Time to Take a Stand

It is time for tech companies to start speaking up about some of the actions taken by President Trump’s administration.

There are many actions from his first week that are objectionable.  In repeatedly invoking unsubstantiated conspiracy theories (like the 3 million illegal votes), he's delegitimizing his opponents and continuing to damage our society.  So much objectionable action makes it hard to know where and when to focus, and outrage fatigue is an effective strategy.

But the executive order from yesterday titled “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States” is tantamount to a Muslim ban and requires objection.  I am obviously in favor of safety and rules, but broad-strokes actions targeted at a specific religious group is the wrong solution, and a first step toward a further reduction in rights.

In addition, the precedent of invalidating already-issued visas and green cards should be extremely troubling for immigrants of any country or for anyone who thinks their contributions to the US are important.  This is not just a Muslim ban.  This is a breach of America's contract with all the immigrants in the nation.

This administration has already shown that they are not particularly impressed by the first amendment, and that they are interested in other anti-immigrant action.  So we must object, or our inaction will send a message that the administration can continue to take away our rights.  

In doing so, we should not demonize Trump voters—most of them voted for him for reasons other than the promise of a Muslim ban.  We need their eventual support in resisting actions like these, and we will not get it if we further isolate them. 

The tech community is powerful.  Large tech companies in particular have enormous power and are held in high regard.  We need to hear from the CEOs clearly and unequivocally.  Although there is some business risk in doing so, there is strength in numbers—if everyone does it early this coming week, we will all make each other stronger.

Tech companies go to extraordinary lengths to recruit and retain employees; those employees have a lot of leverage.  If employees push companies to do something, I believe they’ll have to.  

At a minimum, companies should take a public stance.  But talking is only somewhat effective, and employees should push their companies to figure out what actions they can take.  I wish I had better ideas here, but we’re going to have a meeting on Friday at Y Combinator to discuss.  I’d love to see other tech companies do the same. 

If this action has not crossed a line for you, I suggest you think now about what your own line in the sand is.  It’s easy, with gradual escalation, for the definition of ‘acceptable’ to get moved.  So think now about what action President Trump might take that you would consider crossing a line, and write it down.  

Almost every member of the GOP I have spoken to knows that these actions are wrong.  Paul Ryan, Mike Pence, Kevin McCarthy and James Mattis said so themselves when Trump first proposed his Muslim ban.  We need to remind anyone involved in this administration that, for the rest of their lives, they will have to explain why they were complicit in this. 

In my first post on Trump last June, I said it would be a good time for all of us to start speaking up.  We are now at the stage where something is starting that is going to be taught in history classes, and not in a good way.  This morning, Kellyanne Conway posted on Twitter that Trump is "a man of action" who is "just getting started".  I believe her.  We must now start speaking up.

Affordable Care

The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect–for one thing, I think health insurance should be entirely separate from employment–but I hate the thought of losing it without a replacement for people who will lose insurance. If Congress ends up repealing it, I hope they earnestly try to preserve the best parts, and put in place something better.

One thing the ACA definitely did was help a lot of founders start their companies--without it, being a founder would make sense for less people. The Department of Health and Human Services released a lot of new data yesterday showing how the ACA helped support entrepreneurs, and in light of that, I thought it would be good to collect and share stories of how the ACA helped some Y Combinator founders get started.

Here they are in the founders’ own words:

Dan Carroll, Clever, S12

March 3, 2012: I'm holed up in a hotel room in San Francisco with two of my best friends, wildly excited about the idea that will become Clever. We've packed the day with difficult conversations – Where will the company be founded? Do we have enough savings? Who will be CEO? – but the only topic that I'm truly afraid of is health. I've been living with Crohn's Disease for nearly ten years, and I know that without health care, I'd die, and without health insurance, I'd go broke. But some quick research tells me that, thanks to the ACA, I can join my parents' healthcare plan until I turn 26 the following January. Risk mitigated, I make the commitment to my cofounders - I'm in.


