<story><title>Cruise</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/cruise</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>morgante</author><text>I cannot fathom why the majority of commentators here are automatically agreeing with Sam that Jeremy is in the wrong.&lt;p&gt;If you look at the facts, it seems obvious that Jeremy is entitled to some compensation. He worked for the company for 1 month, without compensation. That would automatically entitle him to equity in the company. Now, they could have (and should have) signed a stock agreement with a cliff in it, but the &lt;i&gt;did not&lt;/i&gt;. The cliff only exists &lt;i&gt;if&lt;/i&gt; they agree to it.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what Jeremy is asking for, but it seems like he should absolutely be entitled to some equity. He never agreed to give up the equity he earned from working on it for a month.&lt;p&gt;I suppose this underscores the importance of having legal agreements with anyone who works on your company, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; anyone you jointly apply to programs with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cookiecaper</author><text>Yeah, somewhat surprisingly, I find myself sympathizing with Jeremy in this situation (which is not necessarily to say he is in the right; we have very few actual details about the case, so all opinion is fueled purely on personal bias and not on the actual facts, which could substantially change the commentary).&lt;p&gt;Everyone else in SV, especially guys like sama, is making money hand over fist for doing practically nothing. Sometimes it feels very bad when you&amp;#x27;re not part of the group collecting free money. I know I feel left out sometimes and wonder I&amp;#x27;m not out there nourishing my own magical unicorn that hemorrhages investor money as fast as it gets it while simultaneously being lauded as a visionary. I haven&amp;#x27;t pursued that because I don&amp;#x27;t feel it&amp;#x27;s moral to run a company the way SV people run companies, but my moral reservations have been proven naive before.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s completely plausible that Jeremy left for a legitimate reason and it&amp;#x27;s completely plausible that although he was only there a short time, he contributed substantially to the roadmap that took Cruise to acquisition. He should receive some compensation for that, if that is indeed the case. Even if he only did it for a month, it&amp;#x27;s a lot more than the VCs do. Why is Sam Altman entitled to money from this company but a cofounder who worked for one month isn&amp;#x27;t? I understand the legal argument that ensures sama will make money on this no matter how much or little one believes he may deserve it, but what about the moral argument that the people who contributed to and built the actual product should be entitled to the majority of its profits?&lt;p&gt;I guess it just feels bad that Sam Altman feels the need to come out and &amp;quot;defend&amp;quot; a Cruise cofounder&amp;#x27;s right to deprive another cofounder of some at least semi-legitimately earned equity. Jeremy definitely came closer to the startup lottery in this one than most of us will, and Altman, who controls the startup lottery, doesn&amp;#x27;t want to let him get anything (because he and his compatriots want it for themselves instead).</text></comment>
<story><title>Cruise</title><url>http://blog.samaltman.com/cruise</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>morgante</author><text>I cannot fathom why the majority of commentators here are automatically agreeing with Sam that Jeremy is in the wrong.&lt;p&gt;If you look at the facts, it seems obvious that Jeremy is entitled to some compensation. He worked for the company for 1 month, without compensation. That would automatically entitle him to equity in the company. Now, they could have (and should have) signed a stock agreement with a cliff in it, but the &lt;i&gt;did not&lt;/i&gt;. The cliff only exists &lt;i&gt;if&lt;/i&gt; they agree to it.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea what Jeremy is asking for, but it seems like he should absolutely be entitled to some equity. He never agreed to give up the equity he earned from working on it for a month.&lt;p&gt;I suppose this underscores the importance of having legal agreements with anyone who works on your company, &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; anyone you jointly apply to programs with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>flyosity</author><text>Can I ask why Jeremy would be entitled to anything since nothing was ever signed? If Kyle had a verbal agreement with Jeremy to pay him X or give him Y equity in exchange for the work he did, I don&amp;#x27;t see that in Sam&amp;#x27;s post or in the complaint that was filed. Without a signed agreement nor a verbal agreement, why would the courts give Jeremy anything?</text></comment>