Everyone has problems. Your solutions make you special.– Bootstrapping Postmark - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupfoundry.com/2011/03/25/everyone-has-problems-your-solutions-make-you-special-bootstrapping-postmark/

<comment><USER2> The Postmark team is absolutely awesome. Forrst has been a happy customer since very early on, and Chris and team have gone out of their way to be helpful wherever possible. It's a huge reason why we haven't even considered Amazon or anyone else.

<comment><USER3> I second this. We've been sending out daily e-mail reports with PDF attachments to our customers and their API is easy to setup, easy to use and even makes attachments simple. To me, they've picked one thing and they're owning it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've done quite a few interviews in my career, and Paul's top notch. Big thanks to him for his care for the industry, and producing a high quality blog in a sea of crap. :)

</comment><comment><USER5> I use Postmark at my app and it works really well! Support is good and you know you will be talking to real people that cares. I have no idea how Amazon support works, but I guess that Postmark can do it better.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ever heard of notice of receipt? Built into public mail clients since like ever.</comment>


India Bans Public Protests to Quell Rising Anger Against Citizenship Law - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-19/india-bans-public-protests-to-quell-rising-anger-against-new-law <comment><USER2> I'm honestly surprised how little this is discussed on HN.

The government even shut off internet access. Even the Hong Kong authorities didn't do that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Some creative ways Indians are protesting in [https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/india-has-strong- anti-...](https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/india-has-strong-anti-caa- poster-game-and-these-pictures-are-proof-114407)

</comment><comment><USER3> VC Tim Draper concern [https://mobile.twitter.com/TimDraper/status/1207674025616519...](https://mobile.twitter.com/TimDraper/status/1207674025616519173)

</comment><comment><USER3> Endorsing CAB will eventually trickle down to separate countries to Muslim/Sikh/Christian/Parsi/Buddhist/Jain/SC/ST communities due to [http://archive.vn/tUrIv](http://archive.vn/tUrIv)

<comment><USER4> I do not see how that follows. What damage does CAB do to the country that the British and 70 years of Congress/Samajwadi Party/Bahujan Samajwadi Party and other assorted liberals have not already done?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Fascism and secular scapegoating are disgusting ideologies. There's no excuse for banning protests against hate.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ahhhhh, the kitchen is on fire! Quick, smother it with this gasoline soaked mattress!

</comment><comment><USER7> The picture is hilarious. It just needs the Benny Hill theme.</comment>


Microsoft Aims to Train 25M Workers Free in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/microsoft-aims-to-train-25-million-workers-free-in-2020-11593529201 <comment><AUTHOR> THE 10 JOBS MICROSOFT IS OFFERING FREE "LEARNING PATHS" FOR: Customer service specialist, Sales representative, IT support/help desk technician, Digital marketing specialist, Project manager, Graphic designer, Financial analyst, Data analyst, IT administrator, Software developer</comment>


What is it like to have an understanding of very advanced mathematics? - <AUTHOR> http://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-have-an-understanding-of-very-advanced-mathematics?q=advanced+math

<comment><USER2> Two previous submissions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3387323>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3389794>

The duplicate submission detector here on HN evidently doesn't work well with the URLs generated by Quora, which is one more flaw in Quora.</comment>


The Impossible Star - <AUTHOR> http://astrobites.org/2014/09/12/the-impossible-star/ <comment><USER2>
        "These dips could have been caused by a planet orbiting the
        binary system, but in 2013, a different group proved that
        the third object must be a star. They did this by finding
        variations in the orbital period of the binary, variations
        caused by the changing light travel time as the binary
        orbits a third star."

Translated: the binary star system is co-orbiting a third object, whose pull on the binary is so strong that it must be star-sized rather than planet- sized. How do they measure this pull? It's a Doppler effect -- not the familiar one, a shift in the frequency of waves (like sound) -- but a shift in the _frequency of the binary star orbit_! This orbit is a clock with a constant 0.258 day period between ticks. When the binary is moving towards earth, these clock ticks are "catching up" [0] with the starlight moving towards earth -- they're compressed together, so the binary _looks_ like it's orbiting faster than it actually is! If you measure this Doppler shift, how it changes as the binary orbits the third star (first moving slightly faster towards earth, then away from it), you can infer the speed of its orbit around the third star -- and from that, the mass of the third star!

I was just reading about this recently: I was going to say (wrongly) this technique was used by in the 17th century to measure the speed of light, by measuring a Doppler shift of the orbital period of Jupiter's moon Io [1]. In fact Ole Rømer measured the _phase_ of Io's orbit, rather than the frequency. You can track Io's orbit phase very exactly by timing the moment it falls behind Jupiter's horizon (a regular eclipse). With Io's orbit as a clock located at Jupiter (the eclipse moment as the "tick"), you can measure differences in light travel time from Jupiter to Earth as they move apart. This is a phase measurement, not frequency; and it depends on the Jupiter- Earth distance, not their relative speed.

[0] Like this GIF: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect#mediaviewer/Fil...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_effect#mediaviewer/File:Dopplerfrequenz.gif)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rømer's_determination_of_the_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rømer's_determination_of_the_speed_of_light)

(§8.2 says my confusion is a common one, so there!)

<comment><USER2> (Disclaimer: this has _nothing to do_ with special relativity, despite dealing with the speed of light! Delays in observing an event, due to light travel time, are _not_ what relativity is. This is simpler stuff).

(Also, don't confuse this with doppler spectroscopy [2] -- measuring shifts in the frequency (color) of light, rather than the frequency of orbits. _This_ is the "Doppler" that's used to discover exoplanets!)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doppler_spectroscopy)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> When they say the orbital period is 0.258 days, they mean the stars are moving so quickly around each other that it only takes ~6 hours to complete a full orbit? (It may be a little more complicated than that because both stars are moving with respect to a system-wide center of mass.)

I found that a fascinating thought, so I looked up other binary stars and found there's one with a period of ~17 minutes. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_period#Binary_stars](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_period#Binary_stars)

<comment><USER2> "Catalysmic Variable Star" is a good name! :)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_Canum_Venaticorum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_Canum_Venaticorum)

Both of the stars stars are white dwarves, a mass of a sun squeezed into the size of a small planet. With a 17-minute orbit, they're incredibly close: one of them is ripping the atmosphere off of the other. Helium from the lighter dwarf is being pulled off and falling onto the more massive one -- pulled so strongly, it impacts the surface at several percent the speed of light. A helium layer builds up, at temperatures and pressures close to that of the interior of a hydrogen bomb. And at some point it does go off, like a hydrogen bomb -- a thermonuclear detonation the size of a planet, the entire surface igniting almost simultaneously. And this keeps repeating!

<comment><USER4> Couldn't resist; I had to check that "size of a planet" claim: 2.7 * 10^36 erg in tons TNT gives me (on Google) 6.45315488 × 10^19 tons TNT.

The area of Earth is around 5 × 10^8 km^2. So, 'planet size', that's about 10^11 tons TNT per square km, or 2,000 Tsar Bomba's per square km (Tsar Bobma was around 5-6 × 10^7 ton TNT equivalent).

Volume-wise, it would be about one Tsar Bomba per cubic kilometer of Earth.

So yes, I guess you could call that planet sized.

<comment><USER5> Well, when you work out the size of a few numbers regarding Tsar Bomba, I'd be more than happy to call those numbers indicative of planet sized. For instance.

      The TNT equivalent of the 50 Mt test could be represented by a cube of TNT 312 metres (1023 feet) on a side, approximately the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Which when you carry with your numbers, means that more than 9 (3^3) but much less than than 64 (4^3), (excuse the massive lack of accuracy but I'm doing a fermi estimate here, it seems appropriate) which are both massively less than 2000, which means that, the explosion you would get if you covered the earth with a 10Km 'crust' of TNT, would still not be bigger than this star when it goes off.

Id definitely call that _planet sized_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love their sense of humor:

> _These quadruple models yield reasonably good fits to the data, and are > physically possible, which is an improvement over the triple model!_

<comment><USER7> > The right panel shows the same basic model, but ignores Kepler's laws. This > produces a much better fit, but has the unfortunate drawback of breaking the > laws of physics.

Brilliant. Just noticed the author of the paper is from my alma mater, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fascinating. Presumably it wouldn't be possible for any planets to be orbiting in the vicinity of the 0.258 days orbital period binary. Or maybe, if far enough away?

However, imagine being a species on such a planet, and trying to work out astronomy. Motions of objects in the sky would be rather confusing. To put it mildly.

