
Hex, Lies and Startups - gringofyx
http://www.codingjohnson.com/hex-lies-and-startups
======
DanBC
> I started working my contracted 7.5 hours a day,

I am constantly surprised by bosses that do not realise the consequences of
their words.

When someone is clearly making an effort you need to recognise that. Maybe
it's just a "hey, thanks, I appreciate it" when you have no money.

Saying "I pay you a wage and you do the work" is a sure way to force people to
do just enough.

~~~
danmaz74
The same exact thing happened to me a couple of years ago - except that I
wasn't working at a startup, but at an established company. I even proposed to
have a results-based salary (I was doing a lot of sales engineering, so that
would have been fairly simple) but was refused.

So I started working just my contract hours, and building hashtagify.me on the
side. In the end I gave my resignation notice, they went into a panic and
offered me 5 months of half-time work - but with 85% pay; this cost them much
more than what I would have expected as a bonus at the time, not to count the
almost two years of not-really-enthusiastic work.

I really can't understand how managers/business people can be so stupid
sometimes.

~~~
otakucode
>I even proposed to have a results-based salary

Do you realize how insane such a suggestion is? I know it probably sounds
totally reasonable from a "the harder you work the better you do" mindset, but
companies abandoned that in the 1980s. There's a reason why even as technology
has multiplied the productivity of employees by leaps and bounds average
salaries have remained flat since 1980.

If you want to understand managers/business people, read their books.
Seriously, read the books they have on their shelf. Books written for managers
are like something produced in a bizarre sociopathic universe. And they very
consciously divorce the idea of employee compensation from the value of the
work an employee does.

~~~
yangez
Employee compensation is absolutely not associated with the value of the work
the employee does.

Instead, it's associated with the best replacement that the company could
find.

If Joe makes $2M a year for a company and gets paid $150k but Steve can do the
same work at the same level for $100k, Joe's out and Steve's in. The initial
$2M of value doesn't matter, except to lower the chance that a replacement
could outperform you.

Cynical and unfair? Sure. That's how it works, though. Start your own company
if you don't like it.

~~~
digikata
That's a broken model for many reasons. For one is that it replacement omits
or undervalues the cost to acquire and retrain a replacement to being a)
competent in the context of the position, and longer term b) being truly
integrated into the company and able to bring deeper value to the business.

Time to a) can be short, particularly if the candidate is a good fit, but time
to b) is typically three years. Early in my career, I took a little offense
when a manager once told me that it would take three years to become useful.
After some discussion, that wasn't a comment about my technical ability or
level of work (they were actually very happy about that), but it was just a
realistic timeline to get to b), the point that they could throw about
anything at me and I could reliably pull resources and people together to get
things done for the company in an independent and cost-effective manner.
Depending on the work, time to (b) could be shorter or longer, but it's
surprisingly long - longer than many want to admit to themselves. Over the
years, I've looked at people in companies through this lens, and three years
is typical.

Companies with an employee "replacement cost" model often have churn rates so
employees stay with the company well below (b).

The "replacement cost" model also leads unwillingness to invest in employees,
either by explicit training, or on the job training anticipating increased
responsibilities. After all, they might be gone soon and we just have to go
shopping for a replacement.

Longer term employees (typically the mid-level management) are then stuck
because they're managing details that they really wouldn't otherwise need to,
masking time to take care of problems that they would otherwise should be the
sole owners of.

They're both subtle outgrowths of undervaluing people, leading to company
underperformance.

~~~
ori_b
Note that the corrections you propose _still_ have nothing to do with the
value that the employee produces. They just adjust the replacement cost to
something more realistic.

It's still about minimizing expenditure to bring in a certain amount of
profit.

~~~
digikata
If, because of the replacement cost model, you don't spend time and some
effort to get and keep well integrated employees, the business misses out on
deeper value the employees could bring. Further, those deep-value employees
can handle more issues, freeing higher level management to focus on bigger,
higher value issues. I think that has a lot of relevance, but then I think a
lot of companies miss out on expanding value when they're focused on squeezing
costs.

------
Aqueous
A litany of red flags.

