It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
I understand not wanting to share specifics. Thanks for sharing your experience, your good wishes and your offer of advice.
At this point I think I am done thinking about this for the day. If I come back to this I will definitely reply to your latest comment to ask for advice. (Wish HN had private messaging).
Just to clarify, I did not "discuss" potential issues with hiding a kickback. When I mentioned that his employer may not allow his "consulting" with us, he rattled off a bunch of ways he could hide it and I responded by asking him to check the legality of it. To any sane person the message that I did not want to do this would have been obvious. The fact that he ignored it tells me that he thought he could bulldoze me into paying him (because he does not seem dumb).
What I precisely told him, and I was careful about this, was that he should investigate the legality of doing this and I would discuss the same with my by the book partner. I wasn't clear about his in the original text, but my survival instincts did kick in and I remember telling him this precisely.
Further thinking has left me wondering how he would have responded to a simple "Sorry buddy, don't take it personally but we can't do that. How's the steak?". It may have been the better thing to do. But if he had continued bulldozing it would have ended up in a similar place.
As an aside, I have never paid even for a coffee for a government employee who is a potential customer. It is not that I do not know the rules. I just wish I had been more familiar with the playground and had thought about what I would do in a situation like this beforehand. Hopefully this will serve as an opportunity to do that for other entrepreneurs who read this.
The point about organizations is a good one. I will look them up. The advice to be very careful is also on the money. I appreciate it and will do so. Certainly, one of the things worrying me is that he might not be alone.
At this point I do not care about the sale. As I mentioned elsewhere, having to 'manage' this person without paying him a dime is going to be a task. It's not like I can bar him from meetings. I will be dead before he sees a rusty penny from us though.
There are other concerns, outlined in my other comments. Doing anything has implications on people other than myself. And an anonymous tip, while not the most surefire way of getting this guy caught, is also an approach to doing the right thing.
My cofounder is a solid guy. I would trust him with my life. So I have already shared this with him.
The advice to get a lawyer is sound though. Unfortunately we don't have a lot of money and what money we do, we would prefer to pay our handful of employees with. We are not profitable.
But I do have some friends who went to law school. So I'll ask a friend pro bono.
As you can imagine, any legal step would be a huge distraction, and as a startup that really hurts us.
I am going to write it down. I will have to think a lot and come to an agreement with my partner before I can decide to talk non-anonymously to the authorities.
Already briefed my partner. Calling him again in a few minutes.
Calling the FBI is tricky. I don't have any proof and as a small company, I would prefer not to have a scandal (even with us on the right side of it) be our first introductiion to the rest of the small community. In essence, what I am saying is doing the perfectly right thing would hurt us.
I am thinking seriously about anonymously reporting this though. I don't know if that even works but at least I can say I tried.
Now you have me worried. If I did not offer him anything, how could I be held responsible for colluding with him?
I understand the risk of being painted with the same brush. This is all the more infuriating because there are other people, more senior than him at this organization who seemed enthusiastic about the project.
Having thought about this a bit, I feel like if I had turned a cold shoulder to his proposal to work for us in the future, he would have been discouraged about it. I could also have communicated in some other way that we work by the book.
At least then, we would have had the chance of working with other (possibly non corrupt) people in the organization to get our project through. I mean there are other people there who are enthusiastic about it.
Anyway, that's just me ranting. Thank you for your words.
The dilemma is clearly between the larger good and my selfish interest in not seeing my company hurt. The industry we operate in is very narrow and while losing thus customer alone would hurt us a lot, having someone there say negative things about us could destroy us. I have already written off this customer, because if nothing else, the stress of having to manage a corrupt person while not indulging in corruption is not worth whatever money we make off them. But we would prefer to not get vilified in the industry because of someone else's character flaws.
I will find out about how to anonymously report this. I am thinking I could do it at least after a few months so at the very least it's not obvious who did it.
I once flew both legs of a return flight with a foot long knife in my bag. I had put it in there while moving and forgotten all about it. Didn't empty the bag at my destination and never found out.
When I emptied my bags after coming home, I had one of biggest "oh shit, phew!" moments of my life, accompanied by visions of Guantanamo.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.