<comment><USER9> I wonder whether that's a comparable confusion to our cycles and epicycles when we still assumed that the earth was the centre of the solar system. Movements of objects through the sky wasn't exactly simple either, but there was an explanation that simplified things immensely. I guess figuring out that there is a binary star might just be such a discovery that simplifies explanations for them. Might take a while, but sooner or later someone should think of it, I guess.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Startup won't pay – what should I do? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, been on HN for a while but I'm using a throwaway account (obviously).  I recently did some consulting work for a company called SwagEasy.com and the founder Akhil Aryan refuses to pay.
It's not enough to be worth filing a lawsuit, but I'd hate to let them get away with ripping me off after all the sacrifices I've made for them. Putting in many 10+ hour days (!) and doing design, development, customer support, even sales (the former two being my specialties).
What should I do? <comment><USER2> Take them to court. Otherwise they will do it again.</comment>


Ask HN: Co-founder leaving a startup for free without equity? - <AUTHOR> Hi there,
We are 2 co-founders - I own 40% and (let's call him) Jim owns 60%. Jim invested $12.000 (funded the development), I've invested about $1.000. Most of the work except of programming (we hired freelancers to develop a sharing economy app) was done by me - I've done the initial sketches & app flow based on Jim's idea, created us a website, got us a payment gateway, communicated with accountants, handled app submissions, marketing & social media, whole design & branding stuff, handled Android programmer, etc. Jim mainly handled the iOS programmer and a lawyer. The overall hours spent (and work done) are maybe in 85:15 ratio.
The app was released a few months ago, got some first users and great feedback from the startup community, but some huge bugs occurred so it's currently in the stage of fixing them (it'd be done in like 2 weeks)
Now I've decided to leave after almost 2 years. I've proposed to Jim that my share from the potential sale of the startup will be reduced to 30% immediately and will be gradually reduced ever further over a period of 4 years to 5%.
Jim said that it's absolutely unacceptable for me to retain ANY equity after I leave. He wants to pay me my share of the incorporation fee that I've paid and that's it. He argues that once I leave the company I'm not entitled to any money he gets from the potential acquisition.
Do you think this is fair? I've tried to explain to Jim that what I want is a norm in the startup world and that the equity that I would retain is a compensation for the work that I've done to this point, but without any success.
If we don't agree on my exit (taking my share of the incorporation fee) I think he will create a new company and operate the app like that - the thing is that he paid for the app development with his own money (not the corporate ones) so he argues that he owns the app.
I'd be really glad to hear your opinions & I will share them with Jim too
Thanks :) <comment><USER4> Before you start, create a plan to stop

My #1 rule for ventures, especially with friends, is to create an "ejection seat plan" at the beginning. The ejection seat is designed to save friendships and prevent teams from holding on to ideas too long.

Write down a list of milestones that must be achieved in 1, 2, 3, and then every 3 months up to 48 months. Agree that either partner can choose to eject without blame whenever the milestones aren't met. Agree how much equity will be retained in the event of ejection. Follow the plan.

I credit five inspirations for the ejection seat plan. (1) Tim Ferris' "dreamline" concept from 4HWW, (2) news stories about "golden parachutes", (3) my friends who learned this with me the hard way because we didn't do it, (4) the Stripe Atlas guide to founders equity, (5) my friend who helped me validate that it can work.

<comment><USER5> I think the ejection plan is also really good in romantic relationships.

If we are committing to each other, what does it look like if one of us decides we don't want commitment?

Do we agree to do couples therapy for a X number of months where X is an agreed upon ratio of time spent together?

<comment><USER6> That's, kind of, a prenuptial agreement. However, these are frequently contested in court. The ejection plan probably will have the same issue. A contract is only as good as your ability to defend it in the court. And if it costs more to defend it than to pay the person off...

<comment><USER5> I meant more for the emotional side of things.

I really do think an ability to agree to a process you'd go through if you are wanting to leave could be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've written similar things before here, but what I would say is there's a very small chance that you will lose some huge fortune by just walking away with nothing.

On the other hand, the emotional distress, distraction, and destruction of personal relationship(s) that can happen from arguing over this sort of thing is tremendous.

Your cofounder probably feels emotions surrounding you leaving. You probably do too.

That emotional context colors the conversation, and you both currently value everything you contributed so far in that context.

I would strongly urge you to consider prioritizing an amicable parting of ways over other considerations.

When you look back years later you probably will realize you were negotiating over such minor things, while risking the truly important stuff, like your personal energy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I've hoped to resolve this peacefully and I plan to continue along that way. I'm pretty short on money right now, so getting couple thousands for a buyout or as a share of the sale of the company/source code is pretty significant for me and missing on it would be a real blow for all that work.

<comment><USER8> I cashed out of my private company a few years back. Advice that me & my partner got was that I should leave with no equity, as any ownership stake I retained would feel like there was still a business relationship where I had a say. The deal my partner worked out for a sale was a fixed price of X. 25% of the sale price of immediately, and the rest was worked out as a deal where I'd be paid out over 18 months. It worked great. Lawyers and tax people helped with the legalese and taxes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, the thing with scheduling payments over some sounds good to me, I'll try to propose it to Jim

<comment><USER9> I don't know what kind of money you're thinking of (you mentioned a couple thousand dollars), if the sum is relatively small - eg $3,000 or less - <USER2> would not schedule payments over time. Try to get the partner to pay you out immediately and walk. If it's a larger sum, it _might_ make sense to schedule it into payments (particularly if it means a consequentially larger payout). The ideal is to have no outstanding agreements whatsoever between you and Jim. Next week or next month when the app fails (or xyz happens), he might decide he doesn't think you're owed the rest of the payout because of said failure ('but the thing no longer exists, I am not paying for something that failed!'). It's a lot of bullshit for $3,000 in regards to a contract and payments over time. If he decides to stop paying for any reason, now you have to consider suing him, which is a lot to go through for $1,000 or $2,000 or whatever is remaining (more likely the balance is lost at that point).

Right now Jim probably thinks there is serious value in the app. The odds are overwhelming that isn't true. While he believes that, your likelihood of getting paid are dramatically higher, so again go for the 100% immediate payout if you can.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, good point. I'll try to get as much upfront as possible

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> First, Read "venture deals" by Brad Feld

Then understand that what both of you should have done is 4 years vesting with 12-month cliff.

With that come to an agreement that since you did two years, you should keep only half of your equity (20%), freeing up the remaining 20% so Jim can acquire better talent.

 _Long version_ (Excerpt from a post I wrote):

"These are the legal concepts you can use to protect founders from each other, the company from the founders and founders from a hostile board.

Let's run an Example assuming I'll be your co-founder and the company will grant me 48,000 shares for each of the legal concepts (The number 48,000 was chosen to simply math but does not reflect typical number of shares per founder):

1\. Cliff

• If founder stays less than 12 months, no equity.

Example: In this case I receive 0 of my 48,000 shares.

• After 12 months 25% of stock is instantly vested.

Example: In this case I receive 12,000 shares of my 48,000 shares.

2.Vesting

• After the cliff, founder vests 1/36th of granted stock each month.

Example: In this case I receive 1,000 shares a month, on top of my previously earned 12,000 shares after the cliff for a total of 48,000 shares over a total of four years. If I leave in month 24 my total number of shares is 24,000.

3\. Acceleration Triggers

• Single trigger: all stock is vested upon change of control or sale of the company.

Example: Let's say Google buys our company in my month 24 of vesting, in order to prevent google from firing me right after the acquisition in order to stop my remaining 24,000 shares from vesting, all my shares accelerate are granted immediately, thus accelerating the vesting

• Double trigger: some stock is vested upon termination without just cause.

Example: This provides a dis-incentive from investors, the board, or a co- founder from firing me if I am not done vesting, in order to free up equity to hire a lot more other people, if I am fired and it's not due to committing a crime like fraud then I will earn some stock, normally 12 months, without having to remain at the company for 12 months."

 _Even longer version_ : [https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/startup-survival- guide-recrui...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/startup-survival-guide- recruiting-co-founder-andres-barreto/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for both the examples & a book tip. It was really a mistake that we didn't think about this earlier & I'll definitely have this put in place the next time I'm involved in a startup or other type of arrangement that could result in the problem I have now

<comment><USER11> This is the bog standard arrangement, please ask Jim if he will abide by that standard. If he doesn't agree, he's really acting in bad faith. There's not much you can do with a bad faith co-founder and no pre-existing arrangement.

<comment><USER12> Not to mention that Jim could be in a precarious position. OP retains all of their shares that were initially agreed upon so offering to retroactively do vesting helps Jim a bit.

However, since OPs cofounder paid out of pocket for the app, I'm not sure what the StartupInc actually owns. But that also means the possibility of piercing the corporate veil - which is also bad.

I'm not a lawyer, but I did have a startup where my cofounder gutted the company after trying to stage a coup - then created a very similar company. He'd signed all the NDAs, non-competes (these ARE enforceable, even in CA, with co-founders/execs) etc.

I never went after him.

Instead, I waited to see: would he be able to steal my idea, connections, and clients to be successful on his own. If so, I planned on getting my share through legal proceedings.

Short version, a few years later one of his 3 co-founders quit, a year later the other did, and now the company is gone.

I'll avoid giving OP advice based on my one story, but another poster made a good point: there is very little to be gained.

Legally, though, I believe that - short of creating a new corporate entity or watering down the stock (both possible, though they come with risks RE getting sued by OP) - OP will retain all of their shares.

Of course, being not a lawyer, there are likely major gaps in my understanding and OP should at least have a chat with one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Stupid question, but if you straight-up own 40% with none of the usual options/vesting stuff, then can't you just tell Jim to go stuff it until he comes up with an offer to buy that 40% back that sounds reasonable to you?