\- "he'd stolen a few clients, some data"

\- "he took on his former girlfriends brother"

\- "within a year me and Ian moved to Bulgaria...John wanted to keep costs
down"

\- "Ians sister, had an abortion at Johns request." (I'm pro-choice, but this
is still messed up)

\- "I want you to fire Ian"

\- "I think John wanted it all swept under the carpet."

\- "Then how about my shares?" \- if you ever find yourself saying this, you
are sunk.

John sounds like the worst guy ever.

I'm about as trusting and naive as they come. I probably would have fallen for
John's smarminess initially as well - some people are excellent manipulators -
and probably kept going for a long time. But you were working for somebody who
does not have a conscience. John is a classic sociopath. Be glad you got out
of there - being rich under his command is not worth it.

~~~
Houshalter
Is that enough information to really label him a sociopath? Not the best
person maybe, but a sociopath?

~~~
solistice
Either he has no feelings of guilt whatever, or he's not sleeping much at
night. Also he's highly manipulative. I'd give him the sociopath handle.

------
peterjancelis
I am pretty sure the company here is Applied Language Solutions, which was ran
by Gavin Wheeldon and was featured in the UK version of Dragon's Den.

ALS had a Sofia office, a free translation tool that was mentioned on Dragon's
Den and sold for 67.5 million pounds.

~~~
woodchuck64
"Wheeldon as a businessman (and a moral specimen) is truly riveting, albeit in
sort of the same way that Hannibal Lecter is fascinating as a gourmet."

([http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-
gavin-...](http://traductor-financiero.blogspot.com/2012/03/alss-gavin-
wheeldon-case-study-in-cheap.html))

------
otakucode
Welcome to the world of business.

I'm glad that when I was 15 years old and my first employer tried to pull that
"we'll get rich together" horseshit I just said 'I'll kick myself later. Pay
me my rate.'

An honest person, whether in business or elsewhere, will base what they pay
you on the value of the work you can do. As soon as they decide they want more
value than they're paying for, they've become a con artist. There are tons of
con artists at work today, taking advantage of the fact that a lot of
employees are still under the impression that working for an employer grants
them security and predictability - even though they get laid off the first
time the company doesn't meet quarterly projections.

Especially once John could quantify the amount of business he was bringing to
the company, he should have set an ultimatum that he be paid based on that or
he walks. Sure the con artist boss might think 'I'll just get rid of him and
find another rube' and he even might (but probably not, employers always
vastly underestimate the value of experience and domain-specific knowledge),
but at least he wouldn't just keep feeding into the con himself.

------
raverbashing
Here's the tip: If the person is not honest at the beginning, it is not going
to be honest later

The company already started dishonestly, with stolen data. What do you expect
from that?

~~~
freyr
Years ago, a local pizza restaurant named Sweet Tomatoes opened to rave
reviews. The owner hired a recent college grad named Josh, and over the new
few months, she mentored Josh, introduced him to her business contacts, and
shared her plans for expansion.

Josh took the recipes, the business contacts, and even the expansion plans,
and started a rival pizza chain. Within a short time he had 21 locations that
were doing quite well.

But it all started with a big red flag. How do you think the story goes?

The restaurant began hiring illegal immigrants from the small town of Marilac
in Brazil. These employees worked up to 80 hours a week, while the restaurant
violated minimum wage laws and failed to pay overtime. Employees risked
deportation if they spoke out. In less than a two year period, the owners
failed to pay employees $425,000 in wages.

When the owners were ordered to pay these wages, they devised a scheme to
recoup the money by slashing wages, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and a
follow-up labor investigation.

Meanwhile, Josh bought himself a yacht, a vacation home, and a small airplane,
allegedly purchased illegally with company funds.

The company eventually went bankrupt and last year its locations were sold at
auction (though the original owner, with the help of some financiers, was able
to buy back four locations).

When you see huge red flags, tread very carefully.

Along the same lines, when somebody starts cheating on their significant other
to be with you, don't be surprised when they cheat on you to be with someone
else. You're not special. You won't get special treatment.

Now I want pizza.

