Every once in a while there's someone who's smarter than everyone else and keeps talking. SBF from FTX famously was giving interviews to whoever would listen.
> The atypical chattiness for a criminal defendant is likely causing Bankman-Fried's attorneys to scratch their heads, or worse. Prosecutors can use any statements, tweets or other communications against him at his trial, which is scheduled for October.
> Prosecutors love when defendants shoot their mouths off," said Daniel R. Alonso, a former federal prosecutor who is now a white-collar criminal defense attorney. If Bankman-Fried's public comments before trial can be proven false during the trial, it may undermine his credibility with a jury, he said.
I have seen a couple founders post to HN like this during legal action. Its embarrassing, even if I enjoy reading the content.
Of course its possible that these posts are happening through consultation with a lawyer/PR or something but often it feels like someone using their “inside” voice in the outside, and reads like unforced errors.
A. Legally, it cannot possibly help you (whatever happened, happened). However, it can hurt you (inconsistent statements, etc). This is particularly true in colloquial environments like HN.
B. While it may be useful reputation/press wise, because anything you do wil be evidence, you should be having someone else do that.
C. If you are part of a publicly traded company, you can run into SEC violations quickly from what you say, how you say it, and where you say it. Even moreso if you are CEO/an officer/etc
I could go on forever here - for example, you can also run yourself into trouble quickly if the people you are talking to are people you know may be witnesses in the case, etc.
There is a near infinite number of reasons lawyers tell people to STFU when you get sued.
Of course, if your company/you as CEO get sued, it can obviously be incredibly frustrating and difficult to sit there and watch a one-sided story take hold - not the least of reasons because people often take complaints as evidence rather than assertions, and the response rarely gets as much press, etc.
I think the closest lots of HNers come is when they love their company and see a legal complaint pop up on HN that they felt is just insane but can't say anything about it. It's like that, but like 100x worse :P.
But saying nothing is the most useful thing you can do - get away from it. Take a walk, meditate, whatever.
Get the people who are experts in handling it involved (lawyers, comms folks, whatever), and let them do their job.
I'm going to do him the favor of not responding to anything else he writes in this thread for his own good.
The best case scenario here is that Rachel (or one of her associates more likely) takes every single sentence Matt has written here, or anywhere else, tonight, and cross-checks it against every other sentence or fact he's claimed before. Or that his company has claimed. or the foundation has claimed. or ....
Then at the deposition, they will then ask a lot of hard, uncomfortable questions about every single inconsistency, no matter how little. Because that is what they spend many hours preparing to do.
Does similar apply to some of the Automattic employees who have been talking everywhere?
Is there a point where it could switch from "a bunch of people running their mouths" to "a coordinated harassment campaign against WP Engine and its customers"?
Most lawyers in cases like this are not assholes (surprisingly), so they generally won't spend time/energy deposing people who can't produce useful evidence, even if they could.
As a result, you would generally stick to people who have relevant evidence, are capable of legally binding the company (often director or above) or speaking for it (various others), etc.
But - if you need to prove a coordinated campaign, and can't get evidence of it otherwise (emails, chats, etc), sometimes you just got to depose a lot of people.
Usually the path of least resistance is taken, however, and electronic evidence is often sufficient enough these days to not end up having to depose lots of employees.
Judges (magistrate and otherwise) also are pretty careful in ensuring you aren't being malicious (IE just trying to harass employees)
Lawyering is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Lots of companies fall into the trap of letting lawyers make business decisions instead of being advisors of legal risk/etc to the business.
Done properly, they are advisors 99% of the time.
Which means, to answer your question, there are plentyof situations where the outcome of the lawsuit is not as valuable to the business as the narrative/etc.
For example, there are people/companies whose brand is their most valuable asset. "family friendly" celebrities are a common example, i think.
For them, the narrative and control of it may be way more important than winning or losing.
Now, i would still say - even in that case, the person going off and talking in public without someone helping them know what to say (not necessarily a lawyer) is still often a really bad idea. They are often too close to it, etc, to really be objective about what will make the most sense, even if the goal is "control the narrative" rather than 'win the lawsuit" or whatever.
But in those cases, working with a crisis manager or whatever, if the most important thing is the perception, have at it.
At the same time, people involved tend to be in a bit of a bubble. It often feels more critical, urgent, and well known than it really often is.
So for example, here, i'm sure to lots of employees/Matt it feels like a thing everyone is talking about. But in reality, uh, its not. It isn't carried by any major news site, and even among the general open source or developer community, i would bet 99% of people have no idea about any of this.
Even within their customer base i would imagine it still isn't widespread knowledge (though it likely will be over say the next week).
So in a case like this, you have time to catch your breath, engage your best people, and think about your response.
Which you should take.
That isn't always the case mind you (it's like any incident response). But i think it's the case here.
Right, this all feels like (and I'm not trying to be rude with this, I'm speaking from experience) a mental break. Or he's got some sort of vendetta that he feels burning everything down is worth it over.
Some of his comments from the other day on reddit have already been used in this very lawsuit, you'd think he would know to shut the hell up at this point if it's #2.
I don't even know if it's a vendetta about WP specifically or just the result of his general disposition. About a year ago he had an embarrassing public meltdown after some random Tumblr users talked shit about him because they didn't like his moderation policies. Banning people, then publicly shaming them, then replying to their posts on other social media sites...
There’s a whole-ass archetype among founder-owners of successful companies who stick with them long-term, that looks like this. It’s not all of them, by any means, but it’s definitely one sort. In ordinary circumstances it manifests as a preference for maintaining control over making moves that might, by some measures, be better (improving business success, or limiting liability, say) and a string of quiet and maybe fishy-seeming but not exactly red-flag dust-ups; when a big enough obstacle (especially to that whole “control” thing) shows up and throwing their weight around can’t make it go away, though, things can get real dicey.
My take is this is 100% someone sticking to a naive worldview because they are smart and logical (and I don't doubt that they are). But the world doesn't work like that. And as much as I hate to admit it, these WPE people are playing the game and just baiting and provoking a response from him. They're like schoolyard bullies that poke and wave hands inches from your face, then cry foul to principal Government when you rightfully retaliate. As much as a smart and "fair" person would think this is a reasonable and logical response, the principal does not think so. They will look at the rules, say "a ha, you broke rule 3(a) and hit someone", and then send you to detention. No amount of if, buts, and logical "reasons" will matter at that point.
honestly, just read this and his initial post about the whole issue (content is "sacred" or whatever) and it's clear he's semi-deluded himself into thinking he has massive support and/or more important in the grand scheme of things than he actually is. burned so many bridges and still won't concede anything.
