this. If I give you $8 and ask you to pay me $2 for expenses, or I give you $6 you don't much care. This would only apply to entrepreneurs who don't know that term sheets are less attorney fees.
meta: in the interests of continuing intelligent discussion on HN, please just say what you mean instead of "this". It's an infection that's been spreading for at least a few months here.
That's the problem cited, though. Hacker News, as a community, has developed a comical, pathological aversion to any sort of agreement. Every nit must be picked – otherwise the discussion fails to be "intelligent."
I love how you suggest that people should stop behaving the way they are in order to "use your own words, be authentic". How is altering their behaviour in order to satisfy someone on a forum being authentic and using their own words?
1. On the authenticity scale, meme language is at the very bottom. Anything is an improvement.
2. I didn't tell them what to say, only what not to say. Putting words into their mouth might have been inauthentic, but that's not happening here.
3. Just because people are "behaving the way they are", doesn't make it authentic. In case you haven't realized, we live in a world filled with constant sophisticated attempts at mass behavior modification. We are all victims from time to time, and behooves us to at least be introspective and aware of when we are. (not that meme language is a part of that, it's more an accidental artifact of networked humanity, but point generally applies).
4. Using memes is a rhetorical crutch for lazy writing.
You responded with 32 words to a 37 word post so that you could quibble about a single word, or 3% of that post. While preaching on the righteous subject of "intelligent discussion," no less. So if we're going to complain about empty calories, I'm pretty sure you're winning that game.
This is exactly right, but I prefer the $6 case because it makes it much more obvious what is going on. We should make the truth obvious whenever possible.
Hopefully (as pg points out) the next thing to go is the weird way that employee option pools are handled.
The truth is that lawyers are being paid, whether it comes out of your pocket or mine. It's very generous but as a person who has never received a term sheet at all, one way or another I see it as turning another part of the process more opaque.
Actually, that's not entirely true. If lawyers bill inappropriate charges, you don't have to pay those charges. Inappropriate charges include excessive hours, administrative tasks, overhead, or other charges you disallow based on your agreement (commonly called Billing Guidelines). Based on data I've worked with (insurance companies, financial services company, real estate firms) those inappropriate charges are anywhere from 5-15% of the total. Usually 5-10%.
The advantage of having the VC pay the legal bills is that they are a bigger fish and can more easily put in place and enforce the legal billing guidelines. Also, as a much more likely repeat customer, the VC will likely get better bills to begin with.
IamDave
I'm one of the founders of the company, and we appreciate your feedback.
As a programmer I am keenly aware of the issue you are describing, and e are currently working to provide more options on bit-rate and quality.
I would expect this to happen within the next few weeks and if you send an e-mail to me at amit@onellama.com I would be happy to let you know as soon as it happens.
