@altgate

Ethics Test

Here’s a hypothetical situation.  You’ve been working with a VC for a while.  You’ve gotten through a lot of business diligence and there’s one last pitch to the partnership before you get a thumbs up/down on getting a term sheet.  The CEO and head of sales are able to attend in person, but you (founder) have a scheduling conflict so you are participating by phone.

The pitch goes off okay.  You can hear the meeting winding up with your team mates leaving the conference room when all of the sudden, the VC partners immediately jump into a vigorous discussion of the merits of the presentation, team, company and whether they should offer to invest.  It’s clear that they do not realize you are still on the line and they have no real way of finding out if you are or are not.

What do you do?

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Categorised as: Startups

  • none of the above

    What about C) none of the above, and speak up (you are on the line, right?) and tell them you are still listening and if they would like to terminate the call, or meant to include you?

  • Matt

    Hang up.

  • http://yudkowsky.net/ Eliezer Yudkowsky

    I generally consider myself to have pretty strong ethics, but in this case I might be overwhelmed by temptation to stay on the line, just because there’s no other possible way to get such incredibly valuable information about my own company. If they started discussing proprietary information or business secrets, I’d hang up.

  • http://www.adhack.com James

    I agree with C: speak up. And when speaking up make it clear you would be glad to address any of the concerns you have just overheard.
    These are folks who are (potentially) trusting you with a bag of money. If you’re not trustworthy with a conference-call logistics slip up, can you be trusted with an investment when offered temptation?
    Most importantly, I think you’ll respect yourself for it. And that’s who you have to work with the rest of your career.