
Meet the tireless entrepreneur who squatted at AOL - streeter
http://news.cnet.com/8301-32973_3-57440513-296/meet-the-tireless-entrepreneur-who-squatted-at-aol/
======
edw519
_...given just $20,000 by the incubator, and after the four-month program
ended, the money was gone..._

 _...after pivoting and focusing solely on letting teachers share lesson
plans, Simons said he was able to score $50,000 in seed funding from Ulu
Ventures and Silicon Valley VC Paul Sherer._

 _Now, Simons said, he's looking to raise an additional $500,000._

 _So is Simons just a kid with a particularly honed entrepreneurial spirit?_

Exactly when did the definition of entrepreneur change from "build a
sustainable business that provides value to its customers" to "survive long
enough for the next round of investment"?

I admire Eric for his tenacity (most others would have quit long ago), but I'd
much rather hear about when he actually sells something.

~~~
vladd
He used AOL infrastructure to build his company, I'm wondering if he disclosed
that to investors as he's pretty liable to them otherwise.

It's lesson number #1 (don't use your employer's computer off-hours when
working on your own projects) for people that try to build something outside
their company's influence.

~~~
danvideo
Might be wrong, but isn't California law especially lenient about ownership of
work produced outside of work hours? (vs. here in NYC, for example)

~~~
bodyfour
Especially lenient, but not infinitely lenient.

------
cfinke
Judging by the gossip I heard while at AOL, he surely isn't the only person
using AOL's offices and food without contributing to AOL, but he's the only
one who isn't actually employed by AOL.

------
joshuamerrill
While I applaud Eric's inexhaustible dedication to his company and mission,
taking advantage of AOL in order to accomplish it is disgustingly unethical.
It just makes it harder for other entrepreneurs who share that dedication but
have chosen to build their businesses above-board.

I'm glad AOL has a sense of humor about this. But you can be sure that this
incident will create additional requirements and restrictions for the [honest]
entrepreneurs who still remain in the building.

~~~
west1737
Do what you have to do. AOL is no worse for having someone sleeping on their
couch.

~~~
nupark2
AOL out the funds they spent on his theft of service and resources, and
they're out the time they spent having security figure out why someone was
sleeping there. They've been embarrassed in the press, and they're that much
less likely to trust people that are part of their entrepreneur programs in
the future.

The security staff in question was probably reprimanded for their failure to
detect the interloper -- he abused the trust he had gained by previously
becoming a "known" face.

You do what you have to do, _ethically_ , to succeed.

~~~
djloche
"They've been embarrassed in the press"

They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the
future. How many people reading this article know AOL as "that company that
first sent me discs in the mail" and previously thought AOL as a dead company?

AOL gets free, positive press showing that they're not dead, they're investing
in the future, and that they're reasonable. The positive spin this article
gives them is worth every penny of resources spent.

~~~
nupark2
> _They've actually been profiled as a reasonable company that invests in the
> future._

The best thing they can do at this point is put a positive spin on it, but ...

> _The positive spin this article gives them is worth every penny of resources
> spent._

Not your decision to make for AOL. AOL will spin this, but post-facto
justification ("see, it's not that bad -- they made good on my theft!") does
not an ethical decision make.

~~~
djloche
Nowhere do I lay claim to making decisions for AOL. While I doubt they are
interested, if AOL wishes to hire me for such purposes, I am available.

I pointed out that it was my opinion that the cost of the resources that Eric
used was less than the cost of genuine, positive press.

I also did not declare his actions ethical. I responded to your claim that AOL
has been embarrassed.

AOL responded appropriately (not pressing charges, just kindly requiring him
to not sleep/live there anymore), and was able to respond to the press inquiry
with a lighthearted statement that fits the narrative of the article. The
article presents AOL not only as having reasonable management, but also as a
place to work with great benefits (food, showers, gym, startup incubators,
friendly environment).

AOL is where Yahoo will be in 5 years: they have nowhere to go but up in terms
of public reputation and mindshare.

~~~
nupark2
I see AOL as doing their best to avoid a bigger snafu over a smaller,
unattractive snafu. Opinions on the value of this PR will vary, but the fact
is that there's no substance here.

Somebody abused their fairly standard SV corporate perks, they responded
without bringing in the police.

At the end of the day, my subjective impression is that their startup
interests brought in an immature, ethically-challenged entrepreneur who is
stuck in the money-raising cycle, and accordingly AOL has been dragged into
the press because of something stupid he did.

That isn't a particularly positive narrative, but I can see how people that
are more comfortable with Eric's failure of ethics can see it as a cool story
of "hustling" entrepreneurship.

------
duskwuff
Reminds me of the story of Graphing Calculator:

<http://www.pacifict.com/Story/>

~~~
jacquesm
That's awesome, thanks duskwuff.