You came together a couple years ago with a plan to make something and own it 60/40\. Now you have something and you own 40% of that thing. I'm not sure how your continued employment matters at this point. It's like saying someone needs to be employed at Apple to own Apple stock. They don't.

Maybe I'm missing something.

<comment><USER14> > Maybe I'm missing something.

That the entity was never capitalized and the 60% founder paid for the app development out of his own pocket and plans to just reincorporate another entity and sell the app that way

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks chasing, the problem may be what rolltiide mentioned - I'm not 100% sure whether Jim just can't establish a new company without me

<comment><USER13> In your position I would assume I have rights of ownership and act like it until I was told definitively otherwise. He put in money, but you put in time and expertise, which is also a high-value thing. He can start a new company but he can't sell something he doesn't own. And if he does, keep a tab on the new company. If they do well, you may be able to go after them for being built on software you partially own. Don't just flip over and shrug.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, after some comments from others I've realized that Jim doesn't really own all of the code/app. I guess that would be what I would do if he just starts a new company - wait and see what happens and if they get somewhere, I can go after them as you've mentioned. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The mistake you made was two years ago, by not putting in vesting in your initial contract. But since we can't fix the past...

You appear to own 40% of the company, which means you own 40% of the IP. Whether Jim paid for the development or not isn't super relevant, the relevant part is the contracts between Jim and freelancers. Who is assigned their IP? Who is listing as hiring them on the contract, the company or Jim?

Jim can try to play games by re-incorporating and moving the IP around, but you'd still be entitled to 40% of it. But you might have to sue to get it.

The good news is that you can just walk away now, and if it gets really big later, you can file your lawsuit if it might actually be worth something (see Facebook). In the meantime no need to stress about it.

Of course I'm not a lawyer etc etc, but from my experience this is how it would go down.

BTW if you wanted a fair deal, you'd get 20% of the stock now and forever. That's what you would have vested in with a standard four year vesting agreement.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! To address one of your points:

> Who is listing as hiring them on the contract, the company or Jim?

Jim is the one. People around here suggested though that it doesn't really matter because for example I've contributed something to the app as well (sketches, app flow, design, etc.) and the app was clearly made for the purposes of the company

<comment><USER16> I'd tell him that he has two options:

\- Find an amicable agreement to buy you out in the short term

or

\- You'll back up all of your documentation around incorporation and wait until the app gets larger, hire a lawyer and go after 40% of the significantly higher value. You have a solid claim, and this would be much more painful for him. He has a fiduciary duty to protect the value of your share, if he takes action to attempt to devalue your portion he could be personally liable to make you whole for more than 40%. Especially egregious action could rise to the level of criminality.

Either way, probably worth consulting with a lawyer now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great take, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I recommend reducing the equity stake to something like 5% now, with an expiration of 5 years.

This should be small enough that it won't effect him or the bottom line for the business, but provide value to you in the long term if the business does sell or raise significant money.

If you want to retain a working relationship with Jim, and keep some interest in this company moving forward, it sounds like the responsibility is on you, based on the way Jim countered.

Otherwise, it might just be that you walk away and take a hit, but you gain a valuable lesson for next time. Always have a written operating agreement to define how you will both act in situations like this. Codify the ins and outs from the beginning, get it on paper and take the emotion out of the process should you need to separate later.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's right, lesson learned :)

I would agree with such an equity stake & expiration, that sounds reasonable

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "I own 40%"

If you own part of the company you don't just give that up without there being express wording in the charter (or whatever contract/paperwork you used to create the company). The problem you have is that right now, you own 40% of nothing so you're going to pay the lawyer you talk to (rather than have them work on contingency).

I should also note that this seems like a weird time to leave a startup ... did you really think you could cash out in just two years? Perhaps you haven't been "invested" in some time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there's no way I'm hiring a lawyer for this ($).

When we were starting the thing I was 19, kind of naive and inexperienced. Now that I'm 20 I've experienced a couple of other things along the road and it made me realize that I'm probably wasting my time here. Also, problems that seemed unlikely in the start arose so I believe this is the best decision right now

<comment><USER4> I like to look at similar losses from this perspective: To learn what I did, would I pay about the same amount for a college course?

In the scope of your life, $1000 probably isn't that much and it's about the same as a college course. You've learned a lot. Those lessons are valuable. This hasn't been a failure.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's true, I've definitely learned a lot, I guess during my time with the company I was able to cover a lot of curriculum on various topics :)

It would just feel bad to me to walk away for free from something I was working on that can be tomorrow sold for couple (tens of)thousands (the value doesn't really matter in this case) for free

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The fact is you've only just launched, you've not proved the market for the app actually exists yet, there are still technical problems to overcome, _and_ the hard part of running a startup, eg getting customers and scaling up, hasn't actually started yet (feedback means very little; it's all about actual sales for real money).

You could just walk away and keep the shares, but as you're a minority shareholder your stake will be diluted to approximately nothing fairly soon.

You're in a really bad position here. If Jim wants to be a %^&% about this then you're going to get screwed.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how it would work in this case in the US, but we're from Europe - my 40% will stay 40% forever. I want to part our ways on a good terms though and don't want to leave the startup in a situation like this. On the other hand, the work I've done is pretty significant and I wouldn't like to see myself empty-handed if the company is sold in the near future

<comment><USER19> _my 40% will stay 40% forever_

I don't think it will.

Jim can issue new shares so long as the majority of shareholders agree (which is Jim agreeing with himself) and just not give you any. Consequently the percentage of the available stock you own is diluted, and you end up with less and less of the company. This is how it works in the UK (where I am).

 _Normally_ share dilution happens when new investors come on board and put some money in which increases the value of the company so the value of the shares doesn't really change. If there are 100 shares in the company and the company is worth £1000 each share is worth £10. If you own 40% that's 40 shares worth £400. If 100 new shares are issued and sold to an investor for another £1000 then the company is worth £2000 and there are now 200 shares still worth £10 each. Your percentage has dropped to 20% but the value of your investment is still worth £400 (ignoring the value of dividends, voting rights, etc). The same mechanism can be used to screw people though if more shares are issues without a commensurate increase in value.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, that's right, but in our country, there are no shares in our type of company, so the ownership is derived from the initial investment (this is most of the times fictional, in our case it's 60:40 as mentioned before), so even if Jim owns the majority stake, he can't do anything about mine

<comment><USER19> Ah. Cool. That's quite fortunate then. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I would have been in a much worse situation if we had the company structure you've mentioned :)

<comment><USER20> If it's all as you say then since Jim is saying he wants everything and you should get nothing despite the fact hat you legally own 40% of the company without condition, I'd now be a hard ass, assert I own 40% of the company, and that I intend to defend that ownership. Put Jim on the defense. By saying you owe nothing he just told you he intends to steal two years of your full time work, which I'd estimate has a street value of at least $250,000. Someone who just told me they plan to steal a quarter million dollars of something I own is my enemy and a serious threat that requires professional legal assistance to defend against. Your ownership might be worth nothing that you can ever get back, but the labor and expertise you contributed still has a value that you yourself invested in the company and morally validates your ownership of 40% in addition to the already established legal fact.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, thanks a lot. We are friends and I've told him that I'm flexible & willing to find a reasonable solution that would be fair to both of us, but the fact that he doesn't want to talk about it at all really puts me in the position you've described. The thing I'm not sure about though is the ownership of the app - if he said to me that he'll simply form another company, I guess I'll wait if they make something of it and then I'll come back asking for a fair share

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I think you need to be realistic about the valuation of the company, and take it from there. I may have spent 10,000 hours perfecting my basket weaving technique and business, but if I can only sell my business for $1, that's what it's worth.

You may feel the value is yet to be realized, but then you should probably stick with the company. Jim's planning to do that, I assume because he thinks his future efforts in addition to what's already been done will make it valuable.

One other thing I'll throw out there. In general, maintaining a complex cap table for an early-stage company is very bad. Jim will have a devil of a time getting investment or funding when he has a 40% share holder who is no longer involved. The optics are bad and will spoil the deal. Given that, I'd consider being willing to part ways for future cash, perhaps cash payable upon closing the first $X in deals or something. Basically converting your equity to debt.

</comment><comment><USER22> In my opinion, retaining equity, this early in the process, does seem unfair. By far most of the value of the company is yet to be created and if you choose to not be a part of that, it's hard to see why you would have a stake in it at all.

Leaving you 'empty handed', or only paying you the share of the incorporation fee also sounds unreasonable - you did invest time and effort and that largely remains unvalued in that case.

In the past I have dealt with similar situations by agreeing on the amount of hours and effort spend, and attach a market value to that. The leaving party then is paid that amount (either in whole, or stretched out over a period) and no equity is retained.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, thanks a lot. The thing is that if I were to put a price on my work for on $10/hour, my compensation could reach $10.000, maybe even more and the co- founder would never pay me anything close to that. I actually don't see him paying me even $1000.

