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As a co-founder who got screwed on a large acquisition, it makes me happy to see that Snapchat finally settled. However, a settlement doesn't change the fact t

As a co-founder who got screwed on a large acquisition, it makes me happy to see that Snapchat finally settled. However, a settlement doesn't change the fact that Evan Spiegel really went out of his way to intentionally screw the guy that actually invented Snapchat's model - and seemed to enjoy doing it. He's definitely not someone I'd ever do business with. http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-lawsuit-video-depositions-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-lawsuit-video-deposi...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That's all totally besides the point. The suit argued that there was a verbal agreement on three equal shares and that the plaintiff was cut out of the deal when the other two co-founders went and created a new company split 60/40 between them. I may be mis-interpreting all this but if that's true then that alone would likely be enough to give him a very credible claim. You receive equity because you have agreed to receive that equity in return for something, whatever that something is. If after that the other party breaks that agreement in some way then you can sue them for breach of contract. If the agreement is only verbal then it will be an uphill battle but in these days of email, text messages and skype an awful lot of that stuff is logged to the point where it could be used to support the existence or non-existence of such a verbal agreement. So whether to you he's 'not even close to being a co-founder' is not important, what mattered is that they apparently agreed that he was a co-founder and would get an equal share in the to be formed company.
gsibble 12y ago
What's more frightening to me is how many VCs and other investors who went along with the charade and did not care that this criminal was a representative of them.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  Investors in general have limited say in what the founders arrange amongst themselves. For all we know the settlement was reached after pressure from investors or maybe the exact opposite happened. I'm an investor in a small company (< 50 employees) that went through a very rough time in the beginning because of co-founder issues and it got resolved mostly because of investors working hard to save the company from going under. You could cynically conclude that that was done to protect our investment (and that might even be the right conclusion). What founders have been up to is not always immediately clear when you invest, sometimes the proverbial skeleton in the cupboard can be hidden quite well. I make a living digging such stuff up so I was fairly well prepared but the degree to which these things can blow up still surprised me.
- sjtgraham 12y ago
  Whoa, slow your roll. i) this is a civil matter, ii) both parties settled, with probably no admission of any wrongdoing by either party. Throwing around labels such as "criminal" is not something one does lightly. If you're not careful you could be soon facing a civil action of your own for libel.
  - Yourfags 12y ago
    hn was shaking in its boots...
nailer 12y ago
From the Businessweek link, Brown seemed to contribute an idea. And that's it. Nothing unique (disappearing photo apps existed before, see the rest of the thread). No programming expertise, he didn't make anything.
- vladtaltos 12y ago
  read their statement carefully: “We acknowledge Reggie’s contribution to the creation of Snapchat and appreciate his work in getting the application off the ground.” I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea.
  - sib 12y ago
    "I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea." That's exactly the sort of thing that was likely specified in the settlement agreement itself, probably in exchange for a lower financial cost of settling.
  - nailer 12y ago
    The founders didn't think he had the technical expertise to make the app so they didn't involve him in that. A legal statement, made to placate a litigant does not change that.
    - vladtaltos 12y ago
      nevertheless, he made them to put that sentence into their settlement. good for him.
stigi 12y ago
I wonder how such things become possible. As co-founders shouldn't you have a written (and lawyer checked) agreement on how the company is shared amongst you? How can one betray the other besides of letting him/her unknowingly sign an unfortunate contract?
- jonifico 12y ago
