implying that you will destroy someone’s business built on your “open platform” are not the same thing." It's Facebook's platform. Sometimes they are going to create internal products that compete with developers' ideas. The fact that they brought you in, explained what they were doing, and raised the possibility that they were willing to give you what I assume to be a boatload of cash to compensate you for your efforts seems almost comically generous to me. The simple fact of the matter is that they CAN crush your business. They seem to be cognizant of that fact and were wiling to do something to help you. All I can say is that I'll bet most people reading this wish they had this kind of "problem" and would be writing "thank you" letters to Mark Zuckerberg, even if we ultimately rejected the offer. The title of this story could easily have been "This Just In: Facebook Has a Heart".
temphn 14y ago
I don't get it either. Last week this guy wanted to make some sort of paid Open Twitter competitor. This week he's mad at Facebook for offering to acquire his company rather than simply build a first party feature! No good deed goes unpunished. Moreover, it's just not smart to publicly pick a fight with Facebook after they offered to acquire you. If you're the guys on the other side of the table, you might well brand this guy "unreasonable" and reckon that Kevin Systrom beat him once (score of $1B to $0), and Kevin is now playing for Facebook. Seriously, this was not a good move on Dalton's part. As for this ("perhaps the public markets...will give you the time and goodwill to fix the obvious structural flaws"), he must be joking. Facebook has helicopter problems. Their dilemma is whether they are worth 20 billion dollars or 100 billion dollars. For Dalton to lecture Zuck in this tone, when Zuck has lapped him like 1 billion times over, and after they extended him a hand in good faith...just not smart.
- iamwil 14y ago
  This post is not about being acuhired at all. Read it again. His main thesis has been in the last couple of blog posts is: Social media platforms should not be ad-supported. This is just a continuation of that theme. He's saying, ~Your employees are doing asshole things to 3rd party developers, even though you're calling it a platform, because they have bad incentives, and that bad incentive is coming from the search for ad revenue~ Essentially, he's not so much mad at Mark, or even really caring whether Mark reads it or not. This is another piece of proof (to him and others that might listen), that social media platforms should not be ad-supported. "The only way to get fulfillment is to help other people that believe what you believe." - Simon Sinek You should watch the TED video where Simon Sinek talks about this. Dalton is basically putting this crazy idea out there about a non-ad supported social media platform (gasp!), and trying to find people who believes what he believes.
  - petegrif 14y ago
    IMHO - smart reply. This is indeed the essence of DC's point.
jonmrodriguez 14y ago
Near the bottom of this page is this exchange: natrius: "Did they threaten to revoke API access?" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325586 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325586) dalton: "yep. That was presented as an option they could use by one exec, on a phone call." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593)
onedev 14y ago
Can't tell if this is a poem or not...
petegrif 14y ago
Seems to me that you are missing the key point. If FB did not declare itself a platform...if it had not encouraged others to build on its platform...if it had not encouraged DC to build his product on this platform...then you would be right. But if you are a platform, if you do encourage others to build on your platform (which is the whole point) and if you encourage a company to continue developing a product then it is not right. It may be realpolitik. It may be that having done all those things the platform company realizes that something it has encouraged is more strategic than it had realized, that it doesn't want a third party owning that product and it has to reel back its promises (which is what is sounds like here) but that is (a) a crippling result for the poor developer who took you at your word, and (b) and blow to your credibility as a platform. One incident like this won't kill you. Two won't. But at some point people just won't develop on your platform because there's no trust. ALL successful platforms have to walk this tightrope. Some do it better than others.

by tjic 14y ago

larrys 14y ago

"the firm seems to be acting 100% reasonably." And, as a for profit business, they don't even have to hit anywhere near 100%. They just have to do well enough in how they operate not to loose business or somehow jeopardize what they have. It's really that simple. This is a story that prior to the Internet nobody would ever hear about. No journalist would tell this story except in a magazine piece maybe that had an agenda and wanted to paint a picture. This tale goes nowhere near even scratching the surface of how business operates. Spying. Payoffs. "Cut off their air supply" (Microsoft/Netscape) Here's a story from when I started in business years ago. I called a friend of my fathers for a reference on someone who had worked with him in the past. He said "hmm, Bob left his job? Hmm." and then gave me a nice reference on him. Before I knew it he had hired Bob and basically told him "he's a startup you are wasting your time". I lost out on hiring Bob. This was a friend of the family. That may or may not be how any one of us would operate but in business as you say you can't be "a precious snow flake".

WiseWeasel 14y ago

It seems like Dalton was under the impression that he was rather explicitly threatened with being denied access to the Facebook platform through a change in terms of service, in a way that is critical to his business. That's a strong-handed negotiation tactic for a supposed business infrastructure provider.