The thing is that I think it's pretty possible that he will sell the startup in the coming months - the startup itself may not be worth much right now, but since our programmers took far less than they should have, the source code has some value.

<comment><USER20> > if I were to put a price on my work for on $10/hour

That's an absurd valuation and what he is willing to pay is irrelevant. Your time for this level and value of investment as a cofounder is worth more like $250/hr. Plus the fact you've been going without salary or compensation for 2 years gives this a risk multiplier. People routinely pay business consultants, legal experts, and other such professional help $300-$500 an hour outright. When the expert accepts equity in lieu of pay, the expected payout to account for risk is much higher. That's why angel investors might spend $10,000 on something and invest 100 hours, and end up with a $100 million return. So their time was worth $1 million per hour.

<comment><USER23> When you found a startup the value of your work is the value of what you create. Pinning some prevailing market value for high priced consultants or FAANG engineers in a sellers market is also absurd.

At this point it's hard to argue for any cash value, but he definitely earned some equity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It sounds like the country you are in has very strong protections for your equity, and very likely if you do nothing then you would continue to own 40%.

You have already offered a generous offer to the cofounder to reduce your equity stake over time and without knowing their side of the story, that seems like a great deal to take. You did put in two years of work, at a reduced, or $0 salary, and as a result there should be some equity that you retain.

You could simply just ignore everything and move on, and if the company sells get your 40%. You have already made an offer that he could have accepted, but chose not to for whatever reason.

So why stress more about it?

Agreements should be set in place beforehand as others have mentioned, specifically around vesting schedules and also control structures and so forth, but this is a good learning lesson for both of you.

So if you make a generous offer and instead of accepting it that person comes back and says you should have 0%, why are you continuing to put that person's needs first?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, the type of company we have isn't suited for startups or companies with a similar structure, so there's nothing he can do about the equity without my agreement.

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> As long as you have it legally recognized, there's absolutely no reason why you should let go of your share.

If your co-founder can't understand this, then maybe it wasn't meant to be in the first place.

<comment><USER26> I think the same. I would never walk away with nothing. Your co-founder has to find a way to convince you, whatever that is (buying your shares at a reasonable price, or giving you some other reason that makes you happy).

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> You own 40% of the company right now and Jim owns 60% ( assuming all common stock ). If you sold the company right now, that should be the ratio to use to divvy up the proceeds due to the common shareholders.

Assuming no vesting / clawback agreement was in place:

Simple option: have Jim buy your shares at fair value, which may be very close to 0.00. If Jim is unwilling / unable to pay with cash, have the company write you a note for the shares. In both cases, Jim ends up with 100% equity, which is what you say he wants, while you are compensated for value created to date.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, Jim buying me out would be a preferable option now

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> 1) Talk to a lawyer. Details are going to vary wide depending on where you are and the documentation that exists.

2) Your work has value, quite possibly more value than the capital put in by Jim.

3) If you own 40%, Jim has to buy your 40%. You position as a shareholder is not related to your position as an employee. Ownership doesn't disappear. I don't quite understand how/why you would reduce to 5% from 40% (without dilution events).

4) Don't sign anything until you talk to a lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. We're not from the "better" European countries, so I'm not sure whether my work would have that much value. Maybe it would, but Jim would NEVER pay that kind of money. In that case I would most likely end up with some equity and nice bill from a lawyer, which isn't something I can afford right now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> A similar situation is happening to me currently and it's quite killing, I thought I'd share it with you. We are 4 partners, we have created a startup a year ago. We work in electronic payment systems, I have done our whole infrastructure including the payment gateway integration and PCI certifications, etc and my best friend and college had done the Android part. We are in a very critical situation now as he's leaving to pursue a masters degree (studying abroad). It has been since then the worst time of my life. I have never talked to him about it and I frankly so mad at him that I just want him to leave.

I own 20% of the shares, it's quite unfair but I really couldn't care less. All i wanted is to make our startup work.

It might be irrelevant but I just thought I'd write it here

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for sharing your experience - that sounds pretty bad, I hope you work it out somehow. I think the vesting schedules should be talked about more especially among starting entrepreneurs so they can prevent situations like ours.

If you are comfortable sharing it - what is the reason the guy leaving the company doesn't want to negotiate something with you? Does he want to retain his full equity?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Many comments here say this already but from the way you describe it, most of the work by far is ahead of you. Most startups put vesting schedules in place for this very reason, and two years in you'd typically end up with half of your equity. Even IF that were the case here, Jim _should_ be pretty bummed to let someone walk away with 20% of his company at this early of a stage. If I were him, I'd fight anything more than say 3-5%, or maybe paying out the fair market value of your work.

I'm not a lawyer, but if there's an invention assignment agreement in place the IP would be owned by the company, not Jim, despite his $ in, and thus it would be hard (not impossible) to dissolve and re-form.

Fail fast and move on to something new. Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - both 3-5% or paying me the market value for my work sounds good to me.

The contract to develop an app is between Jim and programmers, so I'm not really sure how this would play out.

Right, I'm happy that I'm moving on now. If nothing else, I will have a very valuable experience

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Stop working immediately on anything relating to the company.

If you walk away right now, you own 40% of the company. There are some business-world dirty tricks Jim can do to cut you out without paying, but they can take some time to pull off, and some are grounds for a civil lawsuit (in the US).

That 85:15 ratio in your favor should have accumulated some sweat equity. The initial cash infusion works out to 7.7% you, 92.3% Jim. In order for that to work out to 40% you, 60% Jim now, the company valuation with minimum-viable product should now be $22333.33, and the value of the work you added via labor should be $7933.33, and the value Jim added by labor should be $1400.

If that seems reasonable, so too should the 40/60 split.

The value produced by the programmer-contractors doesn't count toward equity. They converted cash into company assets as a consequence of the business structure you set up. The only reasonable ways for Jim to ethically increase ownership share after you leave is by putting in more sweat equity, or by infusing more cash directly. But legally, the ownership share was established with the expectation that Jim put in more cash, and you put in more work, and anything happening after would require renegotiating the agreement.

With respect to Jim contracting the developers directly, that would not matter in the US (with a decent lawyer). Clearly, he was doing that as an owner/officer of the company, so the work product belongs to the company. In business shorthand, he loaned the cash to the company he owns, and then immediately paid it out as majority owner to a contractor. The work product goes on the books as belonging to the company, along with a zero-interest debt to Jim. Or perhaps the initial capitalization was in the form of IOUs from Jim to the company, and in paying the contractors, he simultaneously redeems those IOUs. We can't say for certain without seeing the incorporation documents.

You are actually being _too_ reasonable. Demand an independent valuation of the company. Take 40% of that as cash buyout. If the company valuation grows over time, take 40% of that, whenever Jim feels like buying you out. Jim is trying to lowball the current value of the company, in order to screw you out of the value you put in after the initial investment.

Remember that whatever deal Jim may propose to you, you could use the same valuation strategy to buy him out. If you could be bought out by paying your share of the incorporation fee, would it be fair if you paid him his share to buy him out?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot, great tips :) That's very reasonable, I'd gladly agree to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Depending on your country, him paying out of pocket for business expenses does not necessarily mean he privately owns the product of those expenses. I would guess that in most countries, if he made it clear that this was for the company, and let you work on that code, i.e. "donated" the product of the expenses, then he is simply owed the amount by the company. He borrowed money to his company, in short. A court would easily see through that argument.

Now, that is but a tiny legal detail -- I think the other comments on interpersonal relationships are much more important. He can screw you if he really wants to, and so can you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, thanks a lot! I'm not sure how our country's law would look at this argument, I think it will be unclear and depend on the judge's decision, but it's definitely something that could bring Jim to senses - after all, he's got more to lose than I do. Thanks again!

<comment><USER4> Keep in mind that while 40% equity means you get 40% of dividends, it also means you're on the hook for 40% of losses (or of the minimum annual tax bill if your company has no profit).

So retaining your equity may not be free.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good point. It's definitely something I'll consider. I guess in case I retain some equity, it would be sort of an agreement that I'll receive XY % in case the company is sold, so technically I wouldn't have a stake in the company & be responsible for the tax stuff

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> mickeyM: Please read and learn from the story how Paul Allen departed from Microsoft. From Wikipedia [1]: "In 1983, Gates tried to buy Allen out at $5 per share but Allen refused and left the company with his shares intact." So you can leave and retain your shares. If Jim continues developing existing app under a new company, he effectively steals the code you co-own... Remember that you also invested your work into this app (sketches & app flow)...

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Microsoft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Allen#Microsoft)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I didn't know such thing happened to Microsoft too :) Always it's only Gates who gets the spotlight.

Yeah, toxik also pointed to the fact I co-own the code (app), although from a different perspective. Thanks a lot!

</comment></comment><comment> pickle-wizard From my personal experience.

I was a co-founder in a startup. It was split 50/50\. I did all the development work and my partner did the business development work.

I had to drop out due to health reasons. I retained 1%, which I felt was fair. The main thing is they needed to bring in new people to replace me and needed equity to offer them. We did formalize it, and I have the legal documentation showing my shares in the company.

They have gotten investment so I'm sure my share is diluted quite a bit by now.

