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Comment by JumpCrisscross

1 year ago

The wild thing isn’t that they ChatGPT’d license. That’s incompetent but forgivable, maybe even smart.

The move that dials the dumbassery to eleven is using it as a defence. On Twitter. Like, Exhibit A for any lawsuit that company is ever in will be this tweet: it demonstrates a proud disrespect for law and contracts. That’s high-proof mens rea if I’ve ever seen any.

Why is that forgivable? Any serious venture would have a involved, you know, some kind of legal expert to do a license. Getting that wrong at any stage has serious repercussions and can effectively end the whole project.

I was given three pieces of advice on starting up my own business and they were good:

1) Get a lawyer

2) Get an accountant

3) Listen to every word they have to say

  • > Why is that forgivable?

    Because legal naïvete is common and isn't a good predictor of founder ineptitude. Is it better to be legally savvy? Of course. But thinking you can wing it with a license agreement because it's boring and unfamiliar and you're rather focus on building your product is understandable. (In some cases, it might even be the right call.)

    • Disregard for law and not knowing the law are two different things.

      ChatGPT'ed license signals to me that whoever does that thinks law is not a serious matter rather BS that can be generated via BS generator.

      1 reply →

    • Legal naïvete is fine. Most of us probably are.

      Not realising you're legally naive is beyond stupid. Extraordinarily stupid.

If one can't get a suit to churn put a license while with VC, I don't know how else cloud it get any easier.

I would assume it would be just an email away for a YC statup.