[http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_...](http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/12/05/a_driven_young_man_and_the_chain_he_made/)

~~~
myke_cameron
I will never forget the morning I walked by the Waltham Upper Crust location
on my way to the commuter rail and watched as workers stripped the place
clean. It felt like a victory for everyone who has ever been screwed by an
employer and I couldn't help but linger even as I could hear the bells in the
distance signaling the inbound train arriving at the station.

------
lnanek2
Talking to people in SV, it's actually pretty common that the business people
try to dump the techies right before they vest or a good deal comes in.
Sometimes the person dumped has even been CTO or the only technical person and
built the entire technical solution.

------
louischatriot
Sorry to be blunt, but I am always amazed by what this kind of stories have in
common: trusting people without a contract (or at least a signed agreement).
Even if it's your best friend who's going to hire you, don't accept promises
such as "you'll get rich once we hit it big". Sign a contract stating how much
of the company you own, what the vesting schedule is, acceleration upon change
of control etc.

There are some assholes out there, so stop being naïve. This is a very good
cautionary tale about what happens if you do.

~~~
Dylan16807
Signed agreements are contracts.

------
James_Duval
Question: You say "he'd stolen a few clients, some data, rented an office and
hadn't really thought about the rest. It was my job to reshape the stolen data
beyond recognition" \- did you not consider that such a person might be
somewhat untrustworthy?

Follow-up, it bothers me that you took a job knowing that you were disguising
stolen data, what was your rationale for this?

~~~
gringofyx
I didn't know this straight off, I found out in my first week that he had this
data and I didn't know where it had come from. In the next few weeks he got a
bit panicky, and told me the data was going to be "audited" by the company
he'd just left (and stolen the data from).

Only then did I realise it was stolen data, that was like a month or two into
the job.

He also lied about his name to me, I found out a month later he'd done this so
that if he fired me (or his name appeared in the press) - then no one could
track him down. I think the company was even registered (initially) under his
false name.

I should have smelled a rat, but at age 20 I didn't even know rats could
smell.

~~~
otakucode
Really, don't blame it on your age. I knew better at 15. The first employer I
had was a guy doing MLM who wanted me to accept a lower wage now for big
riches later. He talked a great game, but if he was so sure my work would make
him rich later, as the boss it's his job to make the call and make an
investment by paying me reasonably from the start. If I miss out on 'big
riches' later on, no big whoop. Of course he never made any money because MLM
is a scam.

A year later I was 16 and working for his brothers company, a remailing
company that actually provided a valuable service and had a solid business
model. Guess what, they didn't try to get me to work for almost nothing! Like
any real business, they realized the value I would bring and paid me
accordingly. I designed their newsletter, wrote an application to track serial
numbers on their postage metering machines when the government started
requiring that (which was fun because they gave me 24 hours notice that they
needed it to comply with federal law, but I think it surprised them too). When
they wanted me to make a web-based application for their sales people to work
up price quotes for prospective clients I met with the owner and told him this
was above and beyond my part-time after-school job duties as 'anything with a
computer guy' and proposed doing it as a separate contract, he went for it and
I made what was (to teenaged me) a buttload of money on it.

Real businesses understand that salaries are not charity. They're not even
something reluctantly handed over in order to get work out of people. They're
investments. Of course it requires you to find the right people, and doesn't
eliminate any of the challenge or risk out of running a business, but no
employer worth a squirt of piss is going to expect their employees to take
those risks for the company. Protection from that kind of thing is why people
work for companies and aren't just self-employed!

~~~
gringofyx
At 15 I was writing business-plans, I attended a young-entrepeneur event held
by the BBC and was selected as a finalist (nothing came of it). I also worked
for my parents.

So, there wasn't much opportunity to learn the lesson that scumbags are out
there and how they might abuse you as an employee. Also, I wasn't very street
smart and a bit of an introvert.

It took time to learn lessons like this, it took time to learn how to be an
extrovert. I could explain all of these thing but sometimes it's just easier
to say "I was 20 and stupid".

By the way, I'm pretty sure we will all carry on learning throughout life, up
until each of us dies hopefully.

------
izacus
A great read and a good warning story for pretty much any 20-something hacker
lurking on this site trying to start their own career.

One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should
never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract. Even if
it's a good friend - those cases are usually worse since they also mostly mean
end of the friendship.

~~~
michaelochurch
_One of the most sad and most important lessons of business is that you should
never trust anyone with financial matters without a hard contract._

Yes. This is correct. People will do some crazy shit when there's a lot of
money on the line.