That was about 5 years ago that I left. At this point I'm ok if I don't get anything out of it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for sharing your experience. From what others have suggested here, I guess it was your generosity that you've only retained 1% & got no cash. I understand that there have to be equity left for others, I just wanted to protect myself in case Jim sold the company a month after I left (without him doing any extra work that would "devalue" my contribution) when I suggested the initial 30% stake that would then go down sharply

<comment> pickle-wizard In my case I felt the 1% was fair. We had brought on a couple of people to help and we had offered them 1%. So I ended up getting what they got. I should have mentioned that my post, but its been so long I forgot about that. I might should have fought for more, but I was having some pretty severe health problems I needed to focus on.

I think it is important to honestly look at it. Not with what if, but how likely something is to happen. How likely is it that it can be sold as is in a month? How likely is it is that it is going to be profitable? How likely is it that more development work needs to be done? My gut tells that the answer to the first two questions is pretty low, as if there was a really good chance of making a profit or selling, you wouldn't be wanting to leave. Instead you'd be looking forward to the incoming money.

Do you have any sort of a written agreement, or was it a handshake deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand. I hope your health issues are resolved now.

The funny thing is that the only way it would make sense for Jim to sell the company in a month is when I leave. Otherwise it doesn't in such time frame.

Yeah, we have a company together that operates the app, but as I've mentioned before it's unclear whether Jim couldn't simply establish a new company and operate the app under it (since the app development itself was paid for by Jim + has a contract about it stating that he's the one requesting the development)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Your 40% share isn't going anywhere unless there is something of the kind specified somewhere in your contract/articles of incorporation/bylaws, even if you walk away now and never look back.

Your offer is generous, but I can see why Jim would rather own the entire company. He would have to buy you out though, and I can see how just the cost of your incorporation fee is hardly enticing.

If he starts running the app by himself with a different company though, I think that's a case for lawyers. A fairly clear cut one too.

</comment><comment><USER35> Did you have a vesting agreement? Sounds like not. Always prepare the divorce papers before you get married (when you are founding a company). It's awkward and hard, but that's the best time to do it, because if you agree you're all done and if you can't agree, you shouldn't be running a business together.

I think you should absolutely be paid for your time and effort, preferably in equity. Given the structure of your corporation (and how the app was paid for), you may have few options.

Contact a lawyer.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Yes, not having the vesting agreement is a mistake. A lawyer is currently too expensive for me, so I'll try to get it done myself. Even if they found some way to get me out without my consent/go around me, the fact that I've done most work about the app apart from programming means that Jim & whoever he hires would have a hard time understand & navigating it wihout my help & advice

<comment><USER35> I think that maybe a trusted advisor that you both know might help. You don't want to tear down the company and neither does Jim. How can you both get what you want?

What do you want? I thought it was equity when I first read this, but some of your comments read like you'd be ok with some money. I would think carefully about this before moving any further.

Someone made the point that the equity isn't likely to be worth much. I agree, but for me I'd be digging my heels in because of fairness. At the same time, maybe that doesn't matter as much to you right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, after some comments and thinking I think the walk away money would be more reasonable to go for than the equity. Thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you guys have no paper agreement regarding equity, then you can forget about it. If you do have one then I think your proposition is good. Again that depends on the type of the deal.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we both own the company (Jim 60% and I 40%) that operates the app, so there's no way Jim can get me out of the company.

The question remains whether he can simply take the app & create a new company since technically he paid for the app and the contract with programmers is only between Jim and programmers

<comment><USER37> Yes, he could do that now quite easily since right now it sounds like the app isn't worth much under generally accepted valuation methodologies

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, so that may be something they can use against me. Although since I've done the most work, I know all the ins and outs and not having me available for occasional consulting would be pretty bad for them

<comment><USER37> TBH, if the app doesn't currently have any traction, it's current value is essentially nil. If that's the case, knowing the ins and outs doesn't provide much value, especially if they have to rework the app as it would generally be cheaper to just start from scratch.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. They won't rework the app until they make some money off it first, so for the time being they would pretty much leave it as is. Since the freelance programmers (unknowingly) took very little money, the real value of the source code could potentially be a few tens of thousands. Even if it was just the $11.000, there is a value just in the source code

<comment><USER34> There's only value to the source if someone wants to buy it, regardless of how much money was put in to make it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It sounds like you should get a lawyer and stop talking about this online, as anything you say here can be used against you.

</comment><comment><USER39> This is a very interesting question, no less from a 19^W20 year old. Honestly, most Ask HN are dull.

Normally, (90%ile) investors get paid back and founders do not (founders own common stock). In this case, Jim owns 92.3% of the preferred stock. Additionally, he paid for a developer out of pocket, not with corporate funds.

Without insulting you, trust me, whatever your idea was it's not going to unicorn status. You are going to fall into the 90%ile. You must already know that -- you're leaving of your own accord.

I would suggest that you propose reducing your equity stake immediately to 3.85%, based on your preferred stock ownership minus 50% to reflect Jim's personal payment for iOS work. Hours spent != effort and effort != stake. If that were true, founders would make kagillions and investors would make pennies. Get over the idea that your efforts justify reward ... it's a lottery not a skills test.

Given Jim's so-far absolutist position, I would further explain how you can make his life hell by making him and the company look bad on social media, directly to investors, etc. (Pls ignore the fact whether you would or not -- you are negotiating here.)

3.85% is perfectly reasonable on both sides so this should be a good offer.

<comment><USER40> > I would further explain how you can make his life hell by making him and the > company look bad on social media, directly to investors, etc.

For U.S. law this could be considered extortion, slander, or at best bad faith.

Also consider that op wants a job in the future, maybe even to talk to investors in the future.

<comment><USER39> It's extortion to use such leverage to reduce your stake from 40% to 3.85%? Worst extortionist ever!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Our firm has policy that equity is not to be held by non employees. I've seen this in certain investment partnerships. When someone leaves, we have a formula to buy them out, usually some multiple of EBIDA. We can discuss the timing is there is cashflows issues but overall I've seen that work.

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. I guess that's Jim's main problem - that a non-employee would own equity. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I think this is one the best resources for founders:

[https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-allocate-ownership- fa...](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-allocate-ownership-fairly-when- forming-a-new-software-startup-2011-4)

</comment><comment><USER43> What keeps Jim from creating a new corporation, have that new entity tender an offer to buy the assets of the "current startup" for $100? Could Jim, owning the majority of equity accept the offer and pay our OP his $40?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, Jim can only sell his equity (60%) - in other words, he has no right to sell my equity without my agreement

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> See Seth Godin "Shotgun Clause" (#6)

[https://seths.blog/2006/11/dont_make_a_bad/](https://seths.blog/2006/11/dont_make_a_bad/)

<comment><AUTHOR> :) Thanks, sounds good!

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is silly. If you own the equity you don't have to give him any of it, unless there was an agreement beforehand

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, there was no such agreement

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> This will be controversial as it balances heroic efforts of founders vs the less risk-taking yet sizeable community who are 99.99% necessary to follow them. Overall theme is, what you did as a founder is great and you should be rewarded, but even 10% is pretty unfair and suffocating dead weight to the people who likely need to come after. You want ownership in something that succeeds.

1\. This is why 4 year vests are critical. For co-founders, IMO, 4 year really should be 6 year. So 40% should really be 10-20%.

2\. Focus on good/bad cases. Frankly, the value of OP's contrib is high wrt current company, and low wrt the necessary work to be done and effort/risk compensation for the people to do it:

a. Failure -- who cares. This is the 95% case.

b. Small exit -- so let's say they get releaseable (tech), enough micro-pivots to solve early product/market fit (product), get early traction (marketing), some sales, some hiring & management, and given current state, more investment by co-founder. WOW that's a lot of time/$/work still to be done, say another 2 years and maybe now it's Jim and a few contractors or ever 5-20 people, to get to a small M&A. Those folks will be taking low pay, hard hours, & a ton of risk, and they can't all get 10%. If a $5-10M exit through that many other people and investors, how much is OP really responsible for, $1M? $500K? IMO most of the hard work is still to be done: initial app launch is pre-product- market fit and pre-traction. This is the 4% case.

c. Big exit -- First they need to do above product/market fit iterations, could be a couple years. Then they need to build the actual business. So they bring in investment and build an operational & growing business. Let's say 1-3 rounds @ 20% dilution each. Takes another 5-9 years over ^^^: figure out sales/marketing, turn that crank, hiring, a pivot mid-way through, etc.. And exit at 50-200 employees for say $100M. So much more work to be done. A _lot_ of people's work to pay out on: if everyone got 1%, wouldn't be enough. Arguably your 2yrs is worth than a senior infrastructure engineer spending nights and weekends for 2yrs replacing your code so it could scale to 10M people, but is it worth 10X more? 100X more? Riding the labor of others to the tune of $1-2M is just 1-2%, so starting with 5% now is still great.

3\. Future investors and acquirers may look at the cap table and see OP's dead weight on it. It's very solvable.

"5%? That'd be equity for 10-50 employees, who is this person? Let's agree to a smaller acquisition with small/zero payout, and invest in that new company."

