12 ms·

This Man Built a $3M Business a Year After Four Years in Prison

188 points by rbobby 12y ago

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
serge2k 12y ago
> When you take away that seven percent or so that did something violent Is that accurate?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- nostrademons 12y ago
  Wikipedia [1] suggests that it's accurate as a percentage of people who go to prison, but not as a percentage of people who are in prison. The discrepancy is because violent offenders have dramatically longer sentences. If one violent offender gets locked up for 50 years and then 50 consecutive drug offenders get locked up for 1 year each, then the prison population is 50% violent criminals, but the percentage of criminals sentenced to prison is 98% non-violent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char...
jonemo 12y ago
I clicked the baity headline so you don't have to: The company provides services that make it easier to communicate with inmates, including "The easiest way to send printed photos to your inmate directly from your computer or mobile phone!" https://www.fotopigeon.com/ https://www.fotopigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/ http://pigeon.ly/ http://pigeon.ly/
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  I thought it was a compelling headline. Just because it's a good headline - doesn't mean it's "baity" - I think the article was well represented by the headline. If you want to do a TLDR - that's great, but you completely omit the full story the author put into the work.
  - kinleyd 12y ago
    I agree with you. I think the actual article lived up to the HN link title. I'm impressed by Frederick Hutson - he was sharp to the opportunities that he saw even in prison. Lesser mortals like myself would have been too devastated to even think straight, much less identify such an opportunity.
    - bshimmin 12y ago
      He went to prison for routing marijuana through his business. I think if you're willing to risk doing something like that, you're probably not going to be "too devastated" if you end up in prison - or, at least, surely you're not going to be too surprised.
      - kinleyd 12y ago
        True. I don't think I'd be caught routing marjuana anywhere, so I'm going to be more devastated were I to land up in prison. Still, credit where credit is due!
      - 01Michael10 12y ago
        Your theory is one would not be devastated going to prison? I think most people don't plan on being caught. Going to prison is a total upheaval in one's life and the fact they may deserve it or should not be surprised is irrelevant. Now, if this was like his third trip to prison then you would have a point...
  - hawkice 12y ago
    This is a fair distinction that doesn't get spoken about here on HN that much. There are a lot of people, seeing the remarkably high quality content and PR, and assuming that being good at communication is somehow duplicitous or manipulative. The last thing we should do is accept only a community incapable of communication or effective self-promotion. That kind of handicap could reasonably stop a great deal of viable hackers from doing what excites them, and isn't promoting that the entire point?
song 12y ago
I don't really understand the logic behind preventing inmates from accessing internet. It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and reduce crime then giving them access to internet would be beneficial. I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority.
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  > I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority. First, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. Second, giving internet access some some inmates would expose them to threats and blackmail from their less rehabilitated counterparts. "Send this threatening email to my enemy, or you'll drop the soap." And it would expose them to threats from the outside: "I know you're in prison with my enemy. Kill him, or your daughter will suffer." Third, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. The rehabilitation is a noble goal but what these guys needs are psychologists, drug therapy and social workers, not internet addiction.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Inmates can already make (and receive?) phone calls and letters, not to mention visits. I fail to see how are those situations not already possible, even without Internet access. It's not like we can't monitor online conversations.
    - draugadrotten 12y ago
      The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. Inmates in most countries can make phone calls only to phone numbers which have been approved, usually only family. You can't make random phone calls. All phone calls are monitored and recorded to prevent abuse. You can't call an inmate afaik, that would be a very low security facility, which I am not aware of. Visitors are only by request and undergo security checks before, during and after visits. And yes, visitors are a huge security issue in prisons, but if you deny all visitors to prisoners, you're in Guantanamo, not a normal prison anymore. There are different levels of security in prisons. Internet access is much harder to control. Encryption is, as you as a HN reader know, very easy to do on a computer, but hard using your voice. Hiding information on a computer is