Startup bro tries to sabotage academic researcher’s lecture, researcher gets even by jumping on board with his competitor: ‘Now he’s going out of business’

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 25, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Startups can be notoriously challenging work environments. What might appear to be fun, creative, and cutting edge at first can reveal itself to be something entirely different and more toxic over time. Perhaps all the perks, benefits, and seemingly flexible work hours are not worth it when push comes to shove and when those in charge have to start delivering results to their investors.

In this instance, we have a startup CEO, who was holding an unnecessary grudge against a well-respected academic researcher for winning a prestigious prize that the CEO himself lost a few years prior. It got to the point where the CEO crashed a Zoom lecture that the researcher was hosting, infiltrating the public comments with unnecessarily harsh remarks. So when the opportunity came for the researcher to get even with the CEO, he did it far more covertly and managed to ruin the CEO's entire business and career in the process.

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  • This CEO didn’t know what was coming. The researcher found a way to make the CEO’s business product better and cheaper, but he decided to share his experiments with a competitor in the market. Long story short: that competitor quickly began to take over the entire field, leaving the CEO completely unable to compete. One has to wonder if he ever figured out who was behind this…

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    I'm an academic researcher. I won this tech competition last year and started getting h☐ mail from a startup bro from my country who was probably just jealous because his
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    team hadn't even made it to the finals of the same competition three years ago (just my guess). He was now the CEO of a growing startup.
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    The content of the h☐ mail was usually just insults mixed with explaining that I wasn't really good in my field and didn't deserve any acclaim. It hit the fan when he
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    actually made the effort to attend a Zoom lecture of mine to hurl insults in the comments. That was embarrassing.
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    I wanted revenge in a way that would prove my merit as well. I ordered his company's product (a special water filtration apparatus) and made some neat improvements to it which made it much cheaper. I found one of his close competitors who operates in the same region,
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    and gave the product to them in exchange for a payment and an advisory position. This was also a small company that was neck-and- neck with the dude who was ha me.
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    It's been one year and the competitor has almost fully dominated the market. I haven't announced my affiliation with the competitor yet but I'm about to. I wish I can see his reaction live when he finds out I helped the competitor.
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    save_the_bees_knees. 6 hr. ago Nice! But seriously how do people have the energy to actively harass strangers. I barely have the energy to get out of bed most days.
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    FairyPenguinStKilda - 8 hr. ago Playing 4 D chess when the other person is still learning the colours in checkers. Well done
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    walnut creek • 5 hr. ago Your New company should make an offer to buy the adversary at a liquidation price. Only announce your affiliation AFTER he agrees
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    to sell. Keep the adversary employed at the new company in some job that you control- "Sam! My pencils need sharpening and my keyboard is dusty!"
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    4_Legged_Baby 8 hr. ago My respects, you did your diligence and check-mate. You're playing chess while they are lagging in checkers.
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    HappySparklyUnicorn 8 hr. ago I have to ask this doesn't violate any of their patents does it?
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    Salahuddin Ayyubi_1 OP 8 hr. ago The process it open- source. I removed and replaced the proprietary part. Was very careful about it.
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    . LavaPoppyJax 6 hr. ago I'd say it's quite a bit more than petty revenge.
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    sam_richter 3 hr. ago You might consider not announcing it. There is nothing positive that you can gain other than feeling good. There is, however,
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    potential negatives including continued harassment or even a lawsuit (which it sounds like he would lose but defending yourself could
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    cost a lot of money and take a huge amount of time). If it were me, I would secretly enjoy my revenge every time I deposited a check and other than sharing with a couple of close friends - leave it at that.
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    t4b4rn4ck 3 hr. ago hilarious but that guy sounds completely unhinged, i wouldnt want to be looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life
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workplace-stories startup toxic-workplace petty-revenge-reddit work petty revenge petty entitled people karma entitled entitled people
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