<story><title>StabilityAI cofounder says CEO tricked him into selling stake for $100</title><url>https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/07/13/stability-ai-cofounder-says-emad-mostaque-tricked-him-into-selling-stake-for-100/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>Odd story.  The point at which you&amp;#x27;re selling your stake for $100, you&amp;#x27;ve basically decided to give it away.  Which raises the question: if he was just going to get $100 and nothing more, why not just hang on to it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>oldtownroad</author><text>The lawsuit accuses the CEO of being a shady person in general. I think it’s plausible that the co-founder was surrendering equity he thought worthless (to move on from working with the shady person) and perhaps the CEO was advised by someone that a transaction without consideration can be challenging to defend (since he allegedly knew he was lying to the co-founder) so he convinced the co-founder that “for tax purposes, if I pay you $100 for the equity, it’ll be better for you as you can write the loss off” or something along those lines, something that wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny now but is enough to bamboozle someone into agreeing at the time.&lt;p&gt;Edit: no theory needed. The lawsuit goes on to say the $100 is the price the co-founder originally paid for the shares when the company was formed.</text></comment>
<story><title>StabilityAI cofounder says CEO tricked him into selling stake for $100</title><url>https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2023/07/13/stability-ai-cofounder-says-emad-mostaque-tricked-him-into-selling-stake-for-100/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>khazhoux</author><text>Odd story.  The point at which you&amp;#x27;re selling your stake for $100, you&amp;#x27;ve basically decided to give it away.  Which raises the question: if he was just going to get $100 and nothing more, why not just hang on to it?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cabaalis</author><text>Hanging onto stock from a company I co-founded a few years ago has caused me tons of stress because that company constantly files for tax extensions forcing me to do so as well.&lt;p&gt;I have other financial processes which rely upon timely processing of my completed tax filing, and every year it causes me trouble. So if something is thought to be worthless and about to fold, &amp;quot;just hang onto it&amp;quot; could cause a non-zero amount of headaches.</text></comment>