Ethan Perlstein, Perlara, W16

I left academia on Jan 1, 2013 as unemployed former postdoc. I would not have been able to move across the country to start my company, and my wife wouldn't have given up her employer-sponsored health insurance, if not for Obamacare. Also, some of the first employees at Perlara depended on the ACA for insurance.


Randall Bennett, VidPresso, W14

There's a good chance that without the aca my startup wouldn't exist... or I'd be dead. When launching my startup we couldn't get health insurance because one insurer denied us because I once had a sleep study for sleep apnea. Once you get one rejection, all the others reject you.

Then, last year I had a brain tumor. I had moved off to a more normal health plan... but with the last set of rules chances are it'd have been unlikely I could have gotten any insurance, let alone a somewhat reasonable plan.


Ben Maitland-Lewis, Pretty Instant, W15

We aren't yet at a stage where we can offer healthcare to our employees but thanks to the ACA we are all individually insured. This has been instrumental in helping us grow the business while keeping costs low. I hope the next administration doesn't repeal our access to individualized affordable healthcare as it would have a direct effect on the company at this stage.


Ravi Parikh, Heap, W13

The provision in ACA that allows young adults to remain on their parents' health insurance until they're 26 has helped me multiple times. In 2011, I was self-employed as a musician, which would have been much more difficult to pursue if I weren't able to take advantage of my parents' health insurance. Later, my co-founder Matin left his job at Facebook in 2012. He and I worked on a number of side projects, one of which eventually became Heap. Both him and I remained on our parents' insurance until Heap had enough funding and traction to offer health plans to employees. Again, without being able to remain on our parents' insurance, this would have been much more difficult.


Mike Romano, Lendsnap, S16

The ACA has been a blessing for me and my family, and without it, I could not pursue my entrepreneurial dreams. I began my new career within days of the birth of my son, and the fact he arrived five weeks early only complicated plans further. My wife is a graphic designer and usually only finds contract work without benefits. The ACA allows me to follow my passion of transforming the mortgage industry while ensuring our son gets the crucial care he needs during his early life.


Brian Merritt, Seed, W15

For me, the ACA was life changing. Prior to the ACA I was only able to obtain insurance either through an established group plan, or via Medical/Medicaid “last resort” insurance. This was because I have a pre-existing condition that made me ineligible to buy an individual insurance plan. Due to having a chronic condition that needs to be managed carefully, having a quality insurance plan was not an option, but a requirement. So my only option was to work for a large employer with an established health plan that would provide me with the appropriate benefits to support my situation. After the ACA made it so that pre-existing conditions don’t disqualify applicants, I was able to purchase an individual insurance plan outside of my employer, and as as a result I was able to start a company and work on it for almost two years before we were able to put our own group plan together.


Mick Johnson, Whereoscope, S10

The ACA was essential when starting my new business - I founded the company, was pre-funding for 9 months, and the only employee, so was unable to get small group coverage. I have a wife, a child, and another child on the way so health insurance was essential. Without the ACA I could never have left a regular job to found this new company, which has now raised funding and employs 7 people.


Kevin Law, Cambly, W14

I had to apply for individual health care twice while starting Cambly before the ACA exchanges launched at the end of 2013. It was incredibly difficult and expensive, because I had to keep paying for expensive COBRA coverage from my previous employer while repeatedly applying, appealing, and getting rejected by insurers for individual plans. I was still on a group plan during the ACA debates and assumed that the only people getting rejected were the chronically ill. I learned through my experience that nearly anyone who had past health care expenses would often be rejected when applying for individual plans (as was my case).

An especially ironic moment occurred when I was on a Blue Cross group plan via COBRA and appealing a rejection for a Blue Cross individual plan. I got a physical, so my doctor could write a letter saying I was in good health for the appeal. I simultaneously received a rejection letter for my individual plan appeal citing pasts health costs AND a letter from my group plan asking if the physical was related to a workplace incident (presumably so they could sue someone to get reimbursed for the costs).

The exchanges finally went live at the end of 2013, and I quickly got insurance coverage. No extensive health history paperwork. No rejections or appeals. It launched right around when we got into YC, so it was great to focus on building and growing our business rather than trying to obtain health insurance.


