[birken]

It seems the one fact that nobody is disputing is that the guy in question owned 10% of Techcrunch. Generally people who own 10% of a company had significant involvement in it. Not always, there are always edge cases, but that is a good general rule.

Maybe this is one of those edge cases. But claiming somebody who owns 10% of the company had literally nothing to do with the company is an extraordinary claim that I'd say requires extraordinary evidence. This blog post to me doesn't seem like extraordinary evidence.

But really the conclusion of this saga is pretty irrelevant. If somebody is investing in any type of business because an advisor to that business may or may not have co-founded a tech blog 12 years ago... well they have bigger problems.

[cocktailpeanuts]

Let's say he really deserves the 10%. That doesn't make him a "cofounder". That only makes him a shareholder. If owning some shares in a company made you a cofounder, by that logic any angel investor or VC is a cofounder of ever single company they funded.

And even if the law says you're technically a "cofounder", it's pathetic to call yourself that for a decade and use that false reputation for your personal gains if you didn't really do anything for the company.

[birken]

FWIW I never said anything about the guy deserving the title of co-founder or not. Arrington is claiming the guy had literally nothing to do with Techcrunch, which is directly at odds with the one piece of information we know: the guy owned 10% of Techcrunch.

As for the co-founder title, my point is if you are investing in some business because an advisor is either a real co-founder or a fake co-founder of Techcrunch, you are making a stupid investment. And that goes for this guy or Arrington himself.

And yes, it is pathetic if somebody is claiming a bunch of credit for something they didn't do. But it is also pathetic to give 10% of your business to somebody who did nothing (assuming the blog post is accurate). As a neutral observer I'm inclined to believe Arrington, but at the same time I don't think he made a very strong case and presented basically no impartial evidence. Frankly I think this blog post makes them both look bad.

[cocktailpeanuts]

> And yes, it is pathetic if somebody is claiming a bunch of credit for something they didn't do. But it is also pathetic to give 10% of your business to somebody who did nothing (assuming the blog post is accurate)

This happens very frequently and that's why there are systems like vesting.

So you can't say it's "pathetic" to give away 10% to someone who didn't do any work. It's more of a system failure, or you suffering due to lack of experience or manipulation.

To give a specific example, there are tons of near-scam-artists who go around telling naive founders just out of college that they will introduce them to some investor, and in exchange they will get like 10% of the equity. Trust me this happens very frequently and not because the founders who fall for it are idiots, but because they're just inexperienced at that point in life. In this case, it should suck to be in that founder's shoes, but it's really harsh to call her/him pathetic because you have no idea what happened behind the scenes. But what clearly is pathetic is the older guy who know exactly what he's doing who is using his experience to scam the younger founder into believing that it's OK to give 10% of the company he hasn't even incorporated yet, all just for a single intro.

I'm not saying this is what happened in this case, but I'm just pointing out a founder giving away 10% (or even more) happens all the time, especially if you're not surrounded by the right people. This doesn't make them idiots, it's just that they were in an unfortunate situation. But someone who knows exactly what he's doing and is claiming to be what he isn't IS pathetic.

[birken]

I feel pity for the older and more experienced founder who (allegedly) took advantage of the younger and naive one. But I also feel pity for the younger founder who was exploited and didn't know any better.

Maybe it is more pitiful than pathetic for the older and wiser businessman to (allegedly) take advantage of a younger and more naive person. But it is most certainly pathetic for somebody to give up 10% of their company for nothing, whether it is by being tricked or by being bullied or whatever.

That isn't a judgement on how common or uncommon this situation is, nor how intelligent either party is, nor on their value as a person. And perhaps we interpret the meaning of the word differently, but to me it means simply evoking pity.

The irony that this post itself might be interpreted as pathetic is not lost on me, but I think it is far more pedantic than pathetic so at least I have that going for me.

[wastedhours]

Agree the blog post paints neither of them in a good light, but would have thought a 10% cut could just be compensation for developing a new IP whilst "employed" by someone else?

Depending on the agreements in place at Edgeio, sounds like it could just be an IP deal rather an an acknowledgement of increased involvement?