I once was an intern in a venture capital funded startup where the CEO decided to hold most of the companies cash in Bitcoin. I think it was in early 2014 or so, when the price fell like mad and he was in deep shit. Im not sure if anybody up to that date knew about the Bitcoin investment. He was a nervous wreck. Close to suicide. For about a week, he brought a stuffed animal into the office every day. And carried it around wherever he went. He said it calms him down.
During that time, he crashed his $80,000 Mercedes SLK badly and broke up with his girlfriend.
When the price rose again, he sold it all. And made a profit! The company survived to this day. Last I heard is that he is invested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies again.
I once was an intern in a VC funded company where we had a table tennis table in the hall. One of the rockstar programmers was so annoyed by the sound, that he brought his drummkit and declared "noisewar" on the table tennis posse.
The CEO was a 22 year old kid and instead of telling the team to work like normal citizens, he countered the situation by bringing a 200w ghettoblaster. Playing Slayer and Napalm Death while he worked.
Surprisingly, the company survived to this day. But we all would have benefited big time from something like AeroTennis, AeroDrums and AeroBlast at that time.
I once was an intern in a company that wanted to rewrite the whole Reddit code in .net. The founder was a charming person and managed to raise a huge pile of money. "We can redo this with current technology and elegant design! We will run circles around Reddit!".
We had a great time. Free snacks, lot's of parties, luxurious office furniture, skateboarding in the hall... In the end, the company ran out of money before the product reached a useful state.
Good times. It has been some time since then and I have a "normal" job now. Last thing I heard about the founder is that he started a new vc backed company destined to run circles around something.
I once was an intern in a startup where the founder one day decided we all shall stop using computers one day a week. I could tell a dozen funny stories that arose from it.
You know, it where the golden 90s. Startups did all kind of crazy stuff. Paint their walls pink and what not. We had the wildest parties. The CEO often brought in a bunch of prostitutes and hired well known DJs.
The days of the week with the "no computer" rule slowed down things unbelievably. And has been abandoned after the founder has been kicked out of his own company. To my surprise, it did not kill the company. The company strives on to this day.
During that time, he crashed his $80,000 Mercedes SLK badly and broke up with his girlfriend.
When the price rose again, he sold it all. And made a profit! The company survived to this day. Last I heard is that he is invested in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies again.