Tristan Tao, Leada, S15

I'm currently 24 years old (going on 25). I am fortunately covered under my parent's health insurance under ACA (until I'm 26). This was critical in reducing my personal burn. I would not go without health insurance; this meant I'd have to either join a larger company to gain coverage, or purchase them out of pocket. Either way it would've significantly hindered the 22 yrs old me to start a company as a Senior in College.

I strongly hope that the successor of Obamacare will include a clause that makes it cheaper for recent graduates to get coverage (or retain the current policy of enabling people younger than 26 to stay on their parents' coverage).

Looking back, the largest hindrance to starting a company would've been debt (which I didn't have any), and personal burn (insurance being a huge part).


Ram Jayaraman, PlateIQ, S15

5 out of 7 members of the initial team at Plate IQ were on ACA. Without ACA in the early days we would have to spend large amounts on employer health insurance and since the team was small we would not have gotten much discounts either. Since the team just needed something basic until we raise decent venture money, they were all able to find very affordable options with good networks like Kaiser.

In thinking of an ACA successor: very few plans are coupled with HSA accounts and HSA withdrawals are penalized. For startups with young teams I would ideally like to continue getting plans with large deductibles and large co-pays and instead contribute to an HSA account. Avoiding the 20% penalty for the HSA withdrawal would definitely encourage more participation.


Ben Thompson, Gitprime, W16

I have a family of 5. Had it not been for the affordable care act, it would have been incredibly difficult to take the leap to become a co-founder. Because of the ACA, I was able to take a calculated career risk without having to sacrifice health coverage for my family as part of that decision. Two years later, we’ve built a company that provides benefits for all of our employees and their dependents.


Brendan Lim, Kicksend, S11

In 2009 my wife was in a life threatening car accident. After her recovery, she was unable to get reasonably priced coverage due to her new "pre-existing conditions". During this time, my co-founder and I had quit our jobs and started working on Kicksend (S11) and were living off of our savings. As a result, we were unable to afford reasonable insurance. The ACA removed the "pre-existing conditions" and gave us peace of mind since my wife was finally able to get covered.


Vishal Joshi, Joy, S16

When we started Joy, we had insurance as dependents and did not need to create company healthcare offer for a bit.  But soon we had a new employee very eager to join Joy but needed health insurance.  We agreed to start the process but it so happens that the entire ordeal to get company healthcare setup takes a couple of months.  If not for ACA, Joy would had lost a really good employee who is still with us and actually helped us build our website.  She was able to keep afloat using ACA while we got our company policy setup.


Jason Chen, Verge Genomics, S15

The Affordable Care Act makes it easy for us to purchase and manage health insurance plans – all of our employees are covered rapidly with no medical underwriting. However, we pay high premiums, incur rising deductibles, and plans are bloated with benefits we cannot use. We have also had to pay for "retroactive coverage" for some employees to avoid penalties from the individual mandate, even though no services were used. Future patient-centered health reform should facilitate access to coverage for small business and individuals while allowing greater customization of benefits.


Zachary Garbow, SocialBrowse, W08

When I began working on my startup full time, my wife and I wanted to start a family. At that time, when trying to purchase private insurance being pregnant was considered a pre-existing condition. My wife also had undertaken some preventative procedures years earlier, which made it difficult to obtain coverage. As a result, we were stressed and anxious about not being able to get coverage, and fearful that we'd not be covered for our pregnancy and I'd have to quit my startup to find a corporate job with health insurance. Luckily, the ACA passed just in time to provide us the peace of mind to both start our family and continue building my startup. We now have 2 kids and a thriving, growing business.


Varun Aroroa, OpenCurriculum, W14

ACA has allowed me to have health insurance. Before I got on Obamacare, I had no insurance and had stopped all physical activity beyond basic exercise for years, being too scared to hurt myself. Living below the adjusted poverty line, I just can't afford normal plans. It is amazing how much mental comfort and freedom it can bring in life.