Just one quote: "I asked my friend Greg Robbins to help me. His contract in
another division at Apple had just ended, so he told his manager that he would
start reporting to me. She didn't ask who I was and let him keep his office
and badge. In turn, I told people that I was reporting to him. Since that left
no managers in the loop, we had no meetings and could be extremely
productive."

If you have a spare 15 minutes you really should read this.

------
nicholassmith
Got to say the response from AOL was pure class. They could have been really
annoyed at the kid for sponging off their employee services, but no, 'we just
didn't expect it to work so well'. Nicely done from AOL there.

Sure, the kid contravened plenty of rules and laws, but the level of focus to
do 18ish hour days and maintain a lifestyle like that to achieve the goals?
You don't get that everyday.

And lets be honest, he's not the first guy in the Valley to treat the rules
with a loose interpretation.

------
ChuckMcM
Its a neat story. When I read the headline I thought it was a Mike Arrington
story :-)

We joked at Google that they really did want you to live there but their
secops team would not let a non-employee do this.

However for a potential investor this is a great demonstration of how
committed someone is to their idea, and their passion. I don't doubt for a
moment that Eric will be successful at what ever he sets out to do, you can't
buy that kind of focus.

~~~
nupark2
It's also a demonstration of an ethical failure. It was theft.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft) which, for me, puts it into
the ethically 'grey' area of interpretation.

I would reason to 'non-theft' based on an argument that AOL gave access to the
building (badge) and provides services for people with access to the building,
therefore giving access was tacit agreement to the use of the facilities.
Other employees no doubt sleep there on occasion and that it also tacitly
allowed. Therefore non-theft.

I would reason to the 'theft' conclusion that AOL provides services to
incubators and to employees but does not explicitly extend employee benefits
to incubator attendees. Using services and consumables that are provided to
AOL employees is outside the scope of services offered to incubator
participants. Therefore Theft.

Eric was aware of this grey area, clearly trying to stay outside the regular
patrol of security, and thus actively trying to not force a resolution on the
question of allowed or not allowed. His response when the resolution occurred
appears to be 100% compliance.

If I were considering investing in Eric's activities I would consider both
parts of that story, the first where he exploits a grey area and the second
how he responds to being discovered.

In my experience it is people who take Eric's approach of interpreting grey
areas in the most optimistic way until shown otherwise, and being 100% rule
following on explicit rulings, are successful. There are thresholds of course,
if there were signs that said "No one is allowed to sleep in this facility" or
"At no time will anyone spend more than 12 out of 24 hrs in a day in this
facility" or even more general guidelines that define a standard for defining
'living on site' and a express a prohibition against it. Something which might
say "You would be considered to be living here if you spend more than 100 hrs
a week or do more than 3 loads of laundry or sleep more than 12 hrs a week or
eat more than 12 nominal meals at the facility" etc. AOL _could_ call it out,
but they haven't. And that leaves it open to interpretation.

In the business world that is sometimes called 'moxie' or 'stones' or any
number of euphemisms and its generally respected.

What is not respected is explicit exploitation. So for example when I worked
at Google the mini-kitchens all had refrigerators that were full of beverages.
A small number of employees were found to be exploiting this 'perk'. An
example of that which was given was an employee that prior to the weekend,
would take an empty back pack and fill it with anywhere from 20 to 50
beverages to take home. That was 'theft' in the sense that the intention was
for the beverages to be enjoyed _at work_ not at home, even if you were
working from home. But it was theft because of the _quantity_ not because of
the _taking_. Taking one beverage to drink while riding the shuttle home? Not
a problem although you were not 'technically' at work any more.

I think Eric intentionally interpreted the situation in a way that would
support his actions, and recognized that those actions might not be completely
inline with the intent, and waited for AOL to express its intent. I don't
think he ever believed AOL would 'endorse' his living on campus while he
worked on his startup (incubator participation not withstanding) but I could
see a case for it being an open question if not explicitly disallowed.

~~~
hollerith
>I could argue it both ways (theft and non-theft)

If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is more
likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging
(misdemeanor).

If I were the district attorney, I'd tend to let something like this slide
when the doer is as young as this guy is. It bothers me a little though that
he is speaking openly about it to the press because that suggests that he has
no shame about it. If he really has no shame at all about it, I would prefer
that he be dragged into court.

If your reaction to this report is to excuse the behavior because the guy is
an entrepreneur, I think your reaction is no better than, "It's OK because
he's a member of our club."

~~~
ChuckMcM
" _If the district attorney's office in Santa Clara County wanted to, it is
more likely than not that they could get a conviction for illegal lodging
(misdemeanor)._ "

I mention the risk of violating zoning laws below but I also asked a public
defender their take on that aspect as well. They said pretty much that unless
you could prove that AOL both knew and allowed this to occur, or could prove
that they didn't actively try to discourage such things, you could not convict
them of violating the rules. She related a case of a homeless person who was
charged with loitering and the business was charged for allowing people to
live at their facility in violation of zoning laws, but the case against the
business was dismissed for lack of evidence that the business knew about the
activity or allowed it. I expect AOL would use a similar defense in this case.

