"Bringing in people's names in order to attack them is a breach of this site's civility rule"
I think there is an issue of personal integrity here, even legally.
When I worked for a large F50, our CEO's name had to be on every email we sent out from our German staff - though I'm not sure of the specific German regulation, 'his name is on it' because it's a matter of integrity to the organization.
The founders are generally 'Officers of the Company' - and this implies both a legal/fiduciary and moral obligation in America and most jurisdictions of relevance.
I don't believe that the 'limited personal liability' concept abnegates the responsibilities of the Officers of the Company in this specific regard.
I also don't believe this is a matter of arbitrary doxing if the Officers of the Company are making decisions which are considered foul play in terms of reasonable contractual obligations.
Unless there is an issue of national security or likewise, there's simply no excuse for ending service without reasonable notice.
This is not a political, or socially nuanced discussion such as those involving harassment etc. - this is a matter of commercial civility (and legality).
In American law: "In limited circumstances, such as the sale of the small business to a new owner, the business judgment rule does not apply, and it becomes the burden of CEOs and company directors to demonstrate that their actions were in the company's best interests." [1]
(FYI - the 'business judgement rule' protects Officers from liability.)
I guess I understand we don't want to be doxing folks here ... but I do think it's reasonable that individuals should be held publicly accountable for their commercial actions - for example, someone does an ICO and then - legally - walks away with the cash ... we should rightfully be wary of investing in their next ICO or company for that matter.
The inability for executives to be held accountable for actions of the company is a core problem in present day capitalism, in my opinion.
Loathe to be technical, but this is HN ... to the best of my 'definitely not a lawyer' knowledge, you are correct that Officers responsibility to shareholders (i.e. 'internal') is greater than it is to their contractual obligations (i.e. 'external') ... but, there definitely is still a legal obligation to contracted customers, of which there are thousands. Ergo - this could very well sit within boundaries for their personal obligations.
I know they're an YC company, so I don't want to ruffle anyone here, but I do think a class action lawsuit against Twitter is warranted, even if it has a shaky legal foundation.
I believe that Twitter's actions - and the response - will be duly noted among M&A camps and the last thing we want is this to become standard practice. This is just 'bad acting' and it will come back to bite everyone here in startup-land.
I risk my erstwhile happy HN account by getting into a fuss with pvg, but he indicated that we want to 'wait to find out what's happening' - I would argue that in light of Twitter's 'total and immediate blackout' the onus is upon them to provide forthright information, and that absent that, we can assume 'bad acting' given a total blackout without any information.
Maybe we can use this as a lesson and the powers-that-be can provide some leadership, and possibly push towards a 'best commercial practice' like '120 days minimum notice' or something like that as a standard.
This is exactly the community to do it in, as I frankly don't see where else anyone has any broad legitimate authority among early stage startups such as it exists here.
I think there is an issue of personal integrity here, even legally.
When I worked for a large F50, our CEO's name had to be on every email we sent out from our German staff - though I'm not sure of the specific German regulation, 'his name is on it' because it's a matter of integrity to the organization.
The founders are generally 'Officers of the Company' - and this implies both a legal/fiduciary and moral obligation in America and most jurisdictions of relevance.
I don't believe that the 'limited personal liability' concept abnegates the responsibilities of the Officers of the Company in this specific regard.
I also don't believe this is a matter of arbitrary doxing if the Officers of the Company are making decisions which are considered foul play in terms of reasonable contractual obligations.
Unless there is an issue of national security or likewise, there's simply no excuse for ending service without reasonable notice.
This is not a political, or socially nuanced discussion such as those involving harassment etc. - this is a matter of commercial civility (and legality).
In American law: "In limited circumstances, such as the sale of the small business to a new owner, the business judgment rule does not apply, and it becomes the burden of CEOs and company directors to demonstrate that their actions were in the company's best interests." [1]
(FYI - the 'business judgement rule' protects Officers from liability.)
I guess I understand we don't want to be doxing folks here ... but I do think it's reasonable that individuals should be held publicly accountable for their commercial actions - for example, someone does an ICO and then - legally - walks away with the cash ... we should rightfully be wary of investing in their next ICO or company for that matter.
The inability for executives to be held accountable for actions of the company is a core problem in present day capitalism, in my opinion.
[1] http://smallbusiness.chron.com/legal-relationship-between-sh...