Mike Knoop, Zapier, S12

Thanks to the ACA and my parents, the provision to cover dependents through the age of 26 enabled me to take more risk starting Zapier. Specifically, I did not have to worry about healthcare coverage when the company was small and could not afford health benefits. Now, Zapier provides health benefit coverage to our 50+ US employees.


Zachariah Reitano, Shout, S14

I had heart surgery when I was 18. I was virtually uninsurable. I now have health insurance. Why we need the ACA is no more complicated than that.

The 2016 Election

I am endorsing Hillary Clinton for president.  I've never endorsed a presidential candidate before, but I'm making an exception this year, because this election is exceptional.  Donald Trump represents an unprecedented threat to America, and voting for Hillary is the best way to defend our country against it.

A Trump presidency would be a disaster for the American economy.  He has no real plan to restore economic growth.

His racist, isolationist policies would divide our country, and American innovation would suffer.  But the man himself is even more dangerous than his policies.  He's erratic, abusive, and prone to fits of rage.

He represents a real threat to the safety of women, minorities, and immigrants, and I believe this reason alone more than disqualifies him to be president.  My godson’s father, who is Mexican by birth and fears being deported or worse, is who convinced me to spend a significant amount of time working on this election at the beginning of this year, when Trump still seemed like an unlikely possibility.

Trump shows little respect for the Constitution, the Republic, or for human decency, and I fear for national security if he becomes our president.

The only two vocal Trump supporters I am close to are Peter Thiel and my grandma.  Peter is a part-time partner at YC, meaning he spends a small fraction of his time advising YC companies, does not have a vote in how YC is run, and in his case waives the equity part-time partners normally get.

This has been a strain on my relationship with both of them—I think they are completely wrong in their support of this man.  Though I don’t ascribe all positions of a politician to his or her supporters, I do not understand how one continues to support someone who brags about sexual assault, calls for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US, or any number or other disqualifying statements.  I will continue to try to change both of their minds.

Some have said that YC should terminate its relationship with Peter over this.  But as repugnant as Trump is to many of us, we are not going to fire someone over his or her support of a political candidate.  As far as we know, that would be unprecedented for supporting a major party nominee, and a dangerous path to start down (of course, if Peter said some of the things Trump says himself, he would no longer be part of Y Combinator).  

The way we got into a situation with Trump as a major party nominee in the first place was by not talking to people who are very different than we are.  The polarization of the country into two parallel political realities is not good for any of us.  We should listen to each other more, not less.

We should all feel a duty to try to understand the roughly half of the country that thinks we are severely misguided.  I don’t understand how 43% of the country supports Trump.  But I’d like to find out, because we have to include everyone in our path forward.  If our best ideas are to stop talking to or fire anyone who disagrees with us, we’ll be facing this whole situation again in 2020.

That kind of diversity is painful and unpopular, but it is critical to health of a democratic and pluralistic society.  We shouldn’t start purging people for supporting the wrong political candidate.  That's not how things are done in this country.

$1 Million VotePlz Sweepstakes

The 2016 US Presidential election feels like the most important one so far in my lifetime.  No one able to vote in the US should be sitting this one out—we have a major choice to make.

With some friends, I helped start VotePlz to make it easier for young people to participate—technology has moved forward but registration has not (for example, young people generally don’t have printers or stamps, and many states still don’t have online registration).

A lot of people are working hard to get their friends registered to vote, and we wanted to do something for them. 

So today, we’re announcing a VotePlz sweepstakes with a million dollars in prizes.

Some of the prizes are $50,000 in student loan payoffs or scholarship.

After you check your registration, you get a referral link. For each person you get to check their registration, you’ll get one entry into the sweepstakes (up to 25).

You can see how you’re doing here and how your school is doing here.

Also we just launched an iOS app that lets you register just by taking a photo of your Driver’s License, and easily share VotePlz with your contacts.

We need your help.  Please check your registration (https://plz.vote) and share this with your friends and family!

Don't Read The Comments

I sent this email to the current YC batch this morning:


I've talked to some of you who are really bummed about negative press coverage or online comments about your company.  Often this takes the general form of "ugh, all these new startups suck, everything good has already been started."