Or "5%? As an acquirer, we want to pay the people we're trying to sign on to our team, not some dude on a beach who wrote some stupid app that isn't even what the company does today, let's shift proceeds to sign-on bonuses." So weirdly, in your favor not to be big dead weight. Even 10% is dead weight.

4\. For remaining founder, so much heavy lift & investment & risk is still to go -- esp if a 5-9 year journey from here -- that 20-30% is demoralizing. Let's say they want to hire another CTO and give them say 20-40% (VESTING!!!). So your remaining cofounder has to do a huge years long lift for... 20%?

</comment><comment><USER13> You've said your age, but out of curiosity: How old is Jim?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'm currently 20 and Jim is over 30. That is one of the reasons I've decided to leave - I don't want this to sound cocky or something - but it was apparent that I'm more capable than Jim, or to put it other way Jim doesn't really have an idea what he's doing. I was able to discourage him from some crazy things he wanted to do along the way, but after some time I realized that it's leading nowhere.

I guess the turning point was when we were talking to a journalist and he asked us what are our KPIs (key performance indicators). Jim had no idea what that is, so he just told him some nonsense - I had to step in to make it clear. I just don't want to imagine the embarassment if we were sitting with investors instead

<comment><USER47> > it was apparent that I'm more capable than Jim, or to put it other way Jim > doesn't really have an idea what he's doing

In other words, you're leaving because you believe the value of your shares are approximately $0.

Why are you spending your valuable time, energy, and creativity fighting to retain your 40% of $0, rather than moving on to doing something more useful?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I reduced my equity from 55% to 12% when i left. it felt fair.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would feel fair to me too :)

<comment><USER49> I'm confused, how much is 12% worth when acquired?

If we aren't talking about $3x,xxx or more USD, then the acquisition isn't really very financially significant.

As such I would tell the cofounder that litigiation is a waste of time for both parties and that he really should just give you 12% or etc before you are forced to ruin a relationship and pursue legal action, which would be a net loss for everyone except the lawyers.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, thank you

<comment><USER49> Good luck!!! Sad that he is refusing to meet you in the middle. Stick to your rights.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, thanks! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> what's the actual vesting schedule??

<comment><AUTHOR> There's none, that's the thing (lesson learned).

It's just that Jim owns 60% and I own 40%, that's it

<comment><USER50> > It's just that Jim owns 60% and I own 40%, that's it

well that seems pretty cut and dry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's ridiculous to expect anyone to stay forever, but you should both agree as to what is a good period of time to be vested. Probably you should have agreed on that in advance, but now you have to give and take and agree to compromise on something that works for both of you. Also, this guideline would be good to help others to be vested in the future. You have to consider what works in the industry.

</comment><comment> the-dude Would you please read the guidelines and make this a 'Ask HN' ?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sorry, thanks for reminding me - <USER3>

<comment> the-dude Thnx. No need to apologize. I am not a moderater.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Obviously you need to see the best lawyer you can find immediately. You should not be asking people on the internet to resolve this for you.

<comment><USER52> Strongly disagree. At this point the app has made almost no money and legal fees will quickly eclipse the rest of the money that you've spent on the app.

Speaking of lawyers, I'm not sure who did your incorporation work but it's honestly pretty disappointing to see that they didn't even suggest a vesting schedule. This is startups 101 stuff; any competent lawyer would have told you this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, hiring a lawyer for me isn't realistic right now and as you've mentioned I could lose more money than make with such action.

I guess another lesson for me other than having a vesting schedule is having a responsible lawyer.

<comment><USER20> You side with those against you meaning your main problems are internal and psychological.

Your situation where your contract gives you 40% ownership of the business without a vesting schedule is massively preferable from your standpoint legally and vastly superior than one where you have restrictions on equity. You are in as they say, in the cat-bird seat.

Why do you continue to side against yourself and with those who seek to harm you? I don't need an answer nor can I answer that for you. It's something you need to resolve for yourself.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Why 2024 Will Be Like 1984: Amazon And The Kindle - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2223214/

<comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work for Amazon, though I am not related to the Kindle team in any way.

This is nothing new - DRM already allows banning of digital material long before the Kindle came about. Back when iTunes was stilled DRMed Apple could easily have de-authorized all instances of a particular song and done the exact same thing. Having the file is a trivial detail - it's no good if you cannot access the decrypted material.

Personally I have faith. We have, in a few short years, progressed from the draconian DRM of iTunes to the non-DRM stores that both Apple and Amazon run today. We have also progressed from restrictive DRM measures on video games to the decidedly anti-DRM stance of major game publishers today.

We have proven that DRM can be defeated, so I wouldn't scream bloody murder just yet.

<comment><USER3> I think DRM for literature, news, or other reading material has far more serious implications than that for music, video, etc. The former is a tool to fight against opaque institutions, the latter is just entertainment.

<comment><USER4> While I see the point you are trying to make I disagree. You can't possibly think that music and video as mediums have not played their part in fighting for or against certain causes.

<comment><USER5> Do you think a right wing S African Billionaire is likely to buy the rights to the Specials' 'Free Nelson Mandela' so they can delete it from everyones iPod.

<comment><USER3> Did you have a particular right-wing SA billionaire in mind?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Alias ls="ls -1 -c -t | less" - <AUTHOR> The idea is:
turn yourself into a human LRU cache for filenames. Whenever you enter a directory and ls, you see a sorted, fullscreen, scrollable list of the files you used in that dir recently, which are probably the ones you want to see again!
Breakdown:
"-c -t" sort by time last changed "-1" to ease reading "| less" so that if (output nLines) > (screen height), the first lines (best sorted results) get shown <comment><USER2> Perhaps in a similar vein, I use `alias new='ls -ltr | tail'` Lets me quickly see what files in a directory were just added. Useful for ~/downloads/, tarballs that didn't create their own directory, and whatnot.

<comment><USER3> I traditionally use 'ls -lart' because I like the LART reference.</comment></comment>


A company making $100 million a year disintegrated when Google took away their business model. - <AUTHOR> http://www.canadait.com/cfm/index.cfm?It=106&Id=26146&Se=0 <comment><USER2> Article in short:

      Geosign was doing "search arbitrage", which meant buying
      keywords from Google and filling their landing pages with
      ads from other providers (e.g. Yahoo).

      Google didn't like that. The end.

<comment><USER3> Man, can I hire you so I can surf about 90% less everyday?

<comment><USER4> Can anyone explain why the comment in this subthread by keating is marked as "[dead]"? What does that mean?

<comment><USER5> "dead" means "killed by a yc editor." somebody with some authority around here thought the comment was extremely inappropriate, trolling, spam, etc

<comment><USER4> Hmm, so why doesn't it just get deleted?

<comment><USER6> So people can't cry "censorship"

<comment><USER7> But it's still censorship?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm glad they got crushed, this title should read "Domain squatter nets $100 million a year scamming, until Google closed the loophole". Nationalistic pride aside, there is nothing about this company worth keeping around. It sucks for the employees who didn't know the big picture, but certainly not for the CEO or the VC, they knew they were playing with fire.

<comment><USER9> The company's business model had nothing to do with domain squatting. It is enough to have a single domain to do huge amounts arbitrage. Or should I say "it was enough". :)

By the way, there still is a number of smaller companies doing Google->Yahoo arbitrage with Yahoo's quiet approval.

<comment><USER10> It would be interesting to see what happened to that if Google bought Yahoo.

<comment><USER9> They could start arbitraging into second tier networks, like FindWhat or LookSmart. But it's unlikely that this will actually work in practice. The bids in those networks are too low.

Another way of doing it (and that's how some arbitragers are structuring it even now) is to have two or more separate companies, with different billing addresses and access respective Google accounts using different IPs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Value was : "search arbitrage" In essence, taking a profit out of google's adwords/adsense program while google kept fine tuning its pricing algorithm.

The term may sound fancy, but this business model has been questionable from the get go. I've read a few studies, and this type of practice artificially inflated prices on certain keywords, the process would start by these companies buying a few ads on the main google page(via adwords), if a user clicked on the them, they were sent to a landing page with more ads of the type(via adsense), in the hope's they would make up the difference clicking on more ads....that's were the 'arbitrage' came in, Google didn't have the pricing model right: to the tune of $100 million a year, its certainly isn't illegal, these companies just figured out what keywords were being paid more on the content side and cost them less to advertise themselves.

As an added note, this type of practice or 'search arbitrage' tends to beget more shady practices, since the revenue margin is so tight ( and its been getting tighter ) practices domain tasting and domain kiting, I wrote a more thorough piece on this whole subject: [http://www.webforefront.com/archives/2008/01/advertising_con...](http://www.webforefront.com/archives/2008/01/advertising_con.html) ( Toward the end is a news link on how Google is cracking down on this type of 'search arbitrage' which more than often equals: domain tasting )

</comment><comment><USER12> "And much of it revolves not around its plans for a content powerhouse, but the story of how the Guelph startup found a loophole in Google's vaunted advertising model, enabling it to make boatloads of cash - until Google decided enough was enough."

