(Maybe it's just me being overly... I don't know the word, but overly something...:)<p>> And It’s funny to see those comments on a site titled “HackerNews.”<p>It's as if he's trying to guilt people here into thinking "oh, that's true! Startups have to disrupt! Therefore it's okay for him to fuck with stuff because he's a startup! It's okay!". Which to me is really really lame. Let people form their own opinions.<p>The social experiment was people giving to others, for the experiment succeed it required people to pay it forward, for it to fail it'd require people to <i>not</i> pay it forward, based on Jonathan's reply[1] to the entire situation I think it's pretty clear there was never the intention or expectation that someone asshat would come along and take all the money.<p>Why they're still trying to justify this and won't just accept they shit all over something good is beyond me, maybe they're that desperate for publicity that this is all they can do. Grasping at every last second.<p>[1]: <a href="http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/08/13/an-open-letter-to-sam-odio/" rel="nofollow">http://jonathanstark.com/blog/2011/08/13/an-open-letter-to-s...</a>
It doesn't matter if Sam is donating the money to charity. Fact is that he stole money from kind-hearted people who thought they were buying coffee for others. Like I said in the other comments, you wouldn't rob a bank and then try to make up for it by donating all that money to charity, right?
> <i>Sam took a social experiment and ran a social experiment on it.</i><p>I think the general consensus is, "Want to run an experiment? Great! Get your own."