It sucks to have haters, but every founder who now runs a huge company faced this for a long time.  Please don't let it get you down (some criticism is useful, and that you should pay attention to, but that's not normally what gets people down).  The sooner you can develop a thick skin for this, the better.

Unless the world ends soon, the most valuable company the world will ever see has not yet been started.

Most startups will fail, so you can say everything sucks and be right most of the time.  Although you never lose money with that strategy, you never make any either.

The best startups take a long time to be recognized as good.  Go read the things people wrote about Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Uber, etc in their first few years of existence.  Overnight success usually takes a decade of uphill work.

YC itself faced this for a long time.  We turned out to do ok.

A friend of mine likes to say "there are two kinds of people in the world--the people that build the future, and the people who write posts on the internet about why they'll fail".  Keep trying to be in former category.

The people who have said there is nothing new left to do in the world have been wrong every time.  Don't let their lack of imagination hold you back.

Trump

I'm going to say something very unpopular in my world: Trump is right about some big things.

He's right that many Americans are getting screwed by the system.  He’s right that the economy is not growing nearly fast enough.  He's right that we're drowning in political correctness, and that broken campaign finance laws have bred a class of ineffective career politicians.  He may even be right that free trade is not the best policy.  Trump supporters are not dumb.

But Trump is wrong about the more important part: how to fix these problems.  Many of his proposals, such as they are, are so wrong they’re difficult to even respond to.

Even more dangerous, though, is the way he's wrong.  He is not merely irresponsible.  He is irresponsible in the way dictators are.

Trump's casual racism, misogyny, and conspiracy theories are without precedent among major presidential nominees.  He has said that a judge of Mexican descent isn't treating him fairly because of his heritage and that we should ban Muslims from entering the country.

When his supporters beat up a homeless Hispanic man and cited Trump, he called them “very passionate”.  He has accused Obama of somehow being responsible for the recent shooting in Orlando.

To anyone familiar with the history of Germany in the 1930s, it's chilling to watch Trump in action.  Though I know intellectually it’s easy in hard economic times to rile people up with a hatred of outsiders, it's still surprising to watch this happen right in front of us.

It's hard to tell, as it often is with demagogues, how much is calculation and how much is genuine belief.  But it's a real and terrifying possibility that Trump actually believes much of what he says.  In any case, when he says it, it signals to other people that it’s ok to believe.

Demagogic hate-mongers lead down terrible paths.  It would be particularly embarrassing for us to fall for this—we are a nation of immigrants, and we know that immigrants built this country (and Trump, of course, is the grandson of immigrants and married to an immigrant).

Hitler taught us about the Big Lie—the lie so big, and so often repeated, that people end up believing it.

Trump’s Big Lie is hiding in plain sight.  His Big Lie is that he’s going to Make America Great by keeping us safe from outsiders.

But he has no serious plan for how to restore economic growth, which is what we actually need.  Without it, we’ll be in a zero-sum game and face continued infighting.  And without it, we’ll lose our position as the most powerful country in the world.

He distracts us with hate of outsiders in the hopes that we don’t notice he has no plan for the inside.  He has failed to put forward a serious plan for major investments in research and technology that we so desperately need.  Instead, he tries to distract us with fear of Them.

At least Trump is willing to talk about the fact that the US is not on an acceptable growth trajectory.  The Big Truth in Trump’s slogan is “Again”—we do need a fundamental change to get back to where we were.  Clinton’s dangerously bad Big Lie is that there’s no big problem here at all.

Trump is right about the problem, but horribly wrong about the solution.

I take some risk by writing this (even though I’ve supported some Republicans in the past), and I’ll feel bad if I end up hurting Y Combinator by doing so.  I understand why other people in the technology industry aren’t saying much.  In an ordinary election it's reasonable for people in the business world to remain publicly neutral.  But this is not an ordinary election.

In the words of Edmund Burke, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  This would be a good time for us all—even Republicans, especially Republican politicians who previously endorsed Trump—to start speaking up.


Note: Anyone is welcome to republish this.