  Projects like that are usually made between friends and aren't really expected to become THAT big. Plus, it doesn't really matter, they took the guy out of the business and took away his rightful part of it. Good thing they settled.
  - sergiotapia 12y ago
    So you're the three of em just had a verbal arrangement and not a signed contract detailing company divisions?
    - at-fates-hands 12y ago
      You can read all the sordid details here: http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-investors-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-in...
      - sergiotapia 12y ago
        "At this point, Brown and the Individual Defendants…entered into an explicit oral agreement as to their respective interests in their joint undertaking to develop the Application…That explicit agreement was that their interests in the venture would be equally distributed, i.e. each of them would have 1/3 ownership and profit interests in the joint venture/partnership." Yeah, verbal agreements aren't worth squat. At best, you get a settlement, at worst you get nothing. I'm surprised these guys didn't sign contracts amongst themselves.
        r00fus 12y ago
mbesto 12y ago
A few friends of mine saw Evan speak at Stanford this past spring. He was in a room with Eric Schmidt and Sam Altman (IIRC) and his attitude towards them was nothing short of smug. I don't remember the specifics of what he said but my friends said he basically "told Eric, Sam and other prominent VCs on the panel off because he thought he was more successful than them". Take that for what it's worth.
- cookiecaper 12y ago
  >Take that for what it's worth. Which is nothing. We don't have the context and it's always amazing how people, even just observers with no skin in the game, will have wildly divergent interpretations of the same events. There's definitely some interpretation going on here as Snapchat guy almost assuredly didn't say "I'm more successful than you".
  - mbesto 12y ago
    It was a room full of Stanford students, many of which had zero context of who he was or what his reputation was. They were there to learn from successful VCs/Founders/etc and every student I spoke with generally agreed he was smug, off putting and dismissive not only to the students but also the other panel members. Given it's consistent with the public's perception of how Snapchat operates, I'm simply reinforcing the parent comments sentiment.
  - alelefant 12y ago
    You don't need expertise in a particular profession to come to the conclusion that someone is being smug, rude, etc. If I saw someone on the street being disrespectful, is it unfair for me to come to that conclusion because I don't fully understand their field of work?
    - cookiecaper 12y ago
      I didn't say anything about the field of work, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. We don't have the context of the conversation or panel in which the supposedly dismissive and/or smug comments occurred and we don't have enough information to make our own conclusion on the behavior or the reliability of the assessment given here. There are many reasons someone may feel that a speaker is smug. Some may be warranted and some may not. Since we don't know what happened and can't evaluate whether the parent's friends made a correct assessment or not, with this type of matter, it's best to just ignore it entirely. It has nothing to do with our familiarity with anyone's line of work.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jacquesm 12y ago
That's all totally besides the point. The suit argued that there was a verbal agreement on three equal shares and that the plaintiff was cut out of the deal when the other two co-founders went and created a new company split 60/40 between them. I may be mis-interpreting all this but if that's true then that alone would likely be enough to give him a very credible claim. You receive equity because you have agreed to receive that equity in return for something, whatever that something is. If after that the other party breaks that agreement in some way then you can sue them for breach of contract. If the agreement is only verbal then it will be an uphill battle but in these days of email, text messages and skype an awful lot of that stuff is logged to the point where it could be used to support the existence or non-existence of such a verbal agreement. So whether to you he's 'not even close to being a co-founder' is not important, what mattered is that they apparently agreed that he was a co-founder and would get an equal share in the to be formed company.