DevX101 14y ago
Strong handed and entirely legitimate.
- iamwil 14y ago
  Just because it's legitimate doesn't mean it's not asshole-ish. I could invite you over to my house for dinner, and then ask you to pay for the raw materials after you've eaten. Legitimate, but still asshole-ish. Legitimate is a low-bar.
- ThomPete 14y ago
  But not very constructive.
- jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago
  All's fair in business is a bullshit perspective. It's the self justification of those who want to engage in behavior they know is sociopathic. Deception is occasionally a necessary tactic, but it would be insane to try to argue that it is a behavior that creates economic value. It should not be the expected default behavior, and in fact, is not. Which is why there are both civil and criminal penalties for fraud. Deceptive behavior that is less than fraud may not be illegal, but it's still shame worthy in my view.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I've been seeing comments like the one you have responded to more and more here. Commenters seemingly confusing legality with ethics and politeness, or perhaps mistakenly thinking that the later two do not exist. If we swapped out companies with strangers and HN with facebook, would these people be responding to their friends posting venting comments about whistlers on the bus to work with "It's a free country, they are allowed to whistle on the bus, so shutup."? To be honest, I don't think so. I think the reason this reply is absurd is patently is likely obvious to them when the subject of the criticism does not involve a corporation. It seems as far as they are concerned, as soon as a company enters the picture, all criticisms become invalid if they do not involve law-breaking. Why this is the case I can only guess.

MayanAstronaut 14y ago

Totally agree with you. It's a game, FB used hard tactics, now he is using public sentiment. It is just an money game in the end. Blog posts like this just hurt both companies perceptions.

jedberg 14y ago

I think his issue was that the meeting was in bad faith. He was under the impression that he would be demoing his technology so it could get visibility within Facebook, not walking into a negotiation. If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he probably would have never gone. What do you think the purpose of the “platform developer relations” executive is? To advocate AGAINST Facebook and for random outside developers? Actually, yes. Usually that is what someone in that position does. They are the advocate for the customer, to help the company see things from the customer's point of view.

notJim 14y ago
> If they had been upfront about their intentions with the meeting, he probably would have never gone. I don't understand why this is a big issue. What was the cost to him in going to this meeting? It would hardly have changed the outcome (outcome: he declines their offer and they build a service which clobbers his.)
- fatbird 14y ago
  It was an ambush that was designed to give FB an advantage in negotiating with him. It was hardball tactics, carried out in bad faith. Why should Dalton feel neutral about being on the receiving end of that?
  - csallen 14y ago
    I don't understand how they gained an advantage through that meeting. It seems that, meeting or not, they already had the advantage by controlling the platform.
    - fatbird 14y ago
      Generally, negotiations favour the prepared. By ambushing him, FB was hoping to trick him into negotiating unprepared. Dalton, by experience or judgement or both, recognized the ambush and dealt with it well. Someone else might start talking terms because they accept what the FB execs are saying (and thus be intimidated or fearful, or grateful for what seems like a nice guy move by FB).

samstave 14y ago

While I agree with your assessment of how the platform dev relations guy should have been expected to toe the FB line, I do have to say that I highly respect Dalton for clearly stating he had no interest in the acquihire. In fact, this completely confirms my previous post from two weeks ago: >All these aquisitions are more insidious, they are being done by the big players to stifle diversity in the market and continue to solidify their leads on online services under the guise of talent acquisition to better their companies - rather its an effort to prevent that talent from building something that would be a detriment to their positions As well as: >The acquiring of the teams is defensive in that they take that team and their IP etc off the market from their competition. It is offensive in that it squashes any possibility that whatever service it was the startup had would compete for their similar service. And: >Attention is the resource that social services are harvesting from their users and monetizing. ... Companies that provide features, utility and services that keep the attention of users (especially when providing no physical product) are those that will have longevity. So, capturing those that would build things that direct user attention away from your product is critical to these huge companies. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272331 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4272331

tjic 14y ago
> I do have to say that I highly respect Dalton for clearly stating he had no interest in the acquihire. Agreed.

