Comment by zyc | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zyc | Hacker News Reader

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Talked to him, and he pretty much laughed at this, but he cba commenting. However he is one of my best friends, and he has told me this story a few times.

He, lets call him Mr X. Created a software product which got quite popular and started making money, so he decided to start a company with this guy (Tor). Tor isn't a computer engineer, he is just an entrepeneur who like making companies or something. Anyway, they recieve some money from the norwegian governement through something called Innovation Norway. They both keep working in the company, but in separate offices, so none of them knew what the other was doing. Mr X keeps coding on the product, and Tor does something else (Mr X isn't really sure what). After some time, Mr X checks the bank account and notices that almost all the money they recieved from the Innovation Norway is gone. Thats when he makes the statement "give me 30 per cent of the companies cash", because he wanted out. Mr X had done all the work, Tor handled finances, Mr X realizes he can't trust Tor, so he wants his share and leave.

Long time since I've heard the story (happened like 4-5 years ago), so probably don't got all the details.

Just had to post this since Mr X wouldn't.

TL;DR

- Co-founder (Mr X) created a product

- Starts company with this guy

- Mr X does the product dev. This guy does the business part (I assume this also include finances)

- This guy takes money

- Mr X found out, and wants to bail with half the money left

1) Mr X jumped into bed with Tor without either of them doing their due diligence

2) Mr X and Tor failed to set proper expectations for what they would be doing

3) neither of them opened up a channel of discussion when things were not going as they expected

A good lesson.

You absolutely nailed it... and you made me laugh :)

I hope everyone takes the above comment as hearsay, 'best friends' and all. Do you know how many friends say someone 'was a great pilot' after a pilot dies in a crash caused by their own actions and mistakes?

I hope everyone takes the original article as hearsay, 'first person account' and all.

Just to be fair.

Indeed. In situations like these, there is an unconscious bias [0]toward believeing the person who first reported an incident.

[0] Do 'conscious' cognitive biases exist?

> Do 'conscious' cognitive biases exist?

Yes, and apparently studies have shown that, counterintuitively, being aware of a cognitive bias only strengthens it.

Interesting. Got any citations? A LessWrong link will do :)

Clearly not everyone is, plenty of calls in the comments here for the real name of the person in question to be exposed (so that they can - potentially illegally - avoid doing business with them or hiring them)

So this is basically a he-says-she-says situation where: * Tor blames X for withdrawing all the money * X claims he has no idea where the money went and suspects Tor was the one who stole it

The father and director of board in this case has a very high position in the government. This is why X did not pursue this legally, due to the publicity and stuff. It is also very unlikely that he would risk his position to cover up that his son stole ($25k-$75k, unsure of the actual amount).

Both sides of this story sound incredibly suspicious, and nobody involved sounds like a person I'd go into business with.

Thanks for elaborating. An interesting counterpoint. I suppose how much money the company started with, what it was spent on, what sort of payment agreement the founders had, were all left out of the original story.

There are cases where what Mr. X did would have been justifiable.

Either the OP was being very deceitful, or your friend Mr. X did a very poor job communicating his position.

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