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> Playing with daddy's money Personal attacks like this are not ok. Sure, criticize their actions, but don't parlay that into this kind of personal swipe at t

by tomhow 1y ago

> Playing with daddy's money Personal attacks like this are not ok. Sure, criticize their actions, but don't parlay that into this kind of personal swipe at the individuals and their families; that's when the line is crossed from valid critique of actions to nasty mob pile-on, and that's never ok here. Not that it should matter but as far as I can tell, the Pickle founder/CEO grew up and studied in Korea, and we have no idea what their family circumstances were.

ohdeargodno 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  It’s obviously diminutive and patronizing, and makes implications or assumptions about them and their families that are based on stereotypes or sparse information. It’s clearly against the guidelines and the guidelines aren’t discarded altogether just because a YC company is involved.
  - jcgrillo 1y ago
    damn right it's diminutive, and why the hell not? these clowns and the idiots who fund their tomfoolery deserve it
    - tomhow 1y ago
      We have no idea what the realities of their lives are. We only know the basic facts of the wrongdoing that’s been reported here, which is of course fine to criticize.
      - EraYaN 1y ago
        YC isn't that unknown and you can absolutely judge that org for funding stuff like this, you really don't need that much detail. And if you have interacted with a lot of the "founders" you know that statistically you're in the clear to judge them all too. It's a pretty weird world where a lot of dumb exists, like A LOT. The realities of their lives are frankly immaterial anyway, it's about the output (and input in case of VC money).
      - ramses0 1y ago
        * alleged wrongdoing, if you're considering it "reporting" ;-) Thank you for your service, and welcome to the... uhhh... show!
hamaspiker 1y ago
[dead]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
Fraterkes 1y ago
This guy did something very immoral and callous, and will seemingly face no real consequences for it. Roasting him in the comments of the site of the people paying him is somehow overkill?
- tomhow 1y ago
  None of us knows exactly what this specific person did or what their motivation, intention or understanding of the situation was. We only know what was in the company’s code that was published, and we know what they’ve done since to try and address it. “Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms. It’s against the HN guidelines and the guidelines still have to be upheld to some degree. It’s also false that they will face no real consequences. They’ll never forget this experience and these sorts of things are often terminal for a company.
  - ohdeargodno 1y ago
    >They’ll never forget this experience Right. They'll learn to be more discreet about it next time. Do you really believe "I got flamed on the Internet" is a memory that will counterbalance "I can make millions out of selling stolen code if I don't get caught" ? (especially considering that you flag such comments, therefore their shielding their poor egos from seeing mean words.) >these sorts of things are often terminal for a company. Starting a company is not hard. Thousands are created, and destroyed each day. If they're smart, under someone else's name. Maybe, maybe one person will see <generic AI company name> and think to look at the CEO, remember what he did and potentially try to warn people about it, and they'll be promptly ignored. Helped by people like you, under the guise of muh guidelines >“Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms I'd love to hear those terms. Because the worst that comes to mind that could apply is "disparaging", and unfortunately for them, "being mean on the internet" isn't something they can or will sue over.
    - tomhow 1y ago
      > "I can make millions out of selling stolen code if I don't get caught" This is the opposite of what happens and YC drums this into founders from the start; at least they did in my day, because pg's main startup (Viaweb) was nearly brought undone by an IP dispute, and it scarred him deeply. What YC tells you is that the more successful you are, the more likely it is that you'll be caught if you mis-use IP, and auditing this is one of the biggest parts of the due diligence that investors, acquirers and commercial partners will undertake. In fact, pg explicitly addresses this very thing in his 2005 essay How To Start a Startup [1], which was the original inspiration for YC: One of the worst things that can happen to a startup is to run into intellectual property problems. We did, and it came closer to killing us than any competitor ever did. As we were in the middle of getting bought, we discovered that one of our people had, early on, been bound by an agreement that said all his ideas belonged to the giant company that was paying for him to go to grad school. In theory, that could have meant someone else owned big chunks of our software. So the acquisition came to a screeching halt while we tried to sort this out. The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. Now we needed to raise more to keep going. But it's hard to raise money with an IP cloud over your head, because investors can't judge how serious it is. [1] https://paulgraham.com/start.html https://paulgraham.com/start.html
qualeed 1y ago
Sometimes it's really surprising what comments you guys push back on and which ones you don't comment on. (Yes, I know, you can't see everything, etc.). I suspect it might be because this one wasn't dressed up enough. While it is a personal attack, it is pretty tame compared to (non-flagged) comments I see here every day. I especially don't see it as a swipe at their family. Yet this is a pretty strong rebuke. While I highly doubt it's because the subject is a YC pick, the optics aren't great.
- tomhow 1y ago
  There’s something about the point when anger at someone’s actions turns to trawling over someone’s backstory in order to attack/demean them as a person that crosses a line for me; I’ve always pushed back on it whenever I’ve seen it, on HN and elsewhere. People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing or supporting something bad. Any time you see egregious comments on HN that aren’t flagged/dead, you should flag them and email us so we can take a look.
  - qualeed 1y ago
    >People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing “bad”. So we're clear, because this implies I'm "supporting" it, I'm not. Just saying that this is more tame than many personal attacks I've seen, with a stronger response than I've seen (when there is a response). And, in this case, that gives off some bad optics/more ammo to people who are critical about when & why you moderate. Without moderator transparency (which I've read the reasoning for, and can agree with!), optics is really all you've got.
    - tomhow 1y ago
      In the context of this thread (and not other supposedly worse comments in other threads that I’m not able to evaluate), having allowed pretty much everything and anything to be said, I’m comfortable with this point - the point where things turn personally nasty - being the point where I draw a line and push back.

