David Chen patreon

Bonus Audio: Elon Musk Steps On a Pile of Rakes, Initial Thoughts on Scream 6

🕑 Added 2023-03-09 18:25:59 +0000 UTC

Comments

John Halski

Thanks for your moral clarity, David. IMO, you’re connecting the right dots.

David Chen

Thanks for the context! Very helpful. (Also: let me know if I said anything htat was technically incorrect?)

Stephen David Miller

Just for anyone who’s curious: typically when we say an acquired founder has different rules about getting fired, it’s because their incentive to stay is not a positive but the absence of a negative. It’s called a “hold back” — money from the sale of their company has been held back by the acquirer on the condition that they stay employed for X years before they release it. Companies do this to hedge against a founder immediately leaving and tanking the whole thing; founders protect themselves in turn by saying “If I am fired for any reason that isn’t extremely well justified, you accelerate that timeline and pay me now.” Presumably, Twitter owes this guy a big percentage of the sale price that was announced in 2021. Elon’s antics might have forced Twitter to pay it early, but by any reasonable measure they will have to pay him either way, unless he quits. And if Elon bullies him into quitting, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. Trying to fire and humiliate him is unbelievably stupid of Elon, because he’s essentially guaranteed the guy will be vesting and resting with zero motivation to lift a finger until he’s paid. Which he still will be now, every penny…just a few years later.