True story: Father and
daughter designed a
new Internet company. After
two years of work, they were
struggling to find
funding while
simultaneously cutting deals with some huge companies. The
huge companies, while
assholes, will not be named,
'cause I hate courtrooms. Then,
grace of graces, they got an
Investment Banker, who told them for
six weeks that all they had to do was
secure an agreement with one of the big companies, and the
investment bankers would subsequently
fund their project. Or find
funding, if necessary. All the
phone calls were optimistic. Everybody was
going to get rich.
So the
family business kept chugging, with everybody working
full-time day-jobs on top of the business, and
nobody getting paid, and people generally
hustling like mad for, like I said, about
six more weeks.
Six weeks later, the team
got their term letter from Huge Company A. They
had a deal, at least for
marketing,
sales,
distribution and
equipment. Now all they
needed was a
fucking salary and they were off. Hurriedly, they sent
the terms letter to the investment
bankers, and later, all the
other butt-wild information they ended up wanting.
Today, the investment bankers--I guess I could tell you
their name but what good would it do?--called to say they were
ditching the project. What was a
great idea that just needed
the support of one Huge Company was now "too
big a project and would
tie up too many resources".
I feel
bad for these
guys; the
father and daughter, that is. They worked their
asses off and got
screwed by a bunch of
dishonest weasles. The whole family is also
severely in debt now. I guess they still
have a chance, because huge companies B and C still want to
do their idea, and they do have the patent. But this isn't just about
them, because
everybody gets screwed like this. It's just that those of us
smart enough to stay away from
corporate scum can sometimes
avoid hearing it in person.
Protect yourself. Stay at least
five feet back from the
bars on the
FatCat's cage. Don't prod it; it only *says* it'll
help you. It's just trying to get you in
biting distance, that's all.