Comment by temp7536

5 years ago

I'm sorry but no. Patrick, we met with you once, Gaybrick and Claire multiple times and opened up a data room to you all. I then emailed you (and the others) three followups over a couple weeks only to see them opened but never replied. Your team then sent targeted cold emails to multiple people on our team. I've validated this experience with multiple founders.

You also had Moritz and Sequoia renege on Finix's term sheet after they already had it signed and wired (I guess props to Sequoia for branding it as "giving it away")[1]. You've also had your team get diligence materials from Sequoia and nuke deals.

You've clearly crushed it in the business and developer brand space, hats off to you. You want feedback - I (and the broader founder community) just wish you stop the dance of pretending and just admit you all are sharks, and it works for you! Just own it.

But I will admit, the HN comment was a bit trolly and written in frustration. But you have to admit - you are documented as proofreading every one of PGs posts, are a huge LP in YC and are friends with a lot of people there. You can't believe that the conspiracy theories are purely in "bad faith"....

And yes - this is out of place in HN comments, I'm sorry. But sadly there aren't very many other options.

[1] - https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving-away-21-...

8 comments

temp7536

Reply
pc  5 years ago

I genuinely have no idea what situation you’re talking about (not saying we didn’t screw up, though — I preemptively apologize assuming we did!), and a bunch of the narrow claims above aren’t true (we aren’t YC LPs, Sequoia made its own decisions without any suggestions from us on Finix, etc.), but I really would appreciate an email so I can figure out what happened.

  • danr4  5 years ago

    From the TC article: "A spokesperson for Stripe who was asked whether Stripe and Sequoia discussed its investment in Finix at any point, also declined to comment."

    Your comment about Finix seems deliberately crafted to convey you did not speak with Sequoia but at the same time not denying that you spoke (made decision without suggestions).

    So to clarify, are you saying that Stripe did not speak with Sequoia about Finix?

    Or that Sequoia "made their own decision", while they have spoken with Stripe about Finix?

  • simonebrunozzi  5 years ago

    Irrespective of whether you behaved badly or not (not for me to say, and unlikely to clearly emerge on a simple HN thread), I have always lauded your search for transparency here on HN.

    Also, we I like to always keep in mind that sometimes resentment dominates the desire to share a certain story, and without knowing anything about the transaction referred above, I'd say it's quite clear that temp7536 has at least some resentment or envy over Stripe's success.

    Final thought (not referring to Stripe nor Sequoia in particular): yes, most companies, and most VCs, are sharks. I was recently reminded of that twice, and probably lost large sums of money in the process (again: nothing to do with Stripe nor with Sequoia). I think it's a rule that have always applied to life, in general, and it won't stop being applied just because we have the internet.

    I simply hope that things like the Panama Papers, Wikileaks, and such, will eventually bring more financial transparency to the world, and make it harder for these sharks to keep feasting on their prey.

austenallred  5 years ago

> You also had Moritz and Sequoia renege on Finix's term sheet after they already had it signed and wired (I guess props to Sequoia for branding it as "giving it away")[1].

How is it reneging on a term sheet if they wire the money? That's fulfilling the terms of the term sheet (despite the fact that term sheets aren't binding), no?

wbharding  5 years ago

It bears repeating that exactly 10 minutes after temp7536's accusations were initially posted (2:45:57 UTC), account temp3728 posted (at 2:55:47 UTC) a two paragraph affirmation of temp7536's salacious accusations.

Both of these comments were posted almost three hours after the initial post. So, in a 10 minute window 3 hours after the post, we are to believe a second commenter came to HN, saw temp7536's post (presumably after reading OP's narrative?), registered their own fake HN account, verified said account, and wrote a two paragraph post that almost exactly mirrored the original accusations of temp7536? Ok.

I have better things to do than Sherlock Holmes a case involving an individual (pc) who I have never met or spoken to, but there is much to be desired in the credibility dept for temp7536 and temp3728.