easy, but very hard on a voice phone. There have been prisons in the world that allowed internet access to inmates and there are problems with that, much as with visitors or phone calls. It's a balancing act to weigh those problems to the benefits. You just have to go into the discussion with open eyes about the problems that internet access would bring. Imagine a pedophile convicted for sexually harassing children online, and giving him/her internet access in prison. What an outrage. Someone in a low sec jail for DUI could be given internet access, no problems. It happends, I've even seen a CEO run his company from within the jail. He was given supervised internet access to his companys financial system once a month, one guard watching pover his shoulder at all times. Not a very scalable solution though. It all depends, doesn't it.
diasks2 12y ago
I think this shows one reason it can benefit young people to join a company in the industry they are targeting before jumping into startup life. One of the best/easiest ways to find pain points is to be knee deep in the industry. Obviously in this specific case I am not recommending going to prison, but hopefully you get the point.
- k__ 12y ago
  Problem is, you can start a start-up easier than joining a company.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - bcohen5055 12y ago
    Easier is relative here. If you have means to bootstrap or access to capital then yes it is but that's not always the case. Furthermore if you don't have any business connections relationships in the business getting into many industries (outside of software) can be quite the challenge.
    - k__ 12y ago
      You're right, but that comes later.
      - chc 12y ago
        In my experience, the need to eat comes pretty much constantly.
ck2 12y ago
US is going to be reduced to a few industries in the next decade. Law enforcement, prison system, healthcare. Everything else will be imported.
- VLM 12y ago
  Don't forget .mil and related. Its interesting that all of those fields are super authoritarian and highly institutional.
  - billpg 12y ago
    Health care is super authoritarian?
    - VLM 12y ago
      Talk to a nurse about doctors
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Don't forget hair, nails, makeup, massage, personal training, personal stylists, personal assistants, interior design, restaurants, drivers, and prostitution.
  - jjsz 12y ago
    So a modern Dave and Busters that incorporates the above and functions as a pseudo daycare.
johnward 12y ago
Someone is saying this code was stolen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227225
- yardie 12y ago
  If that is the case it should be easy enough to prove in court. Or is it going to be more of the early Facebook, Twitter, Youtube days. Where everyone that played a bit part all of the sudden had great big titles in the founding of the companies. I'm not sure what what happened but it could also be equally said this guy's code wasn't any good, wasn't used, and so the founders didn't want to pay for it. And the Paypal resolution dispute seems to agree. Something was exchanged but not everyone was happy with what was received.
  - skinnymuch 12y ago
    Were there a number of people saying they did a lot for Twitter? In my opinion from what I've read, Noah Glass, one of the co-founders, really did get screwed over and seemed to have done a lot with his short time at Twitter.
    - yardie 12y ago
      I was thinking more of the Winklevii. Basically, people that play a small role early on then leave (or jettisoned) only to come back claiming they were the idea/backbone/major contributor. I totally agree Glass got screwed. Many years ago I wrote the code for an online store. I outsourced the payment processing and photo upload functions. If the store somehow managed to grow to Amazon size who knows what those 2 developers would say. To me, they played a very small, but essential, role.
      - skinnymuch 12y ago
        I see. Did you pay the outsourced coders fairly? I'm sure they would say something but to me that is different from the Winklevii. I do think because FB was able to explode so much and Zuckerberg did mislead them a bit, them receiving what they did, $60M in stock (though now it would be much higher) and some cash seems fair. Obviously they barely did anything for FB and they wouldn't have likely made any big website on their own. But because of Zuckerberg's actions and because FB did become as big as it did, I find what they ended up getting to be fair. Do you not think so? But hah originally I thought you were including Noah Glass in your assessment and was either going to inquire about why because his story is so incredibly sad to me.
cool-RR 12y ago
And it looks like he's going right back in.
- kyllo 12y ago
  If he did steal the code, and the developer who wrote it sues, the IP suit is going to be civil, not criminal. He won't do jail time for that.
  - jgrowl 12y ago
    Unless it somehow constitutes violation of parole?
ssanders82 12y ago
Just noticed at the bottom of forbes.com, ostensibly one of the gold-standard names in personal finance, I see 6 "promoted stories" - all of which violate facebook's recent click-baiting standards: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-baiting/ http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-bait... Interesting article though. Good for him.

