I wanted to take a quick second to dispel this myth. Although I collect watches and I have several high end pieces, including grand complications - none of them are good "investments". You will likely loose money on 99% of watches you can buy and it certainly applies 100% to all new Rolex watches. There is just a small amount of watches that actually appreciate like Patek application pieces or the Vintage Rolex Daytona ('Paul Newman) or 1980's Milgause. The chance you buy one of this is 0% unless you know what you are doing.
So your friend has a 25 year old Air King? This is not a vintage piece, it's just an old piece. Worth? $1500 - $2000 depending on condition. Secondly, in 25 years he had to service it at least 3 times. Each service cost? $400 - $800 depending on the issues. If he polished it, $500 more.
So all in he's put in $1,200 + ~$1,500 = $2,700.
Now had he place $1,200 in the S&P 500 on 1991 (exactly 25 years ago), he would have at the end of December 31 exactly $13,588 dollars (~9.78% on average per year).
I don't understand how you can say he beat the S&P many times over.
I'll go the opposite of most of the comments here.
Assuming a NO attitude right from the start is probably not the way to go. Telling them to "Pound Sand" or just plain NO is not in your best interest. First, you should let the B investors know about this - ASAP. Second, you should start by emailing the GP at firm A and asking him to clarify why they think "you should pay" their legal fees.
With this information, you should consult your legal counsel on how is best to proceed. Most likely the A VC firm feels like you didn't negotiate in good faith and you made them spend money with no intention to accept their offer. You should in this case talk to the GP at that firm and show him that you wanted to close a deal with them and you even made them aware of another offer and asked them to reconsider the terms.
Most of this issues are easily solved if you discuss things with the other party. Assuming a NO attitude from the start, just brings everyones worst character and might land you in a legal dispute.
Meeting with a firm who is actively out to collect money from you is a dangerous path for a young founder without a legal background. You don't want to accidentally give them any more fuel for a potential lawsuit via something you say during that meeting.
I do agree that talking to legal counsel is wise... but not necessarily VC B's legal counsel, as that relationship will skew towards what is good for the VC, not your company.
Also, don't be afraid of getting sued. One of my lawyer friends always says that small businesses tend to harm themselves by over-avoiding lawsuits. If you grow enough, lawsuits will happen, and you need to know how to deal with them. Act from a position of knowledge, not of fear.
The best thing he can do is listen and get more information. You can't resolve a dispute without talking, and it only ends up in court if you don't resolve it. Yes he could ask his new investors for advice, and yes he should have called his lawyer the minute he heard, but the best way to clear things up is to listen to the VCs who are unhappy.
This is a completely different situation from the reason not to "talk it over" with the cops.
But this is not a dispute, at least not yet. It is just a one-sided request. They can just talk to their lawyer, ignore it, and wait to see if the VC files a suit. Short of that, there is no obligation to even reply. So why go into potentially dangerous legal territory at all, when you are perfectly in your rights to just discuss it with your lawyers, but then ignore it?
This doesn't make things necessarily more sour. Firstly, given the evidence in the post, it sounds like a BS claim (although only a lawyer would know). Things are already sour. That being said, reaching an amicable arrangement via legal proxy doesn't make the situation sour at all. Getting lawyers involved is not an aggressive action - they are the subject matter experts. Just like you wouldn't have a software architect dealing with relations, you don't put a founder in charge of legalities.
This is all terrible legal advice. If you think there may be a legal dispute, you should absolutely not communicate with the other party. You should involve your own lawyer, and decide whether and how to communicate after considering the ramifications.
> you should absolutely not communicate with the other party at all
One very slight, but important, addition - don't even indicate that you are looking for your own legal advice. Mum's the word. Totally a slippery slope albeit plausible argument: "Investor A" might just be waiting for you to make a legal mistake. Even that post could work against you (deleting it could be worse). Keep your lips sealed and share the whole ordeal once you have reached postmortem, if you still want to go that route and your lawyer gives you the go-ahead.
