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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

A user emailed to tell us that the ownership of this project and this story of its founding are disputed and there's a legal process going on. A quick check shows a bit of supporting evidence for this, so I think it's best if we bury this post for now. We have no way to tell who's right, and it doesn't seem fair for HN to implicitly take a side by featuring one side of the story.

Incidentally, we invited this submission as a repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546345. We do that when we run across a good submission that didn't get much attention the first time around, and we think the community might find it interesting. We wouldn't have done that if we'd known the story was disputed. The principle remains the same, though, so if any of you know of a good submission that fell through the cracks, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com and we'll consider putting it in the queue.

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I've emailed about this, but can respond here too. I'm the sole-founder of WakaTime and there is no ongoing legal dispute.

Priyanka Sharma and I worked on a massage on-demand startup which didn't take off. We decided to see if investors would be interested in my WakaTime project, and Priyanka asked to be listed on the WakaTime "About" page to build her confidence when talking to potential investors. I also agreed to pitch WakaTime on TechCrunch with her, although they listed her incorrectly as CEO! She was CEO of the massage startup, Kneady, but never WakaTime!

It's unfortunate that Priyanka Sharma now uses the WakaTime TechCrunch article to charge early-stage startups for advice through Heavybit. It's also unfortunate if HN caves to her threats of ownership without asking for any proof. If she was a founder of WakaTime, she should be able to produce a stock purchase or other agreement, or even documentation about an "ongoing legal dispute". I've already reached out to HN via email offering proof of ownership, so hopefully HN unburies this post.

This response is fishy as hell. I don't know what Priyanka's title was at WakaTime but I viewed her as the public face of the company, as judged by the dozens of emails I have from WakaTime that all came from her, her activity in the Slack, her blog posts which were removed from the WakaTime blog, etc.

Here's one example of an email from Priyanka on behalf of WakaTime:

https://i.imgur.com/PYHuc8s.png

And the removal of her blog posts:

https://github.com/wakatime/wakatime-blog/commit/5d671e9aab6...

Edit:

And an interesting Twitter thread:

https://twitter.com/downey/status/861908826223759360

This makes me want to stop paying for WakaTime.

> Here's one example of an email from Priyanka on behalf of WakaTime

At the time I was happy when she said she would send the newsletter emails for me, but now I see she just wanted people to think she was the public face for WakaTime to further a tech founder persona. Yea I made a mistake letting her send newsletters on behalf of WakaTime, but that doesn't mean she can claim to have built WakaTime.

> This response is fishy as hell.

I didn't raise a fuss when I should have because I didn't want to cause her trouble, but then she demanded a large sum of money from me in exchange for giving me WakaTime... when she never owned WakaTime. That's what I consider fishey.

Are you saying she didn't write the content of the newsletters, or moderate the Slack, or write those blog posts? I don't think anyone is contending that she wrote the code but I know my own interest in WakaTime would have waned without the community and the newsletters.

I am still unsatisfied with your version of events because it seems to discount that Priyanka did any work at all.

Her first blog post was on: 2014-12-16

Her last blog post was on: 2015-03-31

This doesn't look like an sophisticated engagement.

Here's a Google Trends chart for 'WakaTime':

https://i.imgur.com/VHeJPYY.png

That first spike is December 2014. Interesting timing!

The last Slack notification email I have from her is from 10/26/2015. Why is it so hard to believe that she did a year or so's worth of work for WakaTime? Why are her contributions to be valued less because they aren't code?

Alan is the least fishy guy I know amd I don’t doubt his word for a second.

Then maybe you should investigate more, for example using the waybackmachine and finding out that Alan founded WakaTime almost 2 years before she ever appeared on the website. He didn't even know her when he started WakaTime.

Also read: https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=15617309&goto=item%3Fi...

She's very good at making people believe her lies.

> I've already reached out to HN via email offering proof of ownership, so hopefully HN unburies this post.

dang,

would appreciate if you can at least acknowledge receipt of the proof that was offered by Alan. Of course you don't have to, but it would be a kindness to the community if you come back to tell us that you stand by your decision or have decided to walk it back.

Concur with this. Would really suck if @welder gets screwed because of an unhappy ex-cofounder. Allegations or not, the buck needs to stop somewhere.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. If there is an ongoing legal dispute, then whatever proof that was send remains under question until the dispute of ownership is settled.

I know the founder Alan and I know Priyanka and I can verify Alan's version. There is no dispute about the ownership. Priyanka bluntly lied to HN and I am shocked to read they would fall for it. I guess everyone is especially careful to not discredit a self-proclaimed "female founder".

I experienced Priyanka as a dishonest person, solely focused on personal gain, who had no issues with stealing credit from others (including from me). It's terrifying to see that she continues to leech off Alan's hard work and even damage his success. Alan only listed her temporarily as Co-Founder on the website (almost 2 years AFTER he founded WakaTime) to build up her confidence in talking to investors (an idea she had btw). She proceeded however to use that for self-promotion, giving interviews all over the place of how she was a "female founder", despite it being a fake title. She would tell Alan that it was all to help Wakatime. Alan was too patient and trusting, even though many people who met Priyanka and saw through her manipulation were warning him about her. Despite finally realizing what she was doing, he kept her listed on the website for many more months, because it was helping her get new job opportunities. He was THAT generous and just didn't think she would exploit him and his hard work. She has now woven such a big lie that all she can do is continue lying. I hope the truth will finally catch up to her.

dang,

The story is about building this product. About putting in the time(thousands of precious hours) and focus to build the extensive amount of software running Wakatime. He has listened to his users and built the integrations. There is no disputing that. This story deserves attention and is true. Let whoever else make claims about their alleged ownership on their own time. it wouldn’t change the story.

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