188 points by rbobby 12y ago

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

serge2k 12y ago

> When you take away that seven percent or so that did something violent Is that accurate?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
nostrademons 12y ago
Wikipedia [1] suggests that it's accurate as a percentage of people who go to prison, but not as a percentage of people who are in prison. The discrepancy is because violent offenders have dramatically longer sentences. If one violent offender gets locked up for 50 years and then 50 consecutive drug offenders get locked up for 1 year each, then the prison population is 50% violent criminals, but the percentage of criminals sentenced to prison is 98% non-violent. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Characteristics_of_offenders http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#Char...

jonemo 12y ago

I clicked the baity headline so you don't have to: The company provides services that make it easier to communicate with inmates, including "The easiest way to send printed photos to your inmate directly from your computer or mobile phone!" https://www.fotopigeon.com/ https://www.fotopigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/ https://www.telepigeon.com/ http://pigeon.ly/ http://pigeon.ly/

joelrunyon 12y ago
I thought it was a compelling headline. Just because it's a good headline - doesn't mean it's "baity" - I think the article was well represented by the headline. If you want to do a TLDR - that's great, but you completely omit the full story the author put into the work.
- kinleyd 12y ago
  I agree with you. I think the actual article lived up to the HN link title. I'm impressed by Frederick Hutson - he was sharp to the opportunities that he saw even in prison. Lesser mortals like myself would have been too devastated to even think straight, much less identify such an opportunity.
  - bshimmin 12y ago
    He went to prison for routing marijuana through his business. I think if you're willing to risk doing something like that, you're probably not going to be "too devastated" if you end up in prison - or, at least, surely you're not going to be too surprised.
    - kinleyd 12y ago
      True. I don't think I'd be caught routing marjuana anywhere, so I'm going to be more devastated were I to land up in prison. Still, credit where credit is due!
    - 01Michael10 12y ago
      Your theory is one would not be devastated going to prison? I think most people don't plan on being caught. Going to prison is a total upheaval in one's life and the fact they may deserve it or should not be surprised is irrelevant. Now, if this was like his third trip to prison then you would have a point...
- hawkice 12y ago
  This is a fair distinction that doesn't get spoken about here on HN that much. There are a lot of people, seeing the remarkably high quality content and PR, and assuming that being good at communication is somehow duplicitous or manipulative. The last thing we should do is accept only a community incapable of communication or effective self-promotion. That kind of handicap could reasonably stop a great deal of viable hackers from doing what excites them, and isn't promoting that the entire point?

song 12y ago

I don't really understand the logic behind preventing inmates from accessing internet. It seems to me that if the aim of prison is rehabilitate inmates and reduce crime then giving them access to internet would be beneficial. I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority.

draugadrotten 12y ago
> I can understand why some inmates should not have access to internet to prevent them from directing their activities outside of prison but I'm sure that those are a small minority. First, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. Second, giving internet access some some inmates would expose them to threats and blackmail from their less rehabilitated counterparts. "Send this threatening email to my enemy, or you'll drop the soap." And it would expose them to threats from the outside: "I know you're in prison with my enemy. Kill him, or your daughter will suffer." Third, you underestimate how bad it is in prison. The rehabilitation is a noble goal but what these guys needs are psychologists, drug therapy and social workers, not internet addiction.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Inmates can already make (and receive?) phone calls and letters, not to mention visits. I fail to see how are those situations not already possible, even without Internet access. It's not like we can't monitor online conversations.
  - draugadrotten 12y ago
    The situation may not be perfect today, but communication to/from prisons are heavily guarded to prevent these situations and others. Inmates in most countries can make phone calls only to phone numbers which have been approved, usually only family. You can't make random phone calls. All phone calls are monitored and recorded to prevent abuse. You can't call an inmate afaik, that would be a very low security facility, which I am not aware of. Visitors are only by request and undergo security checks before, during and after visits. And yes, visitors are a huge security issue in prisons, but if you deny all visitors to prisoners, you're in Guantanamo, not a normal prison anymore. There are different levels of security in prisons. Internet access is much harder to control. Encryption is, as you as a HN reader know, very easy to do on a computer, but hard using your voice. Hiding information on a computer is easy, but very hard on a voice phone. There have been prisons in the world that allowed internet access to inmates and there are problems with that, much as with visitors or phone calls. It's a balancing act to weigh those problems to the benefits. You just have to go into the discussion with open eyes about the problems that internet access would bring. Imagine a pedophile convicted for sexually harassing children online, and giving him/her internet access in prison. What an outrage. Someone in a low sec jail for DUI could be given internet access, no problems. It happends, I've even seen a CEO run his company from within the jail. He was given supervised internet access to his companys financial system once a month, one guard watching pover his shoulder at all times. Not a very scalable solution though. It all depends, doesn't it.