[...]

"What's more, he envisioned a network of thousands of websites all automated by software linking keywords to pages filled with ads, returning millions in cash in the process.

By 2005 that was exactly what was happening. Nye crafted a maze of Internet sites that included tens of thousands of Web pages and bought up even more keywords from Google. By connecting the keywords and the websites, Geosign was indeed generating more than $100 million in annual revenue and was extremely profitable."

Well, no sympathy there.

I liked this quote though:

"There's a tendency in the press to make everyone either a dog or a god. The truth is most people are somewhere in between. Tim is no different. He has shortcomings, but he's also a highly creative guy."

<comment><USER13> Yeah, exactly. The tone of the article is a little off. Fundamentally, these guys were advertisement parasites. They added almost no value to the internet, offered no meaningful products, and the world is frankly better off without them.

And yet I get the idea that we're supposed to be sorry for them because they're just a poor canadian company unfairly crushed by the american giant.

I especially like the use of the euphemism "search arbitrage" to describe their business model. :)

<comment><USER14> So you can say hand on heart, if you worked out a way to 'game' a couple of systems, in order to make money with little or no effort, you wouldn't do it? Just a little bit?

You could say the same about "direct to advertiser PPC" - people who use adwords to bid on keywords, then drive the traffic straight to other affiliate programs, and skim off the profit. Yes, on the one hand they are parasites, but on the other, they are doing keyword research, generating more sales for the merchants, etc. They are value adding.

Granted though, search arbitrage is not in the same boat, and doesn't really benefit anyone.

<comment><USER13> That's not what I said, though. The fact that I might be tempted to break a rule doesn't mean I'm morally obliged to shed tears for those who break it and get burned. The folks who were most hurt here were the investors, who clearly bought into the scam not realizing the risks involved. So if any tears are shed it should be for them.

But what really irked me about the article was the pseudo-nationalist tone. "Who cares if they were parasites? Those were _canadian_ parasites that Google killed!"

<comment><USER15> The article clearly states that the investors _did_ understand the risk. The folks who were most hurt were the newly-hired employees who had just quit their previous job to join Geosign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As they should. The company did not add any value.

<comment><USER4> So the big lesson here is that you can make $100 million a year (for at least a few years) without adding any value.

<comment><USER17> So where do I sign up?

Seriously, I was concerned about it until I read the word "loophole" used. The only impressive thing the company did was bend/break the rules for so long and on such a grand scale without getting caught.

So when will they turn off the funds to the domain name squatters?

<comment><USER9> Not any time soon. Domain traffic converts well for many advertisers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So wait - a scuzzy company got found out and shut down? Hard to be upset about that.

</comment><comment><USER19> Good tale, however poorly written. Over half of the article told the story of the company. The story should have mentioned more about why it failed and it's rescue measures (the last third) instead of trying to draw the reader in emotionally to a business article.

<comment><USER20> Exactly... stop telling me little stories. I don't read an article like that for its literary value. Get to the point!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's been a while since I've read an entire article all the way through. Good read.

Interested me because this happened about an hour from where I live.

</comment><comment><USER3> Next up for the ax: gray hat SEO, where you suck in an RSS feed of stuff you didn't write and puke it into a Wordpress blog full of ads on a regular basis.

These types of sites kill Google's quality and I don't expect them to live long.

<comment><USER22> They're called "Splogs", and have been dealt with by Google already.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splogs>

welcome to 2006

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The other more lucrative part of this is:

1\. bid on high traffic, low cost keywords. 2\. Use landing pages with content geared towards attracting High paying adverts 3\. profit!

For example, you bid on "free stuff", pay 5c a click. Then send people to a page about class action lawsuits or something, where adsense is showing them some adverts for lawyers, with a $5 per click...

Similarly though, you'll get penalized for this now, as having a non-relevant landing page, and your bids will go up.

I'm glad they got shut down. Sitting in the middle doing nothing in a loophole isn't a valid business model for long.

</comment><comment><USER23> Reminds me of SEOs who bitch whenever Google changes the ranking algorithm. Try a non-parasitic business model for a change.

</comment><comment><USER24> Google-based revenues can stop with the tweak of a Google TOS.

This company's "business model" was even worse than Netscape's once Microsoft Internet Explorer forced Netscape to make their browser free to general public starting in January '98

Netscape revenues (browser only)

1995: $44.3M

1996: $181.2M

1997: $105.5M

1998: N/A

[<http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f1900/1999/4.htm>]

<comment><USER25> Not quite analogous, as Jim Clark always planned to make the bulk of Netscape's revenue off their server products. The exact quote was something like, I'm selling printing presses but first I need to teach people to read.

<comment><USER26> And then comes along Apache webserver!

<comment><USER25> Heh :-)

Back then Netscape Enterprise Server did a bunch of stuff that Apache didn't (threads, API, certs, etc). Most people were using forking and CGI scripts, but we were saving a ton of money on colo that easily paid for the license by using NSAPI instead of Perl. Even now, over a decade later, I maintain that NES 2.01 was possibly the best web server ever written. If I could use it today, I would.

What really killed Netscape was that the only thing less reliable than NES 3 was the watchdog process they included with it to restart it when it crashed! That was around the time that Apache was catching up, and the rest is history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Search arbitrage based on geographic areas is pretty neat actually ...

Let's say you buy the keyword "mortgage" which is low value/high volume because it's broad and doesn't imply intent. You then geo-target your traffic to just people in California, and send that traffic to a page with "california mortgage" ads. Which of course are much higher value as they are more targeted and represent a smaller niche. Profit.

It's really quite brilliant. All done using Google's own tools.

</comment><comment><USER27> Lots of comments about being a parasite, adding no value, and that he deserved it... but I don't see it that way. Sure, it was "obvious" that it would eventually get shut down, but he built a $100 million/year business out of it... and knew that it was going to be short lived. I respect his plans to flip it into a legitimate business. If Google had not shut it down for about 6 months more, Geosign might have become a major player.

</comment><comment><USER28> I cant understand wtf the point of the article is. They make it seem as if the company was in some way picked on by the mighty google. Point being, they were committing FRAUD, don't let words like 'Arbitrage' confuse you. Its plain and simple fraud, you try to get around the system with dishonesty, you get shutdown. The real scary part of this whole article though was that VC FIRMS invested in it!!! WTF?

<comment><USER22> Where is the fraud? They bought legitimate keywords and sent the traffic to sites with more ads.

It's pretty much the business models of tens of thousands of web properties, just boiled down (no content) and refined (automated on a mass-scale) into something that makes them millions.

<comment><USER28> Hey man, if people are doing it, it does make it right. My definition of fraud is gaming the system as they did, and using it in a way that was not meant to be used to get $$. It happens in all industries and it can drive a company into the ground(close up shop)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> The most stupid thing for a company to do is to get in the way of a giant, or for a consultancy to have a single customer.

Wasn't this predictable?

How many startups are out there that "do X like Y company, except our pricing model is better"? With such a subtle difference, really, shame on those who are taken by surprise when the giant pounces.

<comment><USER30> So... you haven't read the article.

<comment><USER31> I think he is just ranting in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This vaguely reminded me of the movie "Boiler Room".

If it sounds too good to be true...

<comment><USER33> And the book "Wolf of WallStreet", autobiography of the guy that founded that "Boiler Room"</comment></comment>


Are Prestigious Educations Killing Venture Capital? - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/wordpress/?p=2711

<comment><USER2> This article claims that venture capital is lacking in innovation, but the article (a) sites no evidence to back the claim (b) does not provide support that any perceived lack in innovation might be the result of the recent financial crises (which would be a better-supported conclusion).

The idea that people from these selective schools are too conformist to innovate disregards the fact that most innovations are incremental. Furthermore, if one is taking a risk by innovating in one area of a business, it's better risk management to be more risk averse in other areas of your business. That will allow a greater chance that the business will survive in the longer terms and that you'll be able to test out new innovations and really contribute something.

So, I would guess any skill in conforming would certainly be an asset in innovation, and that this would at least counter-balance any negative effects.

</comment><comment><USER3> Actual numbers: a third of VCs surveyed attended one of five schools: Harvard, Stanford, UPenn, Duke or MIT. So presumably, two thirds didn't. This doesn't really sound like a huge degree of homogeneity, especially given that your average VC has more than one degree.

<comment><USER4> What fraction of college grads have even one degree from any of those places?

<comment><USER5> Very roughly, 1%.

<comment><USER6> The 1% is better than "very rough" :) Assuming 1/3 of Americans go to college, and a life expectancy of 75 years, there should be a little more than 1 million college grads per year, and those schools together should graduate roughly 7-10000 a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I find that the vast experiences and backgrouns of the people going to top schools counteract this point. That's why it's great to work with people from different cultures and backgrounds - everyone brings something new to the table.

</comment><comment><USER8> I read the American Scholar Article [http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite- deresiewicz.htm...](http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite- deresiewicz.html) . Its well written from a man who taught English at Yale for the last 10 years. Worth a read independent of this VC issue.