by tomhow 1y ago

ohdeargodno 1y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 1y ago
It’s obviously diminutive and patronizing, and makes implications or assumptions about them and their families that are based on stereotypes or sparse information. It’s clearly against the guidelines and the guidelines aren’t discarded altogether just because a YC company is involved.
- jcgrillo 1y ago
  damn right it's diminutive, and why the hell not? these clowns and the idiots who fund their tomfoolery deserve it
  - tomhow 1y ago
    We have no idea what the realities of their lives are. We only know the basic facts of the wrongdoing that’s been reported here, which is of course fine to criticize.
    - EraYaN 1y ago
      YC isn't that unknown and you can absolutely judge that org for funding stuff like this, you really don't need that much detail. And if you have interacted with a lot of the "founders" you know that statistically you're in the clear to judge them all too. It's a pretty weird world where a lot of dumb exists, like A LOT. The realities of their lives are frankly immaterial anyway, it's about the output (and input in case of VC money).
    - ramses0 1y ago
      * alleged wrongdoing, if you're considering it "reporting" ;-) Thank you for your service, and welcome to the... uhhh... show!

hamaspiker 1y ago

[dead]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Fraterkes 1y ago

This guy did something very immoral and callous, and will seemingly face no real consequences for it. Roasting him in the comments of the site of the people paying him is somehow overkill?

tomhow 1y ago
None of us knows exactly what this specific person did or what their motivation, intention or understanding of the situation was. We only know what was in the company’s code that was published, and we know what they’ve done since to try and address it. “Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms. It’s against the HN guidelines and the guidelines still have to be upheld to some degree. It’s also false that they will face no real consequences. They’ll never forget this experience and these sorts of things are often terminal for a company.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  >They’ll never forget this experience Right. They'll learn to be more discreet about it next time. Do you really believe "I got flamed on the Internet" is a memory that will counterbalance "I can make millions out of selling stolen code if I don't get caught" ? (especially considering that you flag such comments, therefore their shielding their poor egos from seeing mean words.) >these sorts of things are often terminal for a company. Starting a company is not hard. Thousands are created, and destroyed each day. If they're smart, under someone else's name. Maybe, maybe one person will see <generic AI company name> and think to look at the CEO, remember what he did and potentially try to warn people about it, and they'll be promptly ignored. Helped by people like you, under the guise of muh guidelines >“Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms I'd love to hear those terms. Because the worst that comes to mind that could apply is "disparaging", and unfortunately for them, "being mean on the internet" isn't something they can or will sue over.
  - tomhow 1y ago
    > "I can make millions out of selling stolen code if I don't get caught" This is the opposite of what happens and YC drums this into founders from the start; at least they did in my day, because pg's main startup (Viaweb) was nearly brought undone by an IP dispute, and it scarred him deeply. What YC tells you is that the more successful you are, the more likely it is that you'll be caught if you mis-use IP, and auditing this is one of the biggest parts of the due diligence that investors, acquirers and commercial partners will undertake. In fact, pg explicitly addresses this very thing in his 2005 essay How To Start a Startup [1], which was the original inspiration for YC: One of the worst things that can happen to a startup is to run into intellectual property problems. We did, and it came closer to killing us than any competitor ever did. As we were in the middle of getting bought, we discovered that one of our people had, early on, been bound by an agreement that said all his ideas belonged to the giant company that was paying for him to go to grad school. In theory, that could have meant someone else owned big chunks of our software. So the acquisition came to a screeching halt while we tried to sort this out. The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. Now we needed to raise more to keep going. But it's hard to raise money with an IP cloud over your head, because investors can't judge how serious it is. [1] https://paulgraham.com/start.html https://paulgraham.com/start.html

qualeed 1y ago

Sometimes it's really surprising what comments you guys push back on and which ones you don't comment on. (Yes, I know, you can't see everything, etc.). I suspect it might be because this one wasn't dressed up enough. While it is a personal attack, it is pretty tame compared to (non-flagged) comments I see here every day. I especially don't see it as a swipe at their family. Yet this is a pretty strong rebuke. While I highly doubt it's because the subject is a YC pick, the optics aren't great.

tomhow 1y ago
There’s something about the point when anger at someone’s actions turns to trawling over someone’s backstory in order to attack/demean them as a person that crosses a line for me; I’ve always pushed back on it whenever I’ve seen it, on HN and elsewhere. People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing or supporting something bad. Any time you see egregious comments on HN that aren’t flagged/dead, you should flag them and email us so we can take a look.
- qualeed 1y ago
  >People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing “bad”. So we're clear, because this implies I'm "supporting" it, I'm not. Just saying that this is more tame than many personal attacks I've seen, with a stronger response than I've seen (when there is a response). And, in this case, that gives off some bad optics/more ammo to people who are critical about when & why you moderate. Without moderator transparency (which I've read the reasoning for, and can agree with!), optics is really all you've got.
  - tomhow 1y ago
    In the context of this thread (and not other supposedly worse comments in other threads that I’m not able to evaluate), having allowed pretty much everything and anything to be said, I’m comfortable with this point - the point where things turn personally nasty - being the point where I draw a line and push back.