diasks2 12y ago

I think this shows one reason it can benefit young people to join a company in the industry they are targeting before jumping into startup life. One of the best/easiest ways to find pain points is to be knee deep in the industry. Obviously in this specific case I am not recommending going to prison, but hopefully you get the point.

k__ 12y ago
Problem is, you can start a start-up easier than joining a company.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bcohen5055 12y ago
  Easier is relative here. If you have means to bootstrap or access to capital then yes it is but that's not always the case. Furthermore if you don't have any business connections relationships in the business getting into many industries (outside of software) can be quite the challenge.
  - k__ 12y ago
    You're right, but that comes later.
    - chc 12y ago
      In my experience, the need to eat comes pretty much constantly.

ck2 12y ago

US is going to be reduced to a few industries in the next decade. Law enforcement, prison system, healthcare. Everything else will be imported.

VLM 12y ago
Don't forget .mil and related. Its interesting that all of those fields are super authoritarian and highly institutional.
- billpg 12y ago
  Health care is super authoritarian?
  - VLM 12y ago
    Talk to a nurse about doctors
pessimizer 12y ago
Don't forget hair, nails, makeup, massage, personal training, personal stylists, personal assistants, interior design, restaurants, drivers, and prostitution.
- jjsz 12y ago
  So a modern Dave and Busters that incorporates the above and functions as a pseudo daycare.

johnward 12y ago

Someone is saying this code was stolen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227225 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8227225

yardie 12y ago
If that is the case it should be easy enough to prove in court. Or is it going to be more of the early Facebook, Twitter, Youtube days. Where everyone that played a bit part all of the sudden had great big titles in the founding of the companies. I'm not sure what what happened but it could also be equally said this guy's code wasn't any good, wasn't used, and so the founders didn't want to pay for it. And the Paypal resolution dispute seems to agree. Something was exchanged but not everyone was happy with what was received.
- skinnymuch 12y ago
  Were there a number of people saying they did a lot for Twitter? In my opinion from what I've read, Noah Glass, one of the co-founders, really did get screwed over and seemed to have done a lot with his short time at Twitter.
  - yardie 12y ago
    I was thinking more of the Winklevii. Basically, people that play a small role early on then leave (or jettisoned) only to come back claiming they were the idea/backbone/major contributor. I totally agree Glass got screwed. Many years ago I wrote the code for an online store. I outsourced the payment processing and photo upload functions. If the store somehow managed to grow to Amazon size who knows what those 2 developers would say. To me, they played a very small, but essential, role.
    - skinnymuch 12y ago
      I see. Did you pay the outsourced coders fairly? I'm sure they would say something but to me that is different from the Winklevii. I do think because FB was able to explode so much and Zuckerberg did mislead them a bit, them receiving what they did, $60M in stock (though now it would be much higher) and some cash seems fair. Obviously they barely did anything for FB and they wouldn't have likely made any big website on their own. But because of Zuckerberg's actions and because FB did become as big as it did, I find what they ended up getting to be fair. Do you not think so? But hah originally I thought you were including Noah Glass in your assessment and was either going to inquire about why because his story is so incredibly sad to me.

cool-RR 12y ago

And it looks like he's going right back in.

kyllo 12y ago
If he did steal the code, and the developer who wrote it sues, the IP suit is going to be civil, not criminal. He won't do jail time for that.
- jgrowl 12y ago
  Unless it somehow constitutes violation of parole?

ssanders82 12y ago

Just noticed at the bottom of forbes.com, ostensibly one of the gold-standard names in personal finance, I see 6 "promoted stories" - all of which violate facebook's recent click-baiting standards: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-baiting/ http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2014/08/news-feed-fyi-click-bait... Interesting article though. Good for him.