------
seivan
If there is one thing I have learned is to 1)Be careful with non engineers are
involved as management 2) Never ever ever go with anyone who is in a rush.

They always seem to be in a fucking rush, do this, do that, fly here, fly
there, contract later, sign off later and etc.

Fuck them.

~~~
zenith2037
True, engineers don't tend to be manipulative bastards, we just care for the
end completion and reward for it.

~~~
thetrumanshow
But, do keep in mind that this won't always be the case. Tools are making it
ever-easier for people who know practically nothing to break into the product
space without the filters that you'd normally get from someone going through
hard sciences in school.

Since there are so many new makers with engineer-like skills, it means you'll
have more sociopaths in sheep's clothing in the future.

Still, there are ways to interview for meritocratic behavior.

------
ojbyrne
Good story, with the moral that in business there's no such thing as friends,
but I have a minor quibble - there's no mention of "hex." I guess it's there
for the cool title and standing in for programming.

~~~
shin_lao
I think it's a play of word on the famous "Sex, Lies and Videotape" movie:

[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098724/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098724/)

~~~
ojbyrne
As I said, cool title. I just expected an actual tie-in to hex.

------
wmt
> The things we did included organic link-building, link-wheels, comment-
> spamming, forum-spamming, link-baiting

So was the moral of the story that if someone is willing to employ immoral
spammers, like you and Ian, he might be a con man?

~~~
gringofyx
All SEO is immoral.

Back then, it wasn't widely regarded as being immoral - I knew it wasn't
right, but there was a lot of pressure for results. Basically, if we couldn't
make an impact on Google, we'd have been fired.

~~~
anon1385
I agree it's immoral.

Sadly things haven't changed all that much, there are plenty of people who
still view this kind of stuff as normal 'industry best practice':

YCombinator funds companies in the spyware spam downloads 'industry'[1].

Path, a well funded startup whose CEO is well connected and has invested in YC
startups, was caught stealing users address books and declared it was
'industry best practice'[2]. Twitter [3] and Facebook have done similar
things.

AirBnB, another large well funded YC startup were caught spamming Craigslist
and nobody that mattered (investors, employees, industry leaders etc) seemed
to care. The founder also has previous convictions for spamming and again
nobody seemed to care [4]

SocialCam, another YC startup was spamming Facebook [5].

Spamming is endemic in the SaaS industry, there are hundreds of other recent
examples. Even if you are a serial spammer who has been caught multiple times
that won't stop you being well respected in the industry and getting masses of
funding. Spamming is rewarded by the community. They like to use euphemisms
like 'growth hack', but we all know what it really means: SPAM.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5059806)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5095974)

[3] [http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-
tw...](http://articles.latimes.com/2012/feb/14/business/la-fi-tn-twitter-
contacts-20120214)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5061140)

[5] [http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-
socialcam](http://www.pcmike.com/what-im-thinkin/beware-of-socialcam)

~~~
gringofyx
I can't draw an exact comparison between myself of some of those things. And I
agree, things haven't changed they've just evolved.

I have this big issue at the moment, that too many companies are focusing on
profits to satisfy investors. I suppose they have to get their ROI.

In most cases the guy at the top with biggest spending habits (whether that's
an investor or a manager) will be pressuring the rest of company to increase
profits at any expense.

------
joecorcoran
If I've put the details together correctly, I remember the outrage that
government translation contract created. Whether you made a lot of money out
of your time with the company or not, you're ultimately better off not toiling
for a badly-run enterprise that was built on lies.

I grew up close to where the company was based. Nice part of the world – sort
of :) – but full of slippery "self-made man" characters.

~~~
gringofyx
I have many good memories of the surrounding towns, countryside and people.
You're right, lots of "Arthur Daly" type characters.

------
seivan
I've been through this. The deceit people who can't build to those who can.
They lie and trick and rush things. That's always the common factor, how they
always are in a rush.

I'm sorry for what you had to go through, I've gone through similar crap. They
don't understand how a person who's vested into a company not just through
shares but through passion and vision can suddenly come to a halt when told
that they are "just paid a wage"

Fuck that.

