[typis7]

I'm not involved in Mega anymore. Neither in a managing nor in a shareholder capacity. The company has suffered from a hostile takeover by a Chinese investor who is wanted in China for fraud. He used a number of straw-men and businesses to accumulate more and more Mega shares. Recently his shares have been seized by the NZ government. Which means the NZ government is in control. In addition Hollywood has seized all the Megashares in the family trust that was setup for my children. As a result of this and a number of other confidential issues I don't trust Mega anymore. I don't think your data is safe on Mega anymore. But my non-compete clause is running out at the end of the year and I will create a Mega competitor that is completely open source and non-profit, similar to the Wikipedia model. I want to give everyone free, unlimited and encrypted cloud storage with the help of donations from the community to keep things going.

[erikb]

That Kim guy is really always good for a story. I'm impressed. But has anybody seen his documentary? I don't think he's really happy. On the top of his career he had "bunnies" and yacht parties, and a VIP seat in a Formula 1 race. But he never seemed happy, and most of his friends just seemed to be these people who just want to get a share from the money. I don't know, but seeing that I never wanted to exchange my life with his.

[geomark]

I read a quote once from a guy that became very wealthy when his company went public. He too became a magnet for fake friends. He said that the thing with fake friends is they are so much better at acting like friends than real friends. No doubt Kim knows that feeling.

[erikb]

I hope he took from his down swing how to recognize these. That's a huge negative impact on one's life, having such kind of friends. Even on the good days they suck out your energy without you realizing it. And again, I think even as such a friend you don't have a happy life.

[geomark]

I think he (my friend, not Kim) ended up deciding he preferred his fake friends because they were so much better at being "friends". His real friends would call him out and tell him to get real when he started getting too full of himself due to his new wealth. His fake friends were always supportive regardless of how outrageous his behavior became (and it went way over the top). I guess it is kind of a selection bias effect and the same thing that leads to big-headed bosses surrounding themselves with yes men. I wonder if Kim fell into that trap.

[erikb]

Yeah, we all are like that in our naive form. Only through bad experience and the ability to learn from failure we can overcome that. Only few people have that ability, and some are "lucky" and never have such a bad experience until the end, but I would assume they still feel something missing yet never realise what it is.

[GBond]

Being a startup news site, I'm sure some HNers can relate.

[DHowett]

If Dotcom wanted an open-source community-supported file sharing platform that couldn't be taken over by external forces, why did he create the perfect antithesis to that?

Why did he in fact sign an agreement barring him from competing in that sector?

I can't understand how somebody who wants such a perfect world consistently painted himself into a corner from which he couldn't.

[slazaro]

The way I understood it, he just has different priorities now. It's not like he always wanted to do the community supported solution and decided to do the closed source one. He apparently made this decision recently.

It still sounds like he's just reacting to his current situation, rather than doing because of his ideals.

[yAnonymous]

Maybe he just wants to piss off Hollywood and the people who took over Mega?

[qopp]

Maybe for money?

[PopeOfNope]

Court cases are expensive.

[Intermernet]

This provides some more info: https://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companie...

Dotcom ceased to be a director on 3rd September 2013 (http://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companies...) but I can't get a definite answer on shareholdings (https://www.business.govt.nz/companies/app/ui/pages/companie...) as they may be through layers of shell companies, and highly untraceable.

[x5n1]

Damn player don't quit.

[mxxx]

Is this actually the first that's been heard of this? I had no idea...