

Why I'm Furious with Silicon Valley - thinkcomp
http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/Why-Im-Furious-with-Silicon-Valley

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pedalpete
This seems very un-Valley-like from my understanding.

What would the VCs and Angels benefit from the new laws? if anything, I
suspect many would be against the new law as they have already invested in
Square and other similar ventures (there is a SimpleBank or something like
that).

Also, if this is a California law and Aaron (poster on Quora) is so dedicated
to his idea, why not move the company elsewhere? If so many people move to the
valley to pursue their ideas, this could be a strange example of the need to
move elsewhere to pursue his.

The whole 'furious with Silicon Valley' just doesn't make sense to me. Furious
with California State Legislature, sure. If he's angry at the Valley because
he didn't get an investment and the reason was these new laws, I don't know
that his anger is aimed at the right people.

Hopefully he moves the company somewhere that he can operate and shows
everybody who he feels has scorned him the mistake they made.

~~~
thinkcomp
I'm Aaron.

It's irrelevant where your company is headquartered. Without a license, you
cannot do business with any individual in California, period. Therefore, this
affects many companies outside of California, not just mine.

One would expect politicians to make sometimes less-than-ideal decisions. One
would not expect top-tier investors to ignore real innovation in favor of
useless fluff. Nonetheless, that's what is happening in the Valley and it has
been for years.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I sympathize with you as much as anyone can who's not in your exact situation.
The new law stinks, and unfortunately, a lot of finance-related startups
aren't affected by it because they've already come up with workarounds for
this kind of thing. (BankSimple, for example, just provides a software
interface; funds are managed through a regular banking institution.)

However, I'd like to second the notion of taking your ball and going
elsewhere, even if it means opening up some kind of satellite office. Why not
another country? Chile, for example, has been getting lots of press lately for
being startup friendly. They'd probably love to have your product down there.
Yes, it's a smaller, more limited market, but so what? You'd have the
opportunity to get in to an untapped market with a product that already works.
You could keep pumping the product into the U.S. press in the meantime with an
angle that editors will love to run because it'll sell copies faster than
hotcakes: U.S. innovation is moving to other countries because of stifling
laws. (Regardless of your opinion of that point of view, the fact is that it's
one that sells magazines and other print publications right now.)

In all seriousness, in your situation, it's what I'd do. In Go parlance, right
now you're trying to defend from a weak position. Give up that territory now,
before you're any more invested in it, and focus on building a strong position
elsewhere on the board, and then attacking from there.

And you could still continue U.S. operations on other products and projects.
You, personally, wouldn't need to relocate. With your track record, you'd be a
shoe-in for Startup Chile, which would mean you'd get access to a small amount
of capital ($40k IIRC) and all kinds of help during their next application
round.

As far as the Valley goes -- well, fuck 'em. The scene in the Valley is
entirely self-interested; if its revenues aren't directly affected by
something, it just doesn't care.

Getting pissed off at the situation, while certainly understandable, won't
help you to think more clearly about it. Consider all your other options, even
ones you would ordinarily dismiss.

