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Comment by delinka | Hacker News Reader

Assuming Sam's story is accurate, and given your comments: "In this case, Jeremy can claim that he is owed a huge percentage of the equity. Because there are no written agreements where his rights to the equity lapse..."

This sounds like anyone can make the claim. If they set foot in the office, they have a claim. Perhaps someone substituted for the usual janitor one night; then he shows up with a claim. Maybe someone had lunch in the same restaurant nearby, chimed in with a sarcastic comment about anything, and shows up over two years later with a claim.

I cannot fathom the situation being tenable.

"It would have been easy to have something be written up and signed for next to nothing right as Jeremy left." And if Jeremy refused to sign? Would that have been further evidence (e.g. of Kyle trying to push Jeremy out) Jeremy can use against Kyle in this situation to say he's owed more?

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> someone had lunch in the same restaurant nearby, chimed in with a sarcastic comment about anything, and shows up over two years later with a claim.

There's a substantive difference between this sentence, and someone who is listed on a written, successful, YC application as a founder of the company. As such your comment is disingenuous.

I don't really have alot of experience in this, but sam says there that Jeremy left the YC interview, doesn't that mean he wouldn't be on the application? I'm sure there's more to it, thus why I'm asking.

Read the post:

    Kyle and Jeremy applied to YC together but Jeremy left before the YC interview.

I interpret that sentence to mean that the original application included both people but Jeremy left sometime between the original application and the interview.

Yes, and since the application lists him as a founder, and "founders" in YC context are required to have at least 10% equity, it's a reasonable assumption that he had at least that much equity on that day. It's right there in writing.

The next question is, on what day was that equity no longer his, and by what means?

If there's no documentation of that ever happening they have a genuine problem.

It depends, did a company even exist prior to yc? If not, the claim for equity is pretty shaky as there was no equity at the time.

With YC, the applications are closed from editing and locked down before the interviews. The application can't change at/after the interview. Also the interview is only 10-20 minutes so you don't have a lot of time to talk about legal issues etc.

Was that always the case?

> This sounds like anyone can make the claim. If they set foot in the office, they have a claim. Perhaps someone substituted for the usual janitor one night; then he shows up with a claim. Maybe someone had lunch in the same restaurant nearby, chimed in with a sarcastic comment about anything, and shows up over two years later with a claim.

Sam admits Jeremy was part of the Cruise story:

   Jeremy Guillory collaborated with Kyle ...

Sam clearly has a financial interest, so I definitely would take his post with a grain of salt, but both sides agree that Guillory was a part of Cruise. This isn't a "janitor substitute" or some other pathological situation.

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