gsibble 12y ago

What's more frightening to me is how many VCs and other investors who went along with the charade and did not care that this criminal was a representative of them.

jacquesm 12y ago
Investors in general have limited say in what the founders arrange amongst themselves. For all we know the settlement was reached after pressure from investors or maybe the exact opposite happened. I'm an investor in a small company (< 50 employees) that went through a very rough time in the beginning because of co-founder issues and it got resolved mostly because of investors working hard to save the company from going under. You could cynically conclude that that was done to protect our investment (and that might even be the right conclusion). What founders have been up to is not always immediately clear when you invest, sometimes the proverbial skeleton in the cupboard can be hidden quite well. I make a living digging such stuff up so I was fairly well prepared but the degree to which these things can blow up still surprised me.
sjtgraham 12y ago
Whoa, slow your roll. i) this is a civil matter, ii) both parties settled, with probably no admission of any wrongdoing by either party. Throwing around labels such as "criminal" is not something one does lightly. If you're not careful you could be soon facing a civil action of your own for libel.
- Yourfags 12y ago
  hn was shaking in its boots...

nailer 12y ago

From the Businessweek link, Brown seemed to contribute an idea. And that's it. Nothing unique (disappearing photo apps existed before, see the rest of the thread). No programming expertise, he didn't make anything.

vladtaltos 12y ago
read their statement carefully: “We acknowledge Reggie’s contribution to the creation of Snapchat and appreciate his work in getting the application off the ground.” I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea.
- sib 12y ago
  "I wouldn't think they'd add a sentence like this to their press release if his only contribution was only an idea." That's exactly the sort of thing that was likely specified in the settlement agreement itself, probably in exchange for a lower financial cost of settling.
- nailer 12y ago
  The founders didn't think he had the technical expertise to make the app so they didn't involve him in that. A legal statement, made to placate a litigant does not change that.
  - vladtaltos 12y ago
    nevertheless, he made them to put that sentence into their settlement. good for him.

stigi 12y ago

I wonder how such things become possible. As co-founders shouldn't you have a written (and lawyer checked) agreement on how the company is shared amongst you? How can one betray the other besides of letting him/her unknowingly sign an unfortunate contract?

jonifico 12y ago
Projects like that are usually made between friends and aren't really expected to become THAT big. Plus, it doesn't really matter, they took the guy out of the business and took away his rightful part of it. Good thing they settled.
- sergiotapia 12y ago
  So you're the three of em just had a verbal arrangement and not a signed contract detailing company divisions?
  - at-fates-hands 12y ago
    You can read all the sordid details here: http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-investors-2013-11 http://www.businessinsider.com/reggie-brown-sues-snapchat-in...
    - sergiotapia 12y ago
      "At this point, Brown and the Individual Defendants…entered into an explicit oral agreement as to their respective interests in their joint undertaking to develop the Application…That explicit agreement was that their interests in the venture would be equally distributed, i.e. each of them would have 1/3 ownership and profit interests in the joint venture/partnership." Yeah, verbal agreements aren't worth squat. At best, you get a settlement, at worst you get nothing. I'm surprised these guys didn't sign contracts amongst themselves.
      - r00fus 12y ago

mbesto 12y ago

A few friends of mine saw Evan speak at Stanford this past spring. He was in a room with Eric Schmidt and Sam Altman (IIRC) and his attitude towards them was nothing short of smug. I don't remember the specifics of what he said but my friends said he basically "told Eric, Sam and other prominent VCs on the panel off because he thought he was more successful than them". Take that for what it's worth.

cookiecaper 12y ago
>Take that for what it's worth. Which is nothing. We don't have the context and it's always amazing how people, even just observers with no skin in the game, will have wildly divergent interpretations of the same events. There's definitely some interpretation going on here as Snapchat guy almost assuredly didn't say "I'm more successful than you".
- mbesto 12y ago
  It was a room full of Stanford students, many of which had zero context of who he was or what his reputation was. They were there to learn from successful VCs/Founders/etc and every student I spoke with generally agreed he was smug, off putting and dismissive not only to the students but also the other panel members. Given it's consistent with the public's perception of how Snapchat operates, I'm simply reinforcing the parent comments sentiment.
- alelefant 12y ago
  You don't need expertise in a particular profession to come to the conclusion that someone is being smug, rude, etc. If I saw someone on the street being disrespectful, is it unfair for me to come to that conclusion because I don't fully understand their field of work?
  - cookiecaper 12y ago
    I didn't say anything about the field of work, so I'm not sure what you're getting at. We don't have the context of the conversation or panel in which the supposedly dismissive and/or smug comments occurred and we don't have enough information to make our own conclusion on the behavior or the reliability of the assessment given here. There are many reasons someone may feel that a speaker is smug. Some may be warranted and some may not. Since we don't know what happened and can't evaluate whether the parent's friends made a correct assessment or not, with this type of matter, it's best to just ignore it entirely. It has nothing to do with our familiarity with anyone's line of work.