EP45 - Legal Master Baiter
I'm a humble founder of a startup worth $1B.
My legal department has a budget of $10 million a month.
You see me overspending on my defense and you think im crazy.
I dont think you understand.
This isn't my legal budget. It's my marketing and R&D budget combined.
We don't launch lawsuits to win in court. We launch them to win the market.
How??
Every trivial patent claim is a denial-of-service attack on a competitor's leadership.
Their CEO isn't steering the ship -- he's in a 12-hour court case every day.
Their best engineers aren't innovating -- they are searching old emails trying to find proof against my charges.
I bleed them of their most valuable resource -- focus.
But here's my real genius -- the discovery process.
To defend themselves, they are legally compelled to hand me their secrets.
Financial projections. Customer data. Internal strategy documents. Sexual harrassment accusations.
They pay their own lawyers to gift-wrap their entire playbook for me.
Why pay for corporate espionage when a subpoena does it for you?
You see a lawsuit. I see a mandatory, competitor-funded market analysis.
I'm not spending $10m to fight a battle. I'm investing $10m to bankrupt their will to exist.
Thats how I earned the humble title of The Master Baiter.
Follow me for more financial advice.
Context
This is why you see big companies just patent everything, domain squat everything, and sue everyone for inconsequential things.
When you have too much money, having more of it wouldn't help you.
What you mean you should spend them on stock buybacks? Dividends?
Screw the shareholders. Spending on lawsuits have asymetric returns.
Besides, no one forbids you from spending on your lawyer friend's firm.
There is a lot of ways you can play this game.