JPKab 14y ago

By creating an open platform, Facebook has made the big picture decision that encouraging third party developers to build applications leveraging their social graph is beneficial to the company's bottom line, allowing them to be embedded in places where they otherwise wouldn't be. This is where utilizing a product company's platform can be very morally dicey. They offer a platform for others to build on, because it raises the value of their company by making it more pervasive. They also build their own products on top of their platform. Which takes precedence over the other? My view is this: in the long run, the developer platform is more valuable than any product Facebook can build themselves. The short term thinking that is demonstrated here leads to damaging the trust that developers have in the Facebook platform. It's one thing to use Facebook for authentication. It's easy and takes little investment. However, building a REAL product on the platform is a risk. If Facebook behaves like this, they show that it's a risk NOT worth taking, and they devalue their own platform, putting short term gain (product) over long term gain (platform).

smashing 14y ago
Except that it won't, i.e. Microsoft in the 90's and Apple on the iOS/Mac platform. Businesses will follow the markets which have the greatest opportunity to turn over profit. In fact Microsoft used to call their relationship an "ecosystem" because like a predator they would gobble up or crush the smaller players.
- pfraze 14y ago
  Yeah, but that's why linux caught on. That said, the real difference is that Microsoft's platform was better. It offered more power for less risk.
farinasa 14y ago
I think that was the point of the meeting. They saw that there was a developer in the space they wanted to enter. They could have just undercut him without a thought, but instead offered to work with/buy out his product. This happens. Microsoft and Google are doing it with hardware. I imagine the phone/tablet manufacturers had a similar reaction as this guy, but didn't go blogging about it on the web. It's good for us that he did, because OEMs talk to each other in meetings. Small time devs best communicate a company's intentions via the web.

waterlesscloud 14y ago

I mostly agree with you, but I don't really buy the line that they were offering him millions of dollars for his company (I assume the aqui-hire would be in that range) as "a courtesy". What they'd really be paying for is avoiding exactly this situation they're in now, with him talking quite loudly about how they shut him down. Can't blame 'em for trying, but they need to suss out their target a bit better before threatening them.

hollerith 14y ago
So, you think Dalton refused a few million dollars (almost all acqui-hires would enrich a founder that much) so that he could complain publicly? Or is Dalton complaining publicly now in the hopes that Facebook will pay him more later than they would have if he'd just gone along with their proposal now? (Honestly curious: I do not have an opinion yet.)
- waterlesscloud 14y ago
  I don't really think anything about Dalton's motivations, I was commenting more that FB was attempting to buy an amicable outcome. They sort of made a mess of it, but I think that was their intent. When I do think about Dalton's motivations, I think he made a very risky bet and lost, and he's probably a bit angry with himself as much as he is with anyone else. Nothing wrong with that, I'd probably feel the same way.
- jenius 14y ago
  I think Dalton is in it for a cause, and a belief. A belief that he has strengthened and reinforced in his mind for months. One that he is totally convinced is true. And right here he demonstrated the strength of that belief and of his cause. He could essentially have sold his soul to the devil and been rich and happy, or stuck with his belief, and he stuck with it. Whether or not he is right, I'll give him a lot of respect for sticking with his guns and turning down something so outrageously tempting that hardly anyone else has turned down ever, just to chase his dreams. Props Dalton, and whether or not you get it, you deserve congrats and success for this.

jasonwatkinspdx 14y ago

He's pissed because the conversation went from "Hey, this is great for both of us, what can we do to help you build it?" to "Join us or die". If Facebook went from expressions of support for the project to hostility, I think anyone would feel they'd acted in bad faith. It's not illegal, and it's a fair point that developers should anticipate Facebook's conflicting interests. But it's also fair to publicly shame sleazy behavior when you see it.

petegrif 14y ago
Exactly. It is a breach of faith that goes to the heart of what a platform is supposed to be.

gruseom 14y ago

Would you please stop being gratuitously rude? Not compete with you, because you're a precious snow flake and Acquire you and treat you like a prima donna, etc. add nothing other than nastiness to Not compete with you and Acquire you, etc.

klbarry 14y ago
I just downvoted you by accident on mobile, it should have beeb an upvote.
unreal37 14y ago
I didn't view that as rude. Eye of the beholder I guess.
- 16s 14y ago
  Nor did I. He was likely trying to describe the self-entitlement of the younger generation. Which I totally agree with. You/we are not entitled to anything and you/we are not special snowflakes. I think that's all he meant to convey.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah. And you try and tell the young people of today that, they won't believe you. http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/four_yorkshiremen.htm
  - gruseom 14y ago
    Perhaps it would be helpful to unpack this. "You" did not refer to a generation, but to a person, so the language was personally insulting. The bar for personal insult is much higher and this comment doesn't pass it. First, the OP did nothing to deserve it, so it was out of place. Second, delete the insulting language and the comment not only doesn't lose information, its point (defending Facebook) becomes clearer. There was no need for arbitrary sticks in the eye. That's the meaning of "gratuitously rude".

ryguytilidie 14y ago

It is absolutely stunning to me how badly people miss the point on here. You really wouldn't be annoyed if I scheduled a meeting with you, decided to make the meeting about something else and then basically acted like I was being a good guy when it was clear I was trying to milk as much as possible out of the deal in a meeting I lied about the purpose of while I was wasting your time? Would you then want some angry asshole on the internet to mock you and call you a precious snowflake? You wouldnt? Bizarre, you seemed to think being an ass like that was pretty reasonable.

