I find myself agreeing with sama on this (if the facts are at all how he presented them, that is). But ...
I agree for moral reasons, not legal reasons. And despite the relative moral high ground that the startup world seems to occupy in business, morality != legality.
Morally, if things are as they seem from here, and someone completely left and checked out, having contributed essentially some whiteboarding and finding an office, then I'd feel that morally speaking they're owed some compensation but not necessarily equity.
However, legally, the principle you mention seems sound. And morals vary from person to person, which is one of the basic reasons societies need legal systems.
It seems kinda shocking that they never signed anything explicit about Jeremy's equity. But if they didn't, then yeah, maybe he has a case.
>having contributed essentially some whiteboarding and finding an office
reminded about that story of a guy painting a wall at a startup here around 10 years ago. Though the equity in that case was done in writing.
In the case of Cruise, without even going into detailed merits of the case - there are lawyers and judges for that after all - i think Cruise has simple question - go for less than 100% of $1B or go for the whole 100% of nothing. Do they honestly think that their half-baked system - at best practically equivalent to the system of an average Grand Challenge team 10 years ago - is really worth $1B? They got lucky that GM is that stupid, desperate and rich. Greed can scare easily that luck away.
I find myself agreeing with sama on this (if the facts are at all how he presented them, that is). But ...
I agree for moral reasons, not legal reasons. And despite the relative moral high ground that the startup world seems to occupy in business, morality != legality.
Morally, if things are as they seem from here, and someone completely left and checked out, having contributed essentially some whiteboarding and finding an office, then I'd feel that morally speaking they're owed some compensation but not necessarily equity.
However, legally, the principle you mention seems sound. And morals vary from person to person, which is one of the basic reasons societies need legal systems.
It seems kinda shocking that they never signed anything explicit about Jeremy's equity. But if they didn't, then yeah, maybe he has a case.