Note 2: Apparently the Burke quote was not definitively said by him :(

'We're in a Bubble'

A lot of people have been saying we’re in a tech bubble for quite some time. Someday they’ll be right, but in the meantime, I thought it'd be fun to look back at some articles from the last 10 years:

2007, Coding Horror -- Welcome to Dot-Com Bubble 2.0. “You might argue that the new bubble has been in effect since mid-2006, but the signs are absolutely unmistakable now.”

2008, Gigaom -- Is Linkedin worth $1B? “The valuation of $1 billion – not as insane as the [$15 billion] valuation placed by Microsoft on Facebook – was jaw dropping.”

2009, Wall Street Journal -- The Bursting of the Silicon Valley Bubble (2009 Edition). “Some think that this round of Silicon Valley blowups might be more damaging than the last.”

2010, Daily Beast -- Facebook's $56 Billion Valuation and More Signs of the Tech Apocalypse.  “One analyst predicts Facebook will easily be worth $200 billion by 2015. Right on! And by 2020 it could be the first company with a $1 zillion market value, so buy-buy-buy, everybody!”

and, famously, Signal v. Noise, Facebook is not worth $33,000,000,000. "But the bullshit monopoly-money valuation merry-go-round has to stop."

2011, The Economist -- The New Tech Bubble (cover story). “Some time after the dotcom boom turned into a spectacular bust in 2000, bumper stickers began appearing in Silicon Valley imploring: ‘Please God, just one more bubble.’ That wish has now been granted.”

2012, The Guardian --  Facebook’s IPO and the new tech bubble. “So yes, the collapse is beginning even as the bubble is filling. Some of us call this fun.”

2013, Gawker / ValleyWag -- The $4 Billion Secret: Don’t Bother Making any Money. “[Pinterest and Snapchat] were both recently, insanely valued by investors at around $4 billion . . . how is this not a bubble, and why aren't more people saying this is crazy?”

2014, Wall Street Journal -- David Einhorn: ‘We Are Witnessing Our Second Tech Bubble in 15 Years’. “ ‘There is a clear consensus that we are witnessing our second tech bubble in 15 years,’ said Mr. Einhorn.”

2015, TechCrunch -- The Tech Industry is in Denial, but the Bubble is About to Burst. “The fact that we are in a tech bubble is in no doubt. . . The tech startup space at the moment resembles the story of the emperor with no clothes.”

2016 -- And now Trump thinks we’re in a tech bubble too, so maybe it’s true.

Housing in the Bay Area

Jerry Brown has proposed legislation that would allow a lot more housing to be built in the Bay Area, and hopefully significantly reduce the cost of housing here. More supply should lead to lower prices.

I believe that lowering the cost of housing is one of the most important things we can do to help people increase their quality of life and to reduce wealth inequality.

A huge part of the problem has been that building in the Bay Area is approved by discretion; even when developments comply with local zoning, they can still be vetoed or stalled by local planning commissions, lawsuits, or ballot measures.

This type of discretionary approval isn't common in most of the US, and Governor Brown's legislation helps align California with most states. His bill would make it so multi-family buildings are automatically approved by right as long as they comply with local zoning, and have 5-20% affordable units--the percentage depending on location and subsidy offered.

The bill is currently being debated in California's State Legislature as part of the upcoming annual budget, which will be voted on on June 15. If you'd like to help pass this bill, consider calling the members below, as well as the Governor, in support of the Budget Trailer Bill--it only takes a few minutes [1], and it will likely hinge on their support.



Assemblyman Phil Ting (SF): (916) 319-2019

Senator Mark Leno (SF): (916) 651-4011

Senator Kevin de León (Los Angeles): (916) 651-4024

Assemblyman Rendon (Los Angeles): (916) 319-2063

Governor Jerry Brown: (916) 445-2841


[1] Calling could actually make a difference -- when lawmakers are on the fence, legislative aides will tally how many pro-con calls they get for a bill. I've heard that some members have only received a few hundred 'con' calls so far, so there's real opportunity to make a powerful 'pro' impression.

Cruise

There is a long and sordid history of people coming out of the woodwork with bogus claims when huge amounts of money are on the line.  This has just happened to Cruise, which is run by my friend Kyle Vogt.  Cruise is a YC company, and I also personally invested in the company last year.

