"Berkshire Hathaway" itself, the original company, was a textile manufacturer. Warren Buffet said this was a terrible business because what would be profit margins would just have to be re-invested in the company to upgrade the production capacity to keep up with competitors.
Solomon Brothers also comes to mind as one referred to by Warren as a "mistake."
indeed. as an employee, you have a price. you have expectations. as an entrepreneur you have a dream. some entrepreneurs sell out and relinquish their dream. maybe they find a new one. others will never sell out, as a matter of principle. they are uncompromising in that regard.
Roughly it will take about a year minimum of lawyering until the argument reaches the desk of a judge. Especially since patents are federal cases. You have prepare arguments, answer all requests, prove jurisdiction, etc and take depositions of everything. A partners time is north of 500$ an hour that adds up verrry quickly when you have a team working for you
Well that sounds really harsh. Can't you just try to do most of it yourself instead of paying someone $500/hr? I mean you are innocent until proven guilty.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a principle from criminal law. In the US, I believe that principle does not apply directly to civil law. A lawyer will have to explain if there is any mapping at all.
But, regarding the do-it-yourself-part, no, not really. First, the amount of work you have to do is a full-time job. Most people already have a full-time job, so it's not an option to deal with a civil case full-time. Second, there are many rules and regulations that a lay-person will just not know. It's not feasible for them to deal with a civil suit on their own. And, unlike criminal cases, in the US, you have no right to a lawyer for civil cases.
Not a lawyer (though at some point I should just say screw it and go to law school), but there's really no mapping as far as I know.
One of the things to remember about civil lawsuits are that the parties are generally treated as if they are on equal footing, and the standard of proof is "preponderance of the evidence", rather than "beyond reasonable doubt".
The criminal justice system is setup to mitigate the advantage of the government over the accused in a case that could result in loss of freedom (or even loss of life). The civil "justice" system is there to resolve disputes between theoretically equal parties in cases that mostly come down to money.
In practice, of course, our adversarial system gets thrown completely out of whack by that same money, but for the moment, the law is what it is.
Arguably he failed at Apple too (the first time around).
Another lesson to take from Steve's experience: the bigger the impact your startup is likely to make, the greater the chance it will fail. That might seem quite counterintuitive at first. Certainly, if there's a market and the demand is there, then success should be forthcoming, right?
Except if the problem is unsolved, it's probably unsolved for a reason. I'm reminded of something I read (I believe it was from "Germs, Guns, and Steel", but I don't have it to reference): invention is the mother of necessity! Safe startups give people something they already want. Great startups give people something they didn't even know they needed.
But humans are dumb animals. The first three times you show them something better, they'll turn their backs. So the more important your work is, the more likely you are to fail, and fail, and fail again. It's not you, it's just human nature.