------
chris_wot
I have a similar story. The gentleman I worked with (not FOR) promised me a
share in his company. During the time I did work, I started my own sole trader
business, quit my job at a _very_ well known firm who make virtualisation
software, and spent time helping him grow his business.

He managed to get a few leads, but he relied on me to pull him out of
problems. I recall the first time I helped him, it was only as a friend.
Basically a large Australian government department had been screwed by a
company who printed their paperwork. Their system couldn't handle umlauts...
Yet they had told that company they handled Unicode. They were telling them
that they handled a "subset of Unicode", which was sneaky because it was
actually ISO-8859.1 that they could handle.

Later I did some reporting work, which I now see that he entirely left in my
hands to sort out with the consultancy company. The state government
department didn't even entirely know what they wanted. It took me about 3
months to sort out what should have been a 2 week project. It was only when I
threatened to quit the reporting project that I was paid.

I still believed in the guy, so I helped him sort out an absolute disaster
project for him for free with a mining company. I didn't ask for any money, as
I was doing it as a favour. I managed to make him look awesome and turn it
around.

Somehow through his existing work for another company, he stole a contract for
an important Federal Government department - one that dealt with national
security - and I implemented an ITSM solution for them. I fixed up a variety
of things that I was never paid for (I fixed an upgrade that had gone terribly
wrong and was threatening the project - which I was never involvc I till the
last second).

Due to my success, I had learned some things about ITIL from my cousin, who is
a genius about systems. So I explained to this agencies head of department
what I thought about ITIL and where I thought it should go and the importance
of the Service Catlog to their organisation. Not only did they get what I was
saying, but they asked me in to implement their catalog! At the same time,
somehow this guy had managed to get some systems integration work. The catch
was the only communications channel, they could use was - wait for it - email!

Somehow I made it work.

I did a bunch of other work, and I started to help him win big contracts.

The final bit of work was with yet another very large, and highly political
Federal government department. At this point I had been paid for very little
and never offered any share of the company he founded.

It all came to a head one night when I stressed out as I was getting into
serious debt, hadn't seen my kids or wife for some time, and phoned him to
tell him I wasn't sure I could keep going.

His reaction was to cut me off all his IT systems, and then guilted me about
not being loyal or reasonable.

Eventually he told me, after I had completed a large project to success, that
his WIFE wouldn't let me be a part of his business. He then tried to tie me
into a bunch of contracts, which I declined to sign after he put high pressure
on me.

I did agree to finish off work for a company I was implementing a solution
for, mainly because I didn't want to leave him in the lurch, and also because
I didn't want to let my client down. I had gotten a new part time job so i
could do a computer science defree, which I warned him about so he would know
when my end date for wrap up would be so he could finish up that project phase
so he could implement testing, for which he would employ someone who finalize
the project.

I then billed him...and waited a few months (I figured he was busy). In fact,
I waited 6 months before I sent him an email... To which he told me that he
wasn't happy with the work, that there had been problems and he had had to
redo the work. When I asked for specifics, he refused to tell me. He did say
he'd work out how much he believed he wanted to pay me.

I never heard from him again.

I have now taken him to a debt collector. He has gone bankrupt and is no
longer a director of his company. Instead his father is. His father refuses to
pay me. In fact, he claimed he had no statement of work and that I should
provide evidence before he would consider payment. What he didn't realise was
that his son had caused problems for a former business partner, a very very
honourable guy who quickly worked out that the son was despicable, and he
provided evidence of the work I had done.

The father then offered me a fifth of the money owed as a "goodwill gesture ex
gratia" payment. The debt collector is less than impressed.

The gentleman doesn't know it, but I'm about to wind up his company.

In my opinion, the man has no scruples and no conscience. I feel like a fool
to have trusted him.

Such is my tale of woe... Quite cathartic to get it out there!

~~~
ishansharma
Reading the original post and now this, I am making up my mind about NEVER
doing anything as a favor.

I am kind of involved in a college project. It's not about money but after
working on their website for a month or so, these guys had trouble even giving
a link back to my portfolio.

Some people really don't have conscience. I hope you get the payments.