You'll most likely end up in the same spot as other suggestions: NOT paying the bill. But the WAY you approach things (very good advice here) makes all the difference.
One of the biggest issues with Nest is that they pretend to be a serious company that takes cares of your home needs (security/monitoring, fire & gas prevention and heating) but their products are toy like in that respect.
However I own 3 cameras and the fire alarm. The fire alarm, is worthless, I eventually disconnected it given the large amount of false positives.
Then there are the cameras. I travel a lot so wanted a system that allowed me to monitor my home remotely for security purposes. However, I soon found out they are pretty much gimmick and any burglar will by-pass their security. If you own a nest cam, be aware that if the cam is disconnected from your Wifi, it will take 30 MINUTES FOR NEST TO NOTIFY YOU.
What did I learned? Burglars will power off the electricity in you house upon entry - to prevent alarms etc from sounding. This will bring you Wifi and your cameras down. Don't worry, 30 minutes later, or approximately 20 minutes after burglars have left, you'll know.
You'll also only be able to set notifications via email and push, so if you are sleeping you're out of luck. I was thinking of hacking a system with Twilio to do an automated call upon the email being received, but after finding out that it would take 30 minutes to even be notified I gave up.
Nest is cool, easy to setup and the cameras look nice, but they are toys. Other products might be hard to setup, look uglier but work. I'd rather they did both, but if I have to chose between ugly and works, and beautiful but doesn't - i'll take the first.
This is what most security companies do if they are any good. A battery backup with cell connection. Can easily replicate it yourself using a mobile hotspot on an old phone. Along with some usb battery packs. Pretty cheap and easy to make a solution. (Under $50)
The premise is that having this on the cloud is supposed to make it easier and not require this complex setups. For instance, not needing a recording station in the house that can be stolen or a Telco chipset with an alternative power source.
If you do this on the cloud, you can call from a cloud provider and record outside the house. Nest could easily call you from Twilio after 1 minute of being disconnected and it will achieve the same.
Dropcam isnt a security cam. Its for checking on cats or kids. If you need security UPS then you can rig up a battery pack and a backup mobile hotspot with an old phone. I dont see how Nest could reproduce this anyways without adding a simcard and gsm to their cams.
It would require me to back-up the ISP router, the Apple Wifi router and 3 cameras - so 5 UPS. Yet even if I did that, given that my Internet connection comes via fiber, if they cut the Fiber, I am still out-of-luck.
It's as if an alarm company said, we will notify you after 30 minutes if someone comes into you house.
I just read both complains. This one is frankly ridiculous. The fact is that Kyle incorporated the company before he met Jeremy. And from Jeremy's complain, he is trying to build the case by saying he was more competent than Kyle. Yet why didn't he continue with the idea by himself if he was so competent?
The only proof he is using to say he was a co-founder is a YC application. This is I hope a non-binding document. I hope judge agrees that the only way to get equity in a company is if its granted in the form of shares. Jeremy was never granted any shares so he own's 0 shares.
He also acknowledges he did no provide any IP to the company. So if he didn't provide any IP and didn't receive any shares he should be entitled to 0.
I really hope Kyle wins and Jeremy is found guilty of tortorous interference and is obligated to pay for Kyle legal fees.
> Yet why didn't he continue with the idea by himself if he was so competent?
The complaint clearly explains this. He just got married and needed a job to pay the bills.
I really hope you just missed this.It would be a shame if you are one of the few entitled folks who doesn't understand the real struggle most people feel to support themselves and their family. The type of person who thinks everyone has the same opportunities you do. I really hope you just missed that line in the complaint.
> The only proof he is using to say he was a co-founder is a YC application.
Which, according to Jeremy's complaint, claims that the application was submitted by Kyle and repeatedly described Jeremy as a co-founder and their equity arrangement.
> He also acknowledges he did no provide any IP to the company. So if he didn't provide any IP and didn't receive any shares he should be entitled to 0.
