This has just been crazy both to watch and in some small ways interact with up close (I’ve had some very productive and some regrettably heated private discussions advising former colleagues and people I care about to GTFO before the shit really hits the rotary air impeller, and this is going to get so much worse).
This thread is full of comments making statements around this looking like some level of criminal enterprise (ranging from “no way that document holds up” to “everyone knows Sam is a crook”).
The level of stuff ranging from vitriol to overwhelming if maybe circumstantial (but conclusive that my personal satisfaction) evidence of direct reprisal has just been surreal, but it’s surreal in a different way to see people talking about this like it was never even controversial to be skeptical/critical/hostile to thing thing.
I’ve been saying that this looks like the next Enron, minimum, for easily five years, arguably double that.
Is this the last straw where I stop getting messed around over this?
I know better than to expect a ticker tape parade for having both called this and having the guts to stand up to these folks, but I do hold out a little hope for even a grudging acknowledgment.
First, thank you for probably being the first person to recognize in print that it wasn’t easy to stand up to these folks in public, plenty have said things like “you’re fighting the good fight” in private, but I think you’re the first person to in any sense second the motion in my personal case, so big ups on having the guts to say it too.
I’ve never been a YC-funded founder myself, but I’ve had multiple roommates who were, and a few girlfriends who were on the bubble of like, founder and early employee, and I’ve just generally been swimming in that pool to one degree or another for coming up on 20 years (I always forget my join date but it’s on the order of like, 17 years or something).
So when a few dozen people you trust tell you the same thing, you tend to buy it even if you’re not quite ready to print the worst hearsay (and I’ve heard things about Altman that I believe but still wouldn’t print without proof, dark shit).
As the litany of scandals mounted (Green Dot, zero-rated pre-IPO portfolio stock with like, his brother involved, Socialcam, the list just goes on), and at some point real journalists start doing pieces (New Yorker, etc.).
And while some of my friends and former colleagues (well maybe former friends now) who joined are both eminently qualified and as ethical as this business lets anyone be, there was a skew there too, it skewed “opportunist, fails up”.
So it’s a growing preponderance of evidence starting in about 2009 and being just “published by credible journalists”starting about five years later, at some point I’m like “if even 5% of this is even a little true, this is beyond the pale”.
It’s been a gradual thing, and people giving the benefit of the doubt up until the November stuff are maybe just really charitable, at this point it’s like, only a jury can take the next steps trivially indicated.
I said easily five, not easily ten. I was alluding to it in embryo with the comment that it’s likely been longer.
If you meant that remark/objection in good faith then thank you for the opportunity to clarify.
If not, the thank you for hanging a concrete example of the kind of shit I’m alluding to (though at the extremely mild end of the range) directly off the claim.
This thread is full of comments making statements around this looking like some level of criminal enterprise (ranging from “no way that document holds up” to “everyone knows Sam is a crook”).
The level of stuff ranging from vitriol to overwhelming if maybe circumstantial (but conclusive that my personal satisfaction) evidence of direct reprisal has just been surreal, but it’s surreal in a different way to see people talking about this like it was never even controversial to be skeptical/critical/hostile to thing thing.
I’ve been saying that this looks like the next Enron, minimum, for easily five years, arguably double that.
Is this the last straw where I stop getting messed around over this?
I know better than to expect a ticker tape parade for having both called this and having the guts to stand up to these folks, but I do hold out a little hope for even a grudging acknowledgment.