~~~
daat418
My experience - even with close friends and family - is that if the favour
involves money, -expect- to get fucked over.

~~~
lambda
I wouldn't say that you should expect to get fucked over.

You should treat the favor as a gift, and not expect a quid pro quo. You
shouldn't do more than you can afford as a gift for them; you shouldn't spend
years of your life, or a large fraction of your salary, or anything of the
sort. It's just a gift for a friend or family member.

That way, you aren't left hanging, expecting something from them, and having
that poison your relationship. Be very careful about letting some kind of debt
or obligation hang over the head of a relationship that you care about.

~~~
daat418
Exactly.

------
atlih
Good story, my opinion is that if you hadn't been personally invested in this
whole thing, chances are you would just have done a mediocre job like 99.5% of
office workers and the company would never taken off.

Basically you are a well experienced growth hacker now while the owner is
clueless. So in the end, you got more out of it than him.

~~~
gringofyx
That's what I'd like to tell myself, but he now has quite a high profile in
the UK startup industry. It's one thing to know how to grow a company from the
very beginning, but to run and sustain a company that has tens of millions in
revenue may be a more valuable lesson.

~~~
atlih
Well what you know benefits established firms as well, and is actually more
valuable to them on average than it is to blank paper startups that noone
knows for certain if there's a demand for. While growth hacking helps
launching startups off the ground, it also helps prevent established firms
from sinking.

~~~
gringofyx
I totally agree, it's one of those skills that's hard to prove, I'm not sure
I'd put it on my CV.

------
6d0debc071
It's always sad to see young people get messed up because they're socially
naive. Honestly, I think this sort of thing should be part of a set of basic
business/life skills taught in school.

------
mgaphysics
Somewhere in the book written by the founders of 37signals they allude to the
premise that we should all remember that the term "start-up" is
interchangeable with the term "business". As such, you have to protect your
interests as if you are running a business, and not get lost in the idea of a
start-up. Getting things in writing can be tricky prior to launch and proof of
persistency, but at the point where you are hiring additional staff and
opening satellite offices, the topic has to be addressed.

------
dylandrop
I feel bad for you dude, but considering you never signed any paperwork for
your stake in the company, and that you knew he was a very, very shady
character to begin with, you were just asking for trouble. I once started a
preliminary business idea with a friend, and we signed paperwork as soon as we
had worked on it for a month or so.

------
ZeroGravitas
So who was writing the translation software?

This appears to be the product the author was spamming to generate leads for,
and from comments in the story and elsewhere it seems like it wasn't very
good. But it seemed a bit weird it didn't feature more prominently in the
narrative. Was this the stolen "data"?

~~~
gringofyx
There was no translation software, only project management and sales software
and that was all written by me and my team. The free translation software was
written by another company.

The stolen data was mostly taxonomical lists and some setup data for a project
management system.

The actual translation was given to real people to do for absolute bottom
dollar prices

------
mathattack
I'm not sure if it was a "show" versus "tell", but the biggest insight came at
the start. Someone who steals from his last company to create a new one isn't
going to treat people well. They're appropriators (or looters) rather than
creators. They see value as a zero sum game and try to keep it all to
themselves. People rarely sell only half their soul, and one sign of an ethics
violation is usually a sign of many.

So while one moral of the story is "Get your equity in writing", another more
important one is "Don't do busy with shady people."

All that said, it sounds like the author got good experience and wisdom out of
it. Building a foreign technical subsidiary is great for the resume. Learning
the pitfalls of dealing with unethical people is great for the next one.

------
jjindev
The company started with stolen data and stolen clients. Salesmen wanted to
steal clients and data again. It was life on a pirate ship. I'm tempted to say
it had to end badly, but I suppose there are some companies which do rise
above bad beginnings ...

~~~
thetrumanshow
"Hey Matt, let's setup a company of our own and ditch this place - you can own
50%"

With regards to the salesmen and their business propositions, it doesn't sound
like stolen data. Sounds like he played the role of company-man and threw
people under the bus for the good of the company, believing that he would
benefit in the long-run.

One of the first things I learned from the old engineers at Lockheed was to
identify and actively avoid the company man. You interacted with the company
man at your peril. It was basically like this: in dealing with a company man,
anything you say can be used against you, but nothing you say can help you.

~~~
badman_ting
I agree about his actions. He was shocked that the company would ever screw
him the way he screwed others. He was supposed to be different!

