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The 7 Dumbest Startup Decisions You Could Ever Make (And The Idiots Who Keep Making Them)

This article is more than 9 years old.

The Silicon Valley controversy of the week started when Uber executive Emil Michael told Buzzfeed's Ben Smith about a company plan to dig into the private lives of journalists who criticize Uber. But the amazing thing isn't that Uber would make such a mistake -- it's that this is just the latest in a long line of poor choices by the rideshare company.

And so, it seems prudent to use this opportunity to impart a few words of wisdom to other would-be tech icons who are just founding their first startup. The following is a list of things you should never ever do. They may seem like good ideas, but believe us, you'll only end up hurting yourself, your investors, and your customers.

Without further ado, the seven dumbest startup decisions you could ever make:

1. Found A Dark Web Drug Marketplace -- Bitcoin is cool. But your Amazon-for-illegal-stuff isn't. The FBI will catch you, as they did for the founders of Silk Road and Silk Road 2.0, because they have the time and resources to exploit every mistake you made (and you made plenty) trying to cover your tracks. If you're launching Silk Road 3.0 now, the FBI is certainly already on to you. Plus, those ill-gotten gains aren't going to get you far. The alleged "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ross Ulbricht had to hide what he was doing even from his closest friends.

2. Screw Over Your Fratty Cofounders -- Fraternity brothers have a history of founding social networks. Yet for some reason, these startups often forget about brotherly love. This week, anonymous message board app Yik Yak was sued by a former frat brother of the app's two founders who alleges he was cut out of the company. Sound familiar? Perhaps that's because Snapchat's cofounders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy recently settled a similar lawsuit from their old Stanford Kappa Sigma fraternity brother Reggie Brown.

3. Screw Over Your Non-Fratty Cofounders -- No Greek life connection? Still, don't try to eliminate one of your social network cofounders. For example, if you're Mark Zuckerberg you may end up portrayed as a cold, petty, and sexist hacker in an award-winning movie. Or, worse, a lawsuit could end with you, Sean Rad, kicked out of your company entirely. Stealing is wrong and there are always consequences. Don't do it.

4. Be Sexist -- Tinder managed to pull off the rare double move of screwing over a cofounder while also sexually harassing her. But plenty of other things should be avoided too. No booth babes. No all-male board of directors. No joking about calling your company "Boob-er." No advertising "hot chick" drivers. No speculating that a murderer's sister might be “smokin’ hot.” And so many more incidents we can't even count them all. Treat people respectfully: it's not difficult.

5. Threaten Journalists With Digging Up Dirt On Their Personal Lives -- Uber again, obviously. If you're a big company with the ability to attack your detractors, you're also big enough to ignore them. That's the better path.

6. Fiddle With Anyone's Privacy -- If you're an app built on anonymity, this should be obvious. But apparently it's not. Whisper, for example, showed the Guardian how it tracks supposedly anonymous contributors at places as sensitive as the White House. Uber, unsurprisingly, has also apparently tracked its users without their consent. No matter how great your plan to monetize localization is, we don't want to be followed around by the apps we use every day. It's creepy.

7. Generally Act Like You Own Everything -- A catch-all category with one message: don't be  jerk. Your company is small and new and even though it seems like you're about to disrupt an entire industry and become a billionaire (or even if you already are), don't use that as an excuse to kick local kids off a soccer field or the like.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list. We haven't even gotten to the crime of removing random vowels from your startup's name to sound cooler. But in all seriousness, use common sense and engage in basic human decency. That's always a good place to start if you don't want to end up among this group of infamous idiots.

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