That's not how it works, but that aside, this complaint claims that Jeremy provided "self-driving car concepts, technology, intellectual property, and expertise". I don't understand your statement about "he did [not] provide any IP to the company".
The only proof he is using to say he was a co-founder is a YC application. This is I hope a non-binding document. I hope judge agrees that the only way to get equity in a company is if its granted in the form of shares. Jeremy was never granted any shares so he own's 0 shares.
That's not how it works. If you and I decide to start a company and you give me a verbal agreement that it's a 50/50 split, then it's pretty strong evidence of the ownership of the company unless some other document supersedes it.
A promise or agreement or contract can be binding or non-binding on any or all points. A document is just what it states, something that could potentially document the parties intent and agreement or lack therof.
Why? Im merely pointing out how the law works, and that if you want to win a legal dispute, do it when the opposing party has incentive (or better, a requirement) to quickly resolve the issue.
Not sure why pointing this out makes me not a good person to found a company with.
I have separated from a co-founder and I made damn sure we had an agreement in writing defining the terms of the separation. Didn't take much, no lawyers, just a one page agreement, three people each with a copy, all with signatures. All still good friends.
Assuming Jeremy's story is true, then by the time he exercised that strategy he'd already by forced out by his co-founder and was no longer a "teammate".
I don't think it's fair to judge the ethics of a person by how nicely they respond to being screwed over.
So is cutting someone out of a company. My point is that this probably became an emotional issue. If that's the case, it's not hard to see how someone would wait for an opportune moment to assert ownership.
But, since we don't really know all the facts, if this was a mutual parting of ways, then I agree that it's a terrible thing to do.
The bottom line is we really don't know what happened. I can at least see how a reasonable person could walk this path if they feel they've been maligned.
...Because you have an agreement with someone that you were a 50/50 co-founder, and that agreement is on paper? Sorry, are you privy to some kind of proof that invalidates Guillory's central evidentiary claim -- in the same way that Zuckerburg and Facebook were able to show that Paul Ceglia fabricated a contract -- or are you just arguing from circular reasoning that Guillory is a greedy asshole and thus his claims that he was unjustly forced out must, QED, be false?
I think the claim is that demanding what is rightfully yours is greedy and selfish. I don't know whether I agree in this case (probably not), but there have been cases in my life where I do agree.
It's that "rightfully yours" bit that really bothers me. Where does that come from and why is it so obviously rightfully yours? It takes some gumption to assume you're in the right. This land is rightfully mine because I bought it from someone else who genocided a people, but okay great, it's rightfully mine, I feel super great about it.
Legal documents are part of a negotiation, not a casual conversation. If one side says they owe you nothing, you come in saying they owe you everything. You meet in the middle.
Which side is being more dickish in this case is still very much in dispute, which is why it's going to court.
You seem to be certain one side is looking out for their self interest much more than the other, which you have no way of really knowing because you are just another person commenting on a discussion on the Internet.
Unless you are personally involved in this matter, and know more than what has been publicly reported so far? And even then, how would we know you are not being biased in your judgments by your involvement?
So you are against anyone being compensated at the amounts under discussion?
Which is a coherent, defensible position. Sounded like you were selectively accusing one actor in this dispute as the "greedy" one, which I think is why you got so much push back on your comments.
So you're implying that you'd never work with YC or Vogt or any of their investors? GM is spending $1B to acquire Cruise, which is a vast sum for a small company that has been around for 3 years. Even 20% of that would be a great payout for all involved, and think of how much money GM could have left over to continue to revive the dormant U.S. industry, and U.S. fortunes at large. By your standards, if YC and Vogt were ethical actors, they'd ask GM to reduce the offer, because building things and innovating is itself an honest reward.
> By your standards, if YC and Vogt were ethical actors, they'd ask GM to reduce the offer, because building things and innovating is itself an honest reward.
What do you need a reward for at all?
Why are you trying to build something?