As detailed in a complaint filed by Kyle and Cruise, Jeremy Guillory collaborated with Kyle for a very short period early on in the life of Cruise.  I know that at least Kyle had been thinking about autonomous vehicles for quite some time, and I assume Jeremy had been too given all of the attention on the topic in the press about Google’s activities.  After a little over a month, Kyle and Jeremy parted ways.  This event happened more than two years ago, and well before the company had achieved much of anything. 

There is more detail in this footnote [1] if you’re curious, or you can read the complaint online here.

Jeremy is now claiming to Kyle that he should own a substantial amount of Cruise’s equity, and by doing so is interfering with the pending Cruise/GM merger.

Kyle made an extremely generous offer to settle this claim by offering to give Jeremy a lot of his own money. [2] In my opinion, Jeremy’s claim is completely baseless and opportunistic—it obviously comes at a bad time for the company with the merger still pending, and Kyle understandably wanted to avoid a protracted litigation.  Kyle has worked incredibly hard to settle this claim amicably, despite what I consider to be the obvious ridiculousness of it, and has done far more than I would have personally done under these circumstances.

Kyle and Cruise are now suing Jeremy for making a false equity claim.  It’s an incredible bummer these situations have to happen in the first place.  This is one of the least sensible professional situations I’ve ever been involved with, but unfortunately these situations are not uncommon.

I recognize that I place myself at risk talking about this, but it’s time that someone speaks publicly about situations like what is happening at Cruise.  And so I’ve decided to say something before the lawyers can stop me.  Even with this issue, both sides still expect the merger to close on schedule in Q2.


 

 

[1] Kyle and Jeremy applied to YC together but Jeremy left before the YC interview.  Neither took a salary, and Kyle was funding the company by himself at that point.

According to Kyle, Jeremy did not write any code or build any hardware during this exploratory period.  He did help find an office for the company.  At the point of Jeremy’s departure, neither he nor Kyle had signed employment agreements, stock agreements, or any documents of any sort with the company.  Even if Jeremy had signed a stock agreement, he wouldn’t have reached the standard 1-year cliff for founders to vest any equity.

Kyle told me that Jeremy would occasionally reach out to congratulate him on press about Cruise (for example, he reached out to congratulate Kyle on Cruise’s Series A), but he never asked for anything—until now, when, in my opinion, he saw an opportunity to make a ton of money.

[2] I was personally involved all day on Friday last week to try to help settle this claim.  Given the time pressure because of the pending merger, we had to set a Friday at 5 pm deadline for Kyle’s offer, which Jeremy let expire. 

Asana

I’m delighted to finally be investing in Asana, which I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

One of the things I’ve learned about companies is that 1) clear tasks and goals, 2) clearly communicated, and 3) with clear and frequent measurement are very important to success.  Most companies fail at all 3 of these, and they become more important as companies get bigger.  Asana is the best way to excel in these 3 areas.

“You make what you measure” is really true, and most companies don’t measure well at all.  I spend a lot of time talking to people who work at startups, and most employees feel like they don’t have a good sense of what specifically the company needs to get done and how all the tasks are going.  Better work tracking leads to better collaboration and better decision-making.

Another thing I’ve learned investing in startups is how important it is to have some users that really love a product (instead of liking it pretty much).  Asana has the level of product love that all great companies have in common.  As a small example, their recurring revenue has been incredibly sticky and more than doubled every year.

Asana is the kind of lever that could someday massively increase the productivity of hundreds of millions of people around the world.  There’s not only an opportunity for Asana to be a huge company, but also for Asana to materially increase the output for the planet—somewhat amazingly, software has not yet eaten this important part of the world. 

Finally, Asana has an incredible team that, as far as I can tell as an outsider, really believes in the mission and loves the work environment (the Glassdoor reviews, something I check before every late-stage investment, are among the best I’ve ever seen). 

These are all the ingredients that go into the development of an incredibly impactful and valuable company.  I’m very happy to be along for the ride.