~~~
hollerith
I meant that the district attorney could get a conviction _of the young
entrepreneur_ if he wanted to. "Illegal lodging" means sleeping where it is
illegal to sleep.

~~~
tankbot
Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's
couches?

His security clearance was never revoked. Nobody directly informed him he
couldn't sleep there. I'd say this is perfect 'grey area' since he didn't
knowingly commit any crime and AOL didn't knowingly allow it.

~~~
hollerith
>Could you please reference the law that prohibits people sleeping on AOL's
couches?

Entering into a search engine the phrases "California penal code" and "illegal
lodging" should allow you to find the text of the law.

I learned about this law when someone I knew was charged with illegal lodging
for sleeping in one of the building at Stanford long ago. (He pled _no lo
contendere_ , had no priors, and was fined $100.)

No offense, but I do not want to discuss it with you anymore.

------
tannerc
This is an entertaining story, at most. The pursuit of round after round of
funding that Eric - and many other entrepreneurs, surely - are striving for is
concerning. What ever happened to the pursuit of a savvy business that brings
in real profit? The hunt for funding needs to be replaced with a hunt for
sustainability.

Am I wrong for believing that?

~~~
freshhawk
I agree that it is concerning.

The worst part is that I've seen attiudes subtly shift away from real
entrepreneurial spirit and towards a "how do we make ourselves attractive to
patrons" attitude.

It's a pragmatic choice, if you are going to be the subject of patronage and
treated as such then you don't work on building a business you work on
pleasing the patron so he and his friends will keep giving you money.

It's an unintended consequence of the very healthy VC/Angel ecosystem and
consumer internet sites that are hard to monetize but still valued by the
public. Maybe it's just a weird blip and not a big deal. But it's a direction
that strikes me as unhealthy.

------
jconley
I wonder if he was eating our food. Playdom has three meals a day "up stairs"
in that building, where we are headquartered and have an entire floor. There
is also another startup incubator in this building. It's pretty funny they
just mention AOL in the article.

~~~
dpiers
Shameless self-promotion: If you guys want to have three _awesome_ meals a
day, you should check out ZeroCater. We will hook you up with food from the
best places around. :)

------
cpeterso
I'm reminded of Rodney Rothman's _My Fake Job_ (New Yorker, November 2000), a
"personal history about the writer's tenure at an unnamed downtown Internet
company where he did not actually have a job":

[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_T...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2000/11/27/2000_11_27_120_TNY_LIBRY_000022173)

* Reporter's fake job irks real dot-com: [http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.co...](http://articles.cnn.com/2000-12-05/tech/reporter.irks.dot.com.idg_1_employees-luminant-worldwide-dot?_s=PM:TECH)

------
jroseattle
This kid's drive and ambition is impressive, but using that as an excuse to
ignore honesty? Sounds like he should be working on wall street, instead.

Kudos to David Tempkin for his response -- spot on. He recognized the
situation for what it was, and responded most appropriately.

But here's the thing -- suppose he was instead sponging off a smaller, non-
corporate, recently-funded, bootstrapped operation. Would everyone be calling
him a go-getter? I'm guessing not, as the "theft" conversation would likely
take a different tone.

------
easy
This guy is fantastic. If what he's doing now with the new incubator doesn't
work out I hope he considers applying to YC. Living at AOL is at least a good
a story as selling cereal.

------
jmtame
He also has been solo the whole time, which makes it more impressive. He had a
cofounder who gave up, but Eric never budged.

------
iblaine
Break the rules when it fits your own interests. This kid should leave the
valley and move to Wall St.

------
citricsquid
> Update 9:31 a.m. PT: This story has been updated with a response from AOL.

What was the response? I can't find it in the article, would be interesting to
see it.

~~~
dangrossman
> Contacted for comment, David Temkin, senior vice president of Mail and
> Mobile for AOL, told CNET, "It was always our intention to facilitate
> entrepreneurialism in the Palo Alto office -- we just didn't expect it to
> work so well."

~~~
DiabloD3
Understatement of the year.

~~~
petercooper
There's one thing you can say about AOL: they have a sense of humor.

~~~
chris24
From that one statement alone, I suddenly have a lot more respect for AOL.
That was hilarious.

------
Mz
Homeless entrepreneurs: The new cool thing.