This issue of lack of innovation or exclusivity in the VC and start-up founders community comes up often. The general thesis of these jabs is that somehow the world is "missing out" by relying on Ivy Leagues too much. My instinct says this is true. However, I don't think it matters. Innovators from non-Ivy Leagues will always find their way. VCs will one day loosen up and chase the deals from these sources or they won't and someone else will reap the rewards.

If the point is: The rich get richer and people with access get more...well, ok sure ;)

fyi, I'm not from an Ivy League background and I do just fine as an IT entrepreneur. I do not have easy access to capital, partially due to my non- Ivy League background, but only a very small part. I don't lose sleep over this. I rely on building good products and a customer base in order to attract investment and preferably revenue. I've come to prefer this approach. Every time I've had access to VC money early, its been a disaster.

</comment><comment><USER9> Lots of the entrepreneurs we know are from these schools, and that's evidence to prove against the article's theory. I think it really depends on the personality and background of the person. People who stand out in the top schools are really ridiculously smart and good.

</comment><comment><USER10> I wouldn't expect much in the way of innovation from a run-of-the-mill Harvard undergrad, or MBA, for the reasons the article gives. The problem is that for every genuinely brilliant Ivy undergrad, there are 9 who got in by gaming the system... and in MBA programs, that ratio jumps even higher. On the other hand, I'd imagine that MIT and Stanford CS PhDs are quite capable of innovating. Perhaps the lesson to come out of this is that VC firms should hire more computer scientists and fewer MBAs.

<comment><USER11> In terms of ratios, it seems like there's no better predictor of future business success than dropping out of Harvard. ;-)

<comment><USER12> That's not bad - smart/wealthy/connected enough to get in, smart enough to pursue something good, gutsy enough to leave a safe bet.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do we need Visa/Mastercard in today's world? - <AUTHOR>

Visa/Mastercard are just networks that facilitate communication between the acquirer and issuer. More like the manager in the movie Office Space. So why do we still them, I mean Visa/Mastercard? Its 2014 and every server is connected to everything else and what can Visa still provide? Do they actually provide value or is it a giant marketing success now? <comment><USER2> If fraud wasn't a thing we wouldn't. But since it is a massive PITA, having a middle-man who can help detect and combat it is useful.

Fraud costs everyone (merchants and customers alike), so every time a fraudulent transaction is blocked everyone except the fraudsters "wins."

<comment><AUTHOR> The banks build and maintain the infrastructure to fight fraud and not Visa/MC. Its a massive PITA for the banks and so I get a call from the bank when there is a suspicious transaction not Visa.

<comment><USER2> Banks may have their own infrastructure but they can receive fraud alerts from upstream, and transactions can be blocked before they even hit the bank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is sort of like walking into a building with several billion computers wired together with ethernet cables, token rings, and fiber, and asking "Why do we need all this cabling anymore? Let's just skip the middleman and replace it all with wireless."

VISA and MC make it their business to make sure they are an absolute essential part of the transaction, if not in principle, in practice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly. I cannot be the first person to ask that question. Hence trying to understand what the reasons behind it are. What exactly makes Visa and MC so essential. What do they offer that someone with big pockets (or a consortium) cannot upend?

<comment> j-shoe Visa and MC (as well as AMEX, JCB and Discover) provide the issuing of cards and recording of all the cards for use. I would consider them a form of governing body similar to ICANN of internet (maybe bad example as not everyone likes ICANN)

<comment><USER4> Not everyone likes Visa or MC either and I'd be willing to bet they're are much better known and thus much more hated.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't Google limit results to second page? - <AUTHOR> I was wondering, since nobody never (need to) go to the third pages (most cases neither the second page), why Google just don't limit the results to the first two pages? <comment><USER2> Because it is not true that it is never necessary to go to the third (or later) page? (Especially since the first two are often full of sites just replicating content from higher-ranking pages, be it different mailing list articles, "Q&A" sites that copy content from stack overflow, ...)</comment>


C++0x - the next ISO C++ standard - <AUTHOR> http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/C++0xFAQ.html

<comment><USER2> > Rely on the old mantra: If you think of _it_ as a separate idea or object, > represent it directly in the program; model real-world objects, and > abstractions directly in code.

I think this is terrible advice. Thinking of object-oriented programming as "world modeling" leads to complicated designs that came from someone's pointless ontological analysis rather than practical considerations of what will make the best, easiest-to-understand program.

A simple example of this is the OO conundrum: should square derive from rectangle? After all a square is-a rectangle. If we're world-modeling, then the inheritance relationship is a beautiful and consistent expression of this platonic idea that a square is a special kind of rectangle.

But in practice, this inheritance relationship has lots of problems. [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1030521/is-deriving- squar...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1030521/is-deriving-square-from- rectangle-a-violation-of-liskovs-substitution-principle)

And what was it really buying you to begin with? Pretty much nothing.

<comment><USER3> Actually it buys polymorphism.

And the square/rectangle example is rather contrived, not to mention wrong, as it assumes a naive constructor, er, construction:

a) of course a square is a rectangle. b) who said that you cannot add constraints to your model?

Oh, and by the way: the rectangle/square relationship is not "world modeling" --it's mathematics, as close to pure logic as it gets.

<comment><USER2> > Actually it buys polymorphism.

So does "square and rectangle both derive from polygon," but without the problems. (For "polygon" substitute "shape" or "drawable_thing" or whatever based on what your program is doing).

And "polymorphism" by itself isn't an end unless it makes your program better.

> of course a square is a rectangle.

Let me ask you this: is it your opinion that because a square is mathematically a rectangle that you should automatically express this with an inheritance relationship, even if it makes the program worse?

If so you are exactly the person that my message needs to reach. Please take it to heart and think about the hurt you are inflicting on the people you work with.

> Oh, and by the way: the rectangle/square relationship is not "world > modeling" --it's mathematics, as close to pure logic as it gets.

It's absolutely "world modeling." You're trying to take some ontological fact about some object (in this case, a mathematical object) and express that in a software design.

<comment><USER3> > So does "square and rectangle both derive from polygon," but without the > problems.

Well, there are SEVERAL kinds of modeling you can do, depending on your application needs. I mean, no shit Sherlock! Still, the problem with polygon -> rectangle still exist, you still need to have contraints.

> And "polymorphism" by itself isn't an end unless it makes your program > better.

The same holds true for EVERY language feature: it's only useful if it makes your program better --so it's a tautology irrelevant here.

> Let me ask you this: is it your opinion that because a square is > mathematically a rectangle that you should automatically express this with > an inheritance relationship, even if it makes the program worse?

No, it's my opinion that if you express mathematical truths right, programs generally get BETTER. The right way is not always inheritance ―it's not even a basic feature of OO programming according to Alan Kay―, but in this case the example fits, and the "problem" spot you mention is contrived and easily solved.

And if you don't like theory, here's practice and history for you: a) almost EVERY successful game and drawing program written in a OO language, or C with some hacks (that makes 99% of 'em), uses such a shape hierarchy.

> It's absolutely "world modeling." You're trying to take some ontological > fact about some object (in this case, a mathematical object) and express > that in a software design.

Math (and logic) != world.

And a "mathematic object" is not an object, it's the expression of some axioms and constraints. The more faithfully you capture those in your code, the better off you are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think going through the ISO committees was a mistake. Too many years wasted in pointlessness.

<comment><USER5> That's why there is boost and lots of experimentation by compiler developers commercial and in academia.

C/C++/Fortran and other de jeur standard languages do seem to have a very long life with multiple implementations on multiple platforms...

<comment><USER6> ISO standardization also makes things too static at times. For instance, the hash table omission accident gave us non-standard hash tables for years, until TR1 was finally settled.

Boost is nice, but usually only ancient versions are available on clusters (where RHEL 4 or even 3 is still common). The more complete the standard language library, the better.

<comment><USER7> You can always compile boost and install it locally, the full 64bit version only takes about 100MB:

      $ du -hsc boost/1.45.0/*
      68M     boost/1.45.0/include
      37M     boost/1.45.0/lib
      104M    total

Add cmake/autoconf and it's fairly trivial to make it work with your software or even ship it with your source code: after all the Boost license is fairly permissive.

<comment><USER6> Yes, that is what we do. We include a Boost subset. But that shouldn't be necessary. It's extra maintenance, duplication, and annoying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _However, to minimize confusion, I'll keep referring to the upcoming C++ > standard with the feature set defined here as C++0x. Think of 'x' as > hexadecimal (most likely 'B', i.e. C++11)._

Just have to point this out: _this_ C++ goes to _eleven_.

I should look into C++0x some time; I've been hearing good things, but I've never touched it.

</comment><comment><USER9> The hamming and hawing on this one says everything one needs to know about C++0x:

<http://www2.research.att.com/~bs/C++0xFAQ.html#learn>

<comment><USER10> "everything you need to know" being ...that it doesn't lock you into a single paradigm? ...that you're permitted to specify things that other languages keep hidden?

<comment><USER9> That it's become too difficult to learn.

<comment><USER11> Do you need to pass C++0x to graduate or something? If it's too difficult, don't learn it. There are plenty of non-C++ jobs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>