Unethical behavior is a funny thing. He would have been better off in pretty
much every way had he taken one of those "bad" salespeople up on their offer
to start a new venture.

------
aestra
"John" has a Wikipedia page which mentions the government contract that was
awarded. The government was unhappy about work performed under the contract.

It also was trivial to find that page.

~~~
gringofyx
There were judges that wanted to drag him up in front of court. In cases where
the interpreter was of too poor quality the case might have been thrown out of
court. They made themselves infamous throughout the UK for all the wrong
reasons.

But then it got sold off and rebranded beyond recognition.

I had to attend court the other week and on my way in I was reading a
noticeboard, I had to do a double-take when I saw a familiar email address up
there on a memo regarding interpreters

------
grabeh
It's quite straightforward to identify the company and founder you're talking
about on the basis of the profiles you link to on your site.

Of course, there's nothing too controversial in the piece but it perhaps makes
it a little redundant to use a pseudonym for the founder? Just a thought
really (I also enjoyed reading the tale by the way).

~~~
gringofyx
Firstly, thanks for reading ;)

Secondly, I'm making a subtle point - when I started with the company he lied
about his name and called himself "John Snow". I only found out it was a lie
months later.

I also want to protect the anonymity of my friend Ian.

I also want to protect myself (legally) if he ever read it

~~~
grabeh
I absolutely understand anonymising however my point was that providing links
in your profile risks undermining the purpose behind this anonymisation.

Further from a legal perspective using a pseudonym to refer to a person
doesn't necessarily protect you if it would be clear to some readers who the
person is that you're referring to. Having links in the profile would increase
this risk.

~~~
gringofyx
Hmm, OK I'll remove them. But, I am still proud of the work I did during my
time there.

~~~
imc
Friendly FYI that your linkedin is linked on your site, and given the
dates/nature of the work it's easy to figure out the name of the company.

~~~
chris_wot
I worked it out after about 10 minutes. The guy won a Queens Award for service
and appeared on a popular TV show? Seems like a total pratt!

------
babesh
Have met and been on the receiving end of a few of these types myself.
Unfortunately, doing whatever it takes to get ahead and stepping on others to
do so seems to work. On the other hand, there are good people in the tech
industry as well.

------
gringofyx
Apologies about it being so long

~~~
jbrooksuk
It was a great read and a friendly reminder to all.

Out of interest, what do you do these days?

~~~
gringofyx
I'm on a very quiet marathon to build twelve startups in twelve months, I'm in
my third month and everything is on track so far. I will blog about it all
when I hit six months in. My day job is a Technical Architect for a PLC in the
UK. I also run between 5km and 10km everyday to train for an actual marathon
(running). Add to that being a husband and a father... and a blogger now ;) I
really wanted to tell that story, and for it not appear arrogant on my part.

~~~
kenshiro_o
Great post. Really enjoyed and empathized with you. Btw, 12 start-ups in 12
months? That's pretty impressive. However how about building one start-up per
month, then if one takes off focusing on the project that as the most
momentum? That may be a better winning formula, don't you think so? I'd also
like to know how you fit the running, parenting, etc. in your schedule! You
must be scarily efficient...

~~~
gringofyx
That's what I'm doing, one startup per month - over 12 months. I should have
ellaborated really but I don't want to share much at this stag. After six-
months I should have proved whether I can do it or not

------
junto
Is there any reason as to why you didn't share the company name?

~~~
gringofyx
If you read the comment by @grabeh you'll see that it's probably quite easy to
research. In my reply to @grabeh are the reasons why I didn't give more
details (such as the founders name).

I would have no problems if anyone else posted the real details here, but I
wouldn't comfirm or deny it - unless there's a legal expert on here who could
reassure me it's OK to post those details.

~~~
junto
After reading it again, it suggests he stole data to start a company:

    
    
       The founder (let's call him John) had already worked in the
       translation industry, he'd stolen a few clients, some data, 
       rented an office and hadn't really thought about the rest.
    

I personally couldn't find the company, but if @grabeh could then maybe you
should protect yourself from one of those nasty UK libel cases:

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-
scientist/2010/no...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/the-lay-
scientist/2010/nov/19/2)

The story was great by the way. Well written. Nice to see another .NET dev on
HN btw.