Now I just need $50k or so.

~~~
jarek
And a contact at CNET.

------
rdtsc
Hearing about AOL throws me back to the late 90s.

And whenever I hear about them it is never in a technical context as in "check
out this new database AOL techs created" it is more of "remember how AOL used
to send people a ton of CDs?" or "Check out the statistics of people still
using dial up"

I don't even remember what made them sort of quitely disappear from the radar?
Was it broadband from cable companies and Verizon's Fios?

So I am wondering what do AOL tech people do there? Is it just maintenance to
keep the dial-up server pool working?

~~~
cfinke
Tech people at AOL not involved in maintaining the dial-up service are working
on about.me, AIM, AOL.com, the Blogsmith CMS, features for blogs running on
the Blogsmith CMS (Engadget, Autoblog, etc.), AOL Desktop, Games.com,
Huffington Post, AOL Mail, Mapquest, Moviefone, Patch, Shortcuts, TechCrunch,
and Winamp, to name a few.

~~~
rdtsc
And out of those things the last thing I remember using was probably reading
an article from huffpo or techcrunch.

------
uptown
Anybody know his Twitter username? The one linked to from the "About Us" page
doesn't work.

~~~
ericmsimons
Hi! My twitter is <http://twitter.com/#!/ericsimons40> \- not sure why it
didn't work from the about page :O

~~~
uptown
This explains it:

@Support: Some users are having trouble accessing Twitter on the web. Our
engineers are looking into it.

<https://twitter.com/support/status/205735369034039297>

------
sparknlaunch12
Great story and lucky for Eric he wasn't locked up in prison. Worth noting he
was involved in an earlier project at AOL and they hadn't deactivated his
pass. A without this things may have gone the other way.

I think Gates and Jobs spent nights at places they were working at, leveraging
off free to use, latest technology.

His startup idea is great. There are variations out there already but maybe
this story and network will turn this into something successful.

------
DigitalSea
I'm sure once AOL eventually goes out of business, they can crash on his couch
and use his shower. Fair enough he was using their facilities to work on his
own projects and try and raise capital, but I admire his audacity. This is
probably one of the most impressive things I've heard and read about in a long
time.

------
joelhaasnoot
Bending the truth gets you far - I spoke to a trainfan once who told everyone
he was a train/locomotive driver/engineer and used that to travel all
throughout Europe in traincabs

~~~
jarek
Also, it sounds a lot better than "lying."

------
libraryatnight
Very cool story :) I understand the ethics arguments, but I can't find the
heart to support them. I admire Eric's resourcefulness and outright balls ;)

------
charlieok
So today I found myself reading Robert Burns' poem, “To a Mouse” (the origin
of the famous phrase, “The best laid plans of mice and men”).

I think it's almost possible to read this poem in the voice of AOL talking to
Eric Simons.

<http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/554.htm>

------
alaskamiller
Good hustle, Eric. Sorry for dropping the ball on not getting back to ya but
you've been making do better than I can.

------
gonein60
Too bad his incubator wasn't at Google. He probably could have lived a little
better down in Mountain View.

------
yardie
I had a friend that claimed he was squatting at Virginia Tech's Math Emporium.
At the time I assumed he was joking (they didn't have showers) but now I'm not
so sure anymore. And it's not like college students are renowned for their
personal hygiene.

~~~
ja27
We had a homeless guy living in our dorm lounge for almost a week before
someone realized he wasn't a student.

------
readme
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the
essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. "

------
lollancf37
His motivation and will to make his project exist is out of the ordinary and I
respect that.

However his behaviour is just shameful. I guess the end, justify the means ...

Still I don't like it, one bit.

------
rubynerd
Discarding the primary point of this article (squatting at AOL), today is my
last day of college (16-18 age bracket in the UK), and you can tell that every
single lesson is the same as it was five years ago, bar electronics because
it's a new exam board and the teacher is only just finding his feet.

Computing, we still use VB6 for coursework, Chemistry, everything is
photocopied with ye olde dates on

Props to him for attempting to introduce variety into lesson plans,
thankfully, today is the last day of copying out photocopy masters from a
whiteboard onto paper

~~~
46Bit
Off-topic, but you should think about going to <http://youngrewiredstate.org>
this summer. It's a week-long open data hack that ends with 1-2 days of
camping at Bletchley Park. I've been to it two years running now and it's done
wonders.

------
myspoonnotyours
Similar to that Duke U. student who lived in a van on campus. Of course he was
paying for tuition.

Also reminds me of Half Baked and the guy on the couch.

------
zandorg
See film 'Secret of My Success' with Michael J. Fox for similiar plot. Great
film.

------
neilkelty
Where did he work during the day as to not be noticed by hundreds of
employees?

------
EREFUNDO
I think "don't die" refer mostly to his ambition and startup....epic!

------
inspiredworlds
love this guys hustle

------
a3d6g2f7
Maybe he should have brought the security guard on as a co-founder?

------
a3d6g2f7
Simons' supervisor commented that he was a model employee for AOL's Palo Alto
Office.

"Eric was always on time, never late for work."

