Don’t know John Pratt?
Don’t worry, we didn’t either until today when he opened up a little bitchfest on the BarCampLA Google group. The exchange was funny enough to make HackerNews under the title “How not to promote your new startup“. Certainly an appropriate title if you take a few moments from your busy day to follow the train wreck.
Pratt starts by telling his side of the story surrounding the recent failure of his company Fundable.com. We aren’t sure exactly what they did, but it sounds like they helped startups get funded or throw parties or something. I couldn’t be bothered to do much research, plus their site appears to be offline. Actually Pratt has it redirected to his new venture, something about cell phones for hippies.
BarCampLA founder Sean Bonner had some issue with Pratt’s posting. Not just because Sean is literally too cool to be marketed to but because it just seemed out of place for the BarcampLA Group. It’s also really bad form to trash a former colleague while trying to promote your latest thing. Pratt started it off by responding with:
Sean, what have you even accomplished? No one cares what you think.
You are a troll.
-John
Prompting Citrusbyte’s Will Jessup to add:
Holy crap – Don’t even respond. Who can ban this asshole from the list?
From there the conversation degraded to the point you might expect. However it seems that few extra nasty messages were held for moderation and not posted to the group. We’ve obtained copies of some of these emails and pulled out some of the more entertaining rants:
From Pratt to Jessup:
Great Will, you learned how to link to web pages with poor journalism. I would say most blogs consist of poor, unethical journalism. Is it a coincidence that NONE of those writers e-mailed me to get my side of the story or even ask what happened.
Mary Robinette’s project was VERY suspicious and looked completely like fraud. Over 90% of her donations were made in her name. The project was flagged for deletion. For whatever reason, it didn’t get deleted.
Guess who did e-mail me to ask what was going on? A New York Times writer.
Do you know why? Because he is a professional. That book, “Cult of the Amateur” sounds apt right now.
Anything that comes out of Cory Doctorow’s mouth goes right into your brain, doesn’t it?
From Pratt to Bonner:
You’re still a troll. Your accusation of “douchebaggery” is unjustified.
You should be on my side. I am one of the few individuals on this list who has significant experience starting a web startup from scratch and getting major media attention, such as NPR Marketplace. There are a few others on here that I know.
Organizing the first Barcamp event is a good thing, but I don’t have much patience for you when you attack me after I explain the emotional turmoil of 4-year startup that crashed and burned.
Maybe you like to watch it like a celebrity entering rehab. “What a loser!!”
From Pratt to who knows, perhaps his defense attorney:
I don’t care what you think, if you haven’t noticed. I do whatever the fuck I want.
Thanks for joining us for Great Moments in Google Groups, till next time.