By my standards, your motivation matters a lot, it sounds like you think people deserve rewards for doing things, I don't think that makes very much sense. Gold star you did the right thing, bullshit.
The company left a liability floating around, which was a disgruntled co founder. Like a liability on your balance sheet.
And if you're the disgruntled co founder, this is your most opportune moment to extract maximum equity value for yourself.
What I don't understand is, if a company did this to another company, people are all like 'yeah, that's how the market works', but when a person does it to a person, they're all like 'you're heartless and not playing nice'. Why the hypocrisy?
if anything, i would say this make it a +1 to start a company with hodoof, atleast he has some sense of contractual/legal requirements imo... its not about being a dick, you and all parties should know what you getting into/not getting into make sure you have written contracts/agreements in place incase something changes
If you look at gross profit (164.4 million for the first semester 2015) it's a much more comparable metric to what SaaS revenue would be. The problem with overall revenue in this market it that it's a low margin and more that half of it goes to the credit card companies.
With ~328 profit per year, they are getting about 8X multiple - very comparable to Hubspot, Zendesk which are doing terrific in the public markets.
For anyone getting stock options, expect as much as 6X-8X multiple on revenue if your gross margin is >60% and your year-to-year growth is >70% - the 10X-14X days are gone. Else, if year to year growth is below 70%, or gross margin less that 55%, expect 2X-4X.
Why do you refuse to delete accounts? It is my data and I want it to be removed. How can I feel safe about my data if I cannot remove it if I choose not to continue using your service.
Why does Authy require I provide my cell phone number and email address? Why do I have to have a user account? This is completely ridiculous. I do not need nor want cloud syncing or backup. You are making Authy a potential target for attacks by associating a user to cloud stored 2FA information.
An in my opinion crucial information is missing in the discussion that unfolded here 4 years ago; still this discussions comes up as a top result when searching for "authy telephone number required" and that is why I want to add something for current and future references:
The phone number is only needed to recover access to your encrypted data that is stored on authys servers.
If you're questioning yourself whether authy is trustworthy because they require you to provide a phone number for a 2FA-TOTP-Method that does technically not require it at all(!) and thus could pose a potential security degredation, check the FAQ about account recovery/passwords here: https://support.authy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001950787-Bac...
Quote:
* The Backups password is never sent nor stored in our servers for your security
* Like the Backups password, the App Protection PIN (and optional biometric data) is never stored in our servers
* Like the Backups password and App Protection PIN, the Master Password is never stored in our servers
the question still is if you trust those promises - but as authy is backed by twilio (thus lots of 2FA-SMS are already processed by them) the chances are good those guys know what they do and do it responsibly
Hi, good question. The reason for the phone number is that we depend on your phone number as part of your identity. Almost all 2-FA systems today use the phone number as a way to send you the code via text/phone call. If you read my blog post: blog.authy.com/twilio you'll see we decided to build our infrastructure on top of the telecom infrastructure because it was ubiquitous.
I also understand why some people don't like clouds backups. The good news is that backups are off by default and optional. If you don't need them, you can keep them disabled.
@benmcginnes Yes we are RFC 6238 TOTP compatible.
Same algorithm as GAuth but 7 digits, 256 bit keys and 10 seconds window.
So why do you still need my phone number? There's no network connection or SMS required to generate those TOTP codes. I'm not buying the story that you need to text me or call me unless you're storing the seed/token centrally and sending it to users upon request which I strongly disagree with. That should only be stored on the user's device.
For those interested in how TOTP is implemented, here it is in Python [1] and Ruby [2]. It is really simple and understandable. Oh, and did you know you can secure your SSH connections using TOTP [3]?
This stuff is no more complicated than storing password hashes. Having a nice client app is good, but Google Authenticator is good enough. So instead of using authy and relying on a third party, why not get something like [4] and be done with it?
Authy exists to make 2 factor easier for people implementing it. Some users will want methods other than TOTP, so they support methods other than TOTP.
