When company M was raising series A, it pitched this VC, who passed. Months later, a competitor launches with identical business plan, identical website, even similar content (text and style of M's emails to customers were copied). Guess who rival CEO is? Son of the VC who passed! And of course, rival's investor is the same VC:
http://avc.com/2015/01/ethics-and-morals/
Again, another case of when naming names would be great, so the rest of us know who to avoid.
<p>Wouldn't be surprised if it were MI Ventures out of NY. They basically faked interest in us to do recon for one of their investments, which was a direct compete. Totally shady.</p>
What asswipes. Pro tip: next time, at least do a blog post series under the growthhackers/lessons learnt/stats from our funding/other theme, where you innocently mention how you were totally surprised how VC X who acted interested asked for detailed info passed on you but invested in company Y instead. Oh, and ohmygosh, look how Y has the same plan as us, including that weird word/typo we made up, etc. You get the point.
Bonus: Try to speak at least a few big meetups, where you refer indirectly to this incident and make yourself available after for questions so you can name names in person to those who ask. If the mofos try to threaten you, blog+tweet some more for max shaming while gaining more sympathy for yourself. At the same time, call EFF, ACLU, etc and start asking about lawyers just in case - the blogging/tweeting comes in use because you'll probably get offers of free legal as a result.
Thank you for the heads up. Want to avoid these guys at all costs (no pun intended). Sorry you had to go through this. Alas!
ethics and business are no longer together so whatever happened ended up making Fred the receiver of the bitch slap, which is something he probably has been in a while
Fred Wilson preaching ethics is like the US federal government preaching human rights
I know we are not supposed to feed the trolls, but sometimes it scratches an itch.
Business and ethics can work together. And you are free to choose your partners, suppliers and customers. If you value ethic, I mean really, not just lip service, you can make ethical business. I do. And I know many people who do. And I don't have contacts with people who don't. It is not that difficult: simply don't stay in touch with unethical people. It's really easy because they always prefer to be with their peers than with honest businessmen. If you don't look like one of their peers, they will go elsewhere.
+1
You're misusing the term "troll". In this case, the commenter is expressing an opinion, albeit a negative one. You chose to express an optimistic post.
Neither post is better than the other, although the negative one is probably more truthful and less self-deceiving