I was combing through WikiLeaks when I came across this article, shared in the e-mail archives of the Italian surveillance malware vendor, Hacking Team. The Hacking Team CEO, David Vincenzetti, shared a Wall St Journal article called “New Hedge Fund Strategy: Dispute the Patent, Short the Stock” in the e-mail. David’s comment at the top of […]
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Why you need a vesting agreement from day 1
There was a CTO who worked for free at his friend’s startup. His name was Julian Ee. He was working “freelance” for a Singapore company. Then his friend asked him to join their startup as CTO, and become a shareholder. He didn’t really “work for free”, because he expected that he would be come a […]
Four lessons that lousy clients can teach us.
We all have them: Lousy clients. The guys who want to ask for a reduction in your quotation, and then they want another quotation. And then your quotation is still too expensive for them. The guys who compare your quotation with the quotation of a similar professional from their country and complain that you’ve overcharged […]
How to make money from Open Source.
Open source rules the tech startup world. Many tech startups today are built on open source software. PHP, Ruby on Rails, Python: open source web software. Accessible to all, and free to use in any way you like. Open source software evolves like magic, online, through the wisdom of the crowds. Many programmers contribute hours […]
Why Acquire IP from Someone Else?
Why not build it yourself? Here’s a bunch of reasons why you might be a fool to pass on the opportunity to acquire someone’s precious intellectual property. A wise man once said, opportunity knocks, but does not wait forever. So why should you consider acquiring IP? Why shouldn’t you build it yourself? You might be […]