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from the You-can't-get-there-from-here dept.
[Ed note: I debated whether or not to run this story. On the one hand, it rather thoroughly eviscerates a particular company, and I truly wish no harm to other's ventures. (Seeing what it takes to run this site, well, it's not as easy as it looks!.) On the other hand, it rather handily illustrates management issues I have seen before. On the gripping hand, I found the submission to be entertainingly written, and that tipped the scales for me: I decided to give it a try... and see what the community thinks. Have you ever worked at a company like this? How did that work out for you? Did the company successfully reinvent themselves? --martyb]
WhenHub - a startup in search of an idea
As near as I can recall, the initial idea of WhenHub was that you could create a Whencast, which is basically a slideshow with slides shown in chronological order. You were supposed to embed this Whencast on your website. Aside from the sheer triviality of the idea, the embedding meant that visitors had to allow 3rd party cookies, so it didn't work for anyone with sensible security settings on their browser.
So they moved on: Next, they had an app that would let you share your location data with friends. For example, if you were heading to a meeting, and someone hadn't arrived yet, you could see that they were stuck in traffic (or maybe at the beach). Not a bad idea, but again trivial, and really better implemented by the mapping applications. Which they have done.
Somewhere along the way, they also talked about calendar sharing, but I never looked into the details. Anyway, you can share calendars just fine, from all sorts of different services, so...
So you have this startup, only none of your ideas are actually marketable, and money is running out. Whatever do you do? Ah, but now! Now they have a totally different idea. They will let you hire people, with contracts. But this isn't like any of the zillion freelancer sites around, no! WhenHub is different: They have sprinkled "magic blockchain dust" on their company.
They'd really like to do an ICO (Initial Coin Offering), but the regulators look like they are going to crack down on that. So they're offering a SAFT (Simple Agreement for Future Tokens). Really important: this is totally not an investment, because that might be subject to regulation, even though they keep talking about "investment", but anyway it isn't, because you don't get any equity in the company, or in Scott's apartment, or even a walk-on in a Dilbert strip.
Instead, you give them your money, and you get a non-transferable "SAFT", which maybe they will someday exchange for "WHEN tokens", which might someday be redeemable for, well, something, if the regulators don't outlaw it. And remember, it's totally not an investment, so...um... Why was it they expect people to send them money?
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I know, this is cynical as hell, but WTF? Is this the culture of startups, to throw ideas at the wall, hoping and praying that something - anything - turns out to be vaguely marketable? Then seeing Scott Adams, who otherwise seems like a decent enough fellow, hawking this SAFT on his blog. Whatever the truth, it sure looks like he's trying to bail out his bad investment by finding a bunch of suckers. That's just sad...
(Score: 4, Touché) by aristarchus on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:25AM (1 child)
You are obviously not correct if you do not know that I make far more money than I need or even want, which means I've got you beat by millennia. C'mon, TMB, you have a Roomie because why?
And you may want to think that my massive income is due to hard work, but I would say it is more luck. Some correct guessing, after losing everything in a shipping venture in 126 BC, having several caravans I was co-investor in being lost in sandstorms or bandit attacks on the Silk Road, total write-offs of real-estate in Alexandria (Egypt) when the Christians took over and drove prices into the basement, and philosophers had to leave. And then Wheat speculation, consulting gigs with various Barbarians, Germans, and Arian Christians, who remind me much of the FA start-up barbarians. Although they could always fall back on pillage.
When the Italians came up with the idea of a common stock corporation, an idea they stole from the Sicilians, who in turn had stolen it from the Chinese by way of Norman King Roger of Sicily and Marco Polo, I got in early. Lost my entire net worth repeatedly. Invested in the Tulip bubble, lost my arse. East India Company was not too bad, until my conscience could no longer stand it. And lost everything again in the Silver panic of 1893. Oh, the irony, or silvery, but more irony, since the money I lost was gained by investments in Carnegie Steel.
And then the NY stock market, back when black Friday was a bit more morbid that the way the term is currently used. We would go strolling down Wall Street, looking for financiers launching themselves out of high windows! Great fun, rather like watching a meteor storm, except that meteors give off more light and do not go "splat" at the end. Since then, investing has been a bit more of reliable way to make money, given the governmental regulations that all sane people agree are a necessary governor upon a capitalist economy.
But more than that, a good philosopher is never at a loss for gainful employment, or even the means to be able to continue the same. And his or her wealth is not measured so much in possessions, or media of exchange, but instead in the quality of colleagues and students. This reward, unlike filthy lucre, is not a product of luck.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:31AM
Because one day my best friend of twenty-some-odd years came up and asked me if I wanted to move to TN with him so he'd know someone besides his ex and kids in the state when he moved there to get his visitation back. I can get by just fine most anywhere, so I said sure.
Beg to differ [youtube.com].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.