grecy 14y ago
> You really wouldn't be annoyed..... You're absolutely right, I would. The OP has a point. But let's be honest here, we're talking about a multi billion dollar company with thousands of employees, now traded on the stock market, so presumably aggressively trying to spin a profit. Expecting said company to be "nice" is naive at best.
- dedward 14y ago
  It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? I expect honesty in business dealings, large or small. That doesn't preclude me from having some mean lawyers on my side to ensure I'm covered, but the up-front negotiations aren't driven by them. I'd walk out too.
  - grecy 14y ago
    > It's sad that we have to assume the worst, isn't it? Yes, I agree that it is a sad state of affairs. Whether you accept it or not, this is the world we've created for ourselves. (Obviously you do accept it, as evidenced by the lawyers you mention)
    - ricardobeat 14y ago
      The world hasn't ended yet; not accepting things you think are wrong is what creates the world for ourselves.

downandout 14y ago

> "Your team doesn’t seem to understand that being “good negotiators” vs implying that you will destroy someone’s business built on your “open platform” are not the same thing." It's Facebook's platform. Sometimes they are going to create internal products that compete with developers' ideas. The fact that they brought you in, explained what they were doing, and raised the possibility that they were willing to give you what I assume to be a boatload of cash to compensate you for your efforts seems almost comically generous to me. The simple fact of the matter is that they CAN crush your business. They seem to be cognizant of that fact and were wiling to do something to help you. All I can say is that I'll bet most people reading this wish they had this kind of "problem" and would be writing "thank you" letters to Mark Zuckerberg, even if we ultimately rejected the offer. The title of this story could easily have been "This Just In: Facebook Has a Heart".

temphn 14y ago

I don't get it either. Last week this guy wanted to make some sort of paid Open Twitter competitor. This week he's mad at Facebook for offering to acquire his company rather than simply build a first party feature! No good deed goes unpunished. Moreover, it's just not smart to publicly pick a fight with Facebook after they offered to acquire you. If you're the guys on the other side of the table, you might well brand this guy "unreasonable" and reckon that Kevin Systrom beat him once (score of $1B to $0), and Kevin is now playing for Facebook. Seriously, this was not a good move on Dalton's part. As for this ("perhaps the public markets...will give you the time and goodwill to fix the obvious structural flaws"), he must be joking. Facebook has helicopter problems. Their dilemma is whether they are worth 20 billion dollars or 100 billion dollars. For Dalton to lecture Zuck in this tone, when Zuck has lapped him like 1 billion times over, and after they extended him a hand in good faith...just not smart.

iamwil 14y ago
This post is not about being acuhired at all. Read it again. His main thesis has been in the last couple of blog posts is: Social media platforms should not be ad-supported. This is just a continuation of that theme. He's saying, ~Your employees are doing asshole things to 3rd party developers, even though you're calling it a platform, because they have bad incentives, and that bad incentive is coming from the search for ad revenue~ Essentially, he's not so much mad at Mark, or even really caring whether Mark reads it or not. This is another piece of proof (to him and others that might listen), that social media platforms should not be ad-supported. "The only way to get fulfillment is to help other people that believe what you believe." - Simon Sinek You should watch the TED video where Simon Sinek talks about this. Dalton is basically putting this crazy idea out there about a non-ad supported social media platform (gasp!), and trying to find people who believes what he believes.
- petegrif 14y ago
  IMHO - smart reply. This is indeed the essence of DC's point.

jonmrodriguez 14y ago

Near the bottom of this page is this exchange: natrius: "Did they threaten to revoke API access?" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325586 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325586) dalton: "yep. That was presented as an option they could use by one exec, on a phone call." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4325593)

onedev 14y ago

Can't tell if this is a poem or not...

petegrif 14y ago

Seems to me that you are missing the key point. If FB did not declare itself a platform...if it had not encouraged others to build on its platform...if it had not encouraged DC to build his product on this platform...then you would be right. But if you are a platform, if you do encourage others to build on your platform (which is the whole point) and if you encourage a company to continue developing a product then it is not right. It may be realpolitik. It may be that having done all those things the platform company realizes that something it has encouraged is more strategic than it had realized, that it doesn't want a third party owning that product and it has to reel back its promises (which is what is sounds like here) but that is (a) a crippling result for the poor developer who took you at your word, and (b) and blow to your credibility as a platform. One incident like this won't kill you. Two won't. But at some point people just won't develop on your platform because there's no trust. ALL successful platforms have to walk this tightrope. Some do it better than others.