If they don't have a phone number they can't do all that transparently, which is bad when you are aiming your service at a broad audience.
Because doing a high enough level of identity verification at that point would be disruptive.
I'm not really interested in defending it, I probably don't like the idea of depending on a third party any more than feld does, I was just pointing out that there are simpler explanations for what they are doing than I'm not buying the story that you need to text me or call me unless you're storing the seed/token centrally and sending it to users upon request which I strongly disagree with.
Another one is that if they actually implemented TOTP like that their business would take a lot of damage when it was revealed publicly (because what's the point of paying for a broken implementation?).
Ok, serious question: how do you manage your tokens? What happens if your device flies out of the window?
A couple of months ago I managed to break the screen of my tablet with 20-30 services I use 2FA (Google Authenticator). I had to spend about 50 bucks just to get a new screen and repair it.
For some of these services I had the token saved on my keepass, but I always felt a little dirty doing that. If there was a way to keep backups of Google Authenticator data, I'd take it in a heartbeat.
Not all of the services that implement Google's 2FA provide backup codes. Plus, the idea is that 2FA should be used anywhere, even for lesser-values web sites, so the idea of printing everything seems to be archaic.
Is that method of sending the Authy authentication code any more secure than all the "regular" SMS-based 2FA methods (like say Gmail's SMS-based 2FA)? If so, how?
I think Google's (or Microsoft's because I think they use a similar SMS-based 2FA) method could be easily manipulated by intelligence agencies for example with access to the carriers' networks. The Google Authenticator app is now completely useless for Gmail as well, since they made it to fallback to SMS-based 2FA if you forgot your password (ugh - why Google? WHY?!).
> we decided to build our infrastructure on top of the telecom infrastructure because it was ubiquitous.
I am not very familiar with Authy, but I have built pin-code 2FA solutions using Twilio. Based on your comments, I am not sure the point of Authy if it is easy to build 2FA except TOTP using yesterday's Twilio.
Hi An6n, Fido and U2F are really interesting to us - we are totally supportive of it and have some really great things planned around this area. Stay tuned!
Do you have any plans for a Windows Phone app? The SMS backup works well, but an app would be ideal; it's one of the few things I'm still missing after switching from Android.
This is a far better deal for BrightRoll than going public. Tremor and YuMe, arguably similar businesses, are basically trading for the cash they have on hand. Todd (BrightRoll CEO), had told me he thought ad networks were not meant to be public companies. He certainly followed that mentality through to a nice exit. I'd take $640M outright exit any day versus going public at a slightly higher comp.
Right, I know how you feel. This is how the Digital Sky Technologies LP's must feel about them investing in FB at 15B...good for you that you weren't part of that fund - they are definitely not serious VC's.
I am saying that valuing a company at a value $10B or $100B it's not outrageous in any way. You said you cannot take seriously any VC that values a company above $10B implying that no company can go above $10B or that they are somehow insane to think that could happen.
This is simply no outrageous in any way and it was likely a very competed investment - I do think that Snapchat can achieve a value much larger than $10B or even $20B. Outrageous I would say is $1 trillion.
>"You said you cannot take seriously any VC that values a company above $10B implying that no company can go above $10B or that they are somehow insane to think that could happen."
I said nothing of the sort. I said that Snapchat is not worth $10 billion and likely never will be. For reference, my exact words were:
"I just can't take seriously any VC valuing this company at $10 billion"
So your friend has a 25 year old Air King? This is not a vintage piece, it's just an old piece. Worth? $1500 - $2000 depending on condition. Secondly, in 25 years he had to service it at least 3 times. Each service cost? $400 - $800 depending on the issues. If he polished it, $500 more.
So all in he's put in $1,200 + ~$1,500 = $2,700.
Now had he place $1,200 in the S&P 500 on 1991 (exactly 25 years ago), he would have at the end of December 31 exactly $13,588 dollars (~9.78% on average per year).
I don't understand how you can say he beat the S&P many times over.