Also, beware that Google cache has a previous prevsion of this article stored:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:RMaGY0-hWRkJ:www.codingjohnson.com/a-founders-
mistruths+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk)

~~~
gringofyx
Thanks for reading (and the tips)

I think .Net gets a lot of (undeserved) bad press. Beleive it or not I started
out as a SmallTalk, Javascript & C++ developer but there wasn't a lot of love
for that skillset back in 2002.

------
michaelochurch
I think that a large number of people go into "startups" thinking they're some
kind of antidote to the politics and flat-out unethical behavior seen in "the
corporate world". That's not really true. These startups (i.e. companies
designed to become, or be bought by, corporate behemoths) are often like
junior gangsters-- that is, more violent, more unpredictable, because they're
trying to prove themselves.

There's a gigantic survivor bias in startups at the upper end: to build a
$200B company like Google or Facebook, you have to do a lot of things very
right (and more than you do wrong). This makes it seem like "startups" are
better than they are, because the ones with dogshit MBA culture crash and
burn. Superiority is not intrinsic to startups, and there are plenty of shady
players who still get exits and credibility.

I've seen far more unethical behavior in the startup world than in finance.
Large tech companies are somewhere in between. Why? It's not that finance
people are intrinsically better, but that even junior bankers know how to
fight for themselves. Junior tech workers, in general, haven't a clue, which
is why a lot of these dodgy startups will fire people without severance for
completely bogus reasons.

On the founder's statement to the effect of "I pay you a wage and you do the
work": the lesson is that loyalty has to be earned. Don't just give that away.

I feel like a lot of us, when we start our careers, are like that socially
inept guy who'll go out of his way to help some girl who isn't really
interested but is basically nice to him, and he overvalues the interaction
(and, in some cases, fabricates an emotional relationship in his mind). Just
because the boss is basically nice to you, and may pretend to want to be your
friend, doesn't mean you should trust him blindly. Con artists _are_ nice,
until they screw you over. Loyalty has to go both ways.

~~~
gringofyx
That's a really good analogy, made me laugh out loud about the inept guy
helping the girl. It was more or less just like that.

These days I have a more dubious attitude, I tend not to beleive something
someone says until I've confirmed it with my own eyes. I mean, I'll pay it
lip-service and make all the right noises, but then I'll go sneak off and
investigate for myself.

------
mnglkhn2
@gringofyx: it looks like you took a passive-aggressive approach, and
sabotaged the company from the inside once you returned to Bulgaria. You know
what I think, to some extent, you are the younger version of John, as ruthless
as him. This is why you accepted to work for him, since you felt the
attraction of the same. I would really love to see how your next ventures
unfold, especially from the human side of things. I am sure financially you'll
do well.

~~~
gringofyx
It's a bit of cynical remark, but I'll attempt to answer.

So when I started the job, I had this idea in my head of what the company was
going to be, and what my role should be. It is that idealistic vision that I
was attracted to - and when reality didn't fit the idealistic vision that's
when I became upset.

Did I sabotage the company from the inside? Possibly - if you could call it
that - for only a month or so. I didn't want my friends to see me like that,
that's not my nature. So I quit. It was his choice to then force me to stay
for three months - but you have to consider that I went looking for my own
replacement, I trained him, I trained thrity staff, I learnt the language, I
made friends, I improved the company, I was proud of what I had built.

I could not, in all good faith, put the things I care about at risk.

I must confess though, that initially I did want to learn about the magic and
courage involved in starting your own company. And I learnt very quickly that
John was not the best mentor.

As a final note, eight year have now passed, and during that time I have, in
my career, become well known for taking on other peoples problems, championing
their ideas. I think being treated unfairly makes a person more ethical and
empathic towards the struggles of others.

So my point is, you couldn't be further from the truth.

~~~
mnglkhn2
I have to admit to have been cynical in my comment. The point being that it
always take two to tango. You were in that professional relationship looking
for something, not necessarily money. He must have been offering something,
but definitely not money. Maybe you were looking for a father figure or a way
to get yourself bootstrapped professionally. I am glad to see that it didn't
knock you down. Cool.

