Additionally, a VC report from 2011 talked about how "both founders have extensive knowledge of the high-tech industry" [4]. Another described Sarvjeet's extensive experience [5].
[2] http://www.crunchbase.com/person/sarvjeet-ahuja
[3] http://www.crunchbase.com/company/wanelo
[4] http://gecr.co.uk/file_download/45/
[5] http://tmtinvestments.com/i/pdf/Wanelo%20RNS%20(22%20Nov%201...
[1] http://www.slideshare.net/500startups/eric-koger-cofounder-c...
Lots of companies screw their technical cofounders. I was the technical cofounder of a company that was later acquired, but never received the $12.8 million check I was supposed to and didn't have the resources to fight back against a maniacal cofounder flush with $60+ million in new cash from the acquisition. That doesn't mean that others can't learn from the company's story, even if only told selectively. It just means that the people that wound up in charge are perhaps not the kind of people you would want to do business with.
Not to derail, but let's hear that story. Seems like hiring a lawyer would be a no-brainer if you were due $12.8m.
But, as of this moment, despite my name being on the company's first and primary patent, having written all of its initial code, having envisioned the entire concept of the company myself, and even having named the company, I have seen exactly $0 from an acquisition I was supposed to receive 20% of. Even better, with $60 million in his pocket, my womanizing, alcoholic, conniving cofounder suddenly found Jesus and now fancies himself a televangelist of sorts. At last contact with him, he was "praying for me". Go figure.
So yeah, be careful when working with others. My cofounder would have been considered by anyone that looked at him to be beyond reproach. He was not.
Any good lawyer will tell you the same piece of advice: "never say anything." It does absolutely zero positive good for your case and can only serve to hinder it later. It's very difficult sometimes to keep from providing what you consider to be valuable feedback for others, but you have your own interests to consider first.
Seems odd to me. Find a lawyer, if you have a convincing case they might work pro bono at first if they can foresee a big payoff.
http://anakam.com (redirects to Equifax, who bought the company and tried to extort me, original company was Anakam LLC).
Hoping that everyone get's that right the first time is of course illusional; may you all learn that lesson by being screwed out of a moderate 4 digit amount early in your careers!
Mirror, in case it gets taken down: http://i.imgur.com/OmultA0.png
:(
A woman builds a big business from scratch and rather than wondering why it took so long for her to get funding we instantly latch on to a second-hand report that she might've had a falling out with someone before her site even started taking off.
Ignoring the fact that this isn't incompatible with the presentation at all or that there's plenty of male founders who we know pulled shitty moves in the beginning; why exactly did we vote this up this quickly?
Plenty of "co-founders" disappear in early stage startups that take a long time to get going, and at that point they're no longer co-founders, they were just associated people.
I think that HN has a very low tolerance for some sorts of bullshit. But it apparently it has a high tolerance for bullshit questions about people that aren't involved with a startup's current success.
Something - I don't know what, but she's certainly not being forthright about it - must have happened between then and the new "this is what a real CTO looks like" guy took over.
So there's enough there that merits hesitating before making a woman-in-tech hero of her. It's not misogynistic to say so either.
[1] http://tmtinvestments.com/i/pdf/Wanelo%20RNS%20(22%20Nov%201...
After reading Sam's last two blog posts I just decided to reconsider and apply to YC after all; but the atmosphere here is so toxic that I can't help but feel that I'd spend more energy on dealing with YC misogyny than actually participating.
I had a female (technical) cofounder, and her general take on YC was that she was treated well by the partners, and didn't encounter any blatant sexism from the batch, but many founders in the batch were young techie guys who gravitated toward conversing with other guys, so she really only got to know a subset of the batch (other women, plus the minority of male founders who were comfortable talking to women). Also, she felt there was a general assumption (among the batch, not the partners) that male founders were technical, but female founders were non-technical, which affected how people interacted with her in subtle ways. YC could do more to educate founders about unconscious bias (and for all I know, they have), but at least in our batch, I think that would have been considered somewhat beyond the scope of the program. I don't think she'd ever characterize it as "YC misogyny."
HN, on the other hand, is probably more representative of the attitude of the tech world at large, and possibly a bit worse. YC-founder HN comments are almost universally more civil and enlightened than the bulk of the comments on the site.
Apply to YC, or don't, that decision is yours. But as long as you're in the tech world, you're not going to avoid any extra sexism by avoiding YC.
1. I can't say since I haven't been through YC, but I imagine that HN, a site that's open to every joe schmoe on the internet, is not a good reflection of the population that's accepted to YC (probably the most exclusive start-up accelerator).
2. I don't know the truth of the original claim (presumably neither do you). My question is this, if the original claim that there was a technical co-founder that got pushed out is true, is it toxic for dogfood123 to state it?
I guess I'm saying it seems like its premature to say it's 'toxic'. I agree that if there are malicious users making up lies about female founders, that's toxic. OTOH, if the claim is true, I struggle to see how talking about reality is toxic.
Also, if anyone was wondering why pg was trying out comment endorsement, this is why. I wouldn't be surprised if Hacker News was shut down entirely in the future. I wonder if it is the principal discouraging factor for female applicants to YC.
FWIW, why not apply, go meet the people in person, then decide if there will be more misogyny than useful participation.
[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mtrimpe [2]https://interactly.com/company
That means that unless I closet myself for YC, which I'm getting a bit old for, I'm likely to have a significantly worse experience than the average woman would.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098056 [2] Gender-dysphoric to be precise, but that isn't meaningful to most.
It was upvoted because it's weird, there's no simple explanation, and people are concerned.
1. To get his self-esteem to a higher level. Lots of people do talking for this. And they say lots of bullshit to attract your attention and boost their selves.
2. To genially tell the truth and help people. My guess is that this is the minority.
So I'm always skeptic about these stories.
Why lie about it?