I'll say one. I was on a phone call with Jonathan from Binary Capital when they were looking at an investment in a company I am investor in. They were pushing overly onerous terms, and were changing the original terms that had been agreed upon, including requiring the founders to revest 100% of their vested options/equity despite being multiple years into the company building journey.
The company was at a low point and Binary was trying to squeeze them. Now the company is flying, and Binary missed out. The entire experience made me feel compelled to caution to every entrepreneur who has approached me about working with them since, including another who did, and now regrets it for other reasons.
I understand, and being ignored is okay. If someone affected by them sees this, they may feel empowered to step forward. I'd feel wrong putting names, situations, etc. out there, but the fact of the matter is, this isn't the end of this drama.
Do you expect this is voluntary scape-goating as a distraction for worse things? If so, what are these worse things. To me, the statement read as sincere.
Gillian Morris, Co-founder and CEO of Hitlist, left this comment on The Information's original article [1]:
> I’ve never met Justin but can attest that his questionable behavior extends past allegations of sexual harassment.
> In early 2016, I spoke with Jonathan Teo, Justin’s partner at Binary, about funding Hitlist, my company. In the course of due diligence, I sent bios of the key engineers on my team. Justin approached my star iOS engineer and attempted to poach him to join one of Binary’s portfolio companies.
> There’s something rotten about a firm that holds out the promise of funding while secretly trying to poach your employees. (aside: I’m not sure if Jonathan had anything to do with this and have had nothing but pleasant, professional interactions with him).
This is an absurd accusation. I've seen plenty of VCs try to recruit developers of companies that they've met with or even invested in. The Valley is tiny and it happens all the time. Moreover, not all this information is communicated to every partner, especially as it relates to seed deals.
