I’m getting a lot of requests these days for information on and help with shareholder agreements, so I thought a post explaining what they are and how they work would be helpful.

Background

But before I start, I’d like to introduce you to two guys I suspect wish they’d had a shareholder agreement in place when they created their company: Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster, two of the three early shareholders of Craigslist. As I understand the case, the third shareholder decided to leave the company, and sold his shares to eBay. As far as I can tell, there was no shareholder agreement in place at the time, and so there was no transfer restriction on his shares, and presumably Craig and Jim had no right of first refusal to buy those shares before they were sold to eBay (I have no idea whether they would have bought them, but I assume so). Google “eBay Craigslist lawsuit” to see the (very expensive) results. Good times. For the lawyers. For Craig and Jim, not so much, I’m guessing.

(Incidentally, Jim keynoted mesh07 and was one of our favourite keynotes ever, and a very gracious guest.) (Read more)

It’s been about a year since we launched #HoHoTo. Last year this community raised about $25,000 for the Daily Bread Food Bank at our inaugural holiday party, and in the summer version (HoHOTo) raised another $15,000 or so.

This season our goal is $40,000 and the team has been working furiously to make it. And they will. They will, in short, because of the extraordinary support we’ve received from this community. Support from sponsors like Fused Network, which (without being asked) pledged to donate money received from new customer accounts, made an eye-popping outright donation, and has now raised the bar again by pledging to donate money for each pound of food donated at the door on December 16 – thanks @DavidAndGoliath! Support from sponsors like Molson’s, which rolled up its sleeves last year by helping us to get over the $25K mark and has returned again as an Elf Sponsor this year (thanks @molsontonia and @molsonferg!!). Support from The Mod Club, which has once again donated the venue for free. Support from so many other cash and in-kind sponsors we’ve lost count (see the site for the list). Support from our friends who will come and join us on December 16 with bags of donated food. Support from our friends in the military who will come on December 17 and cart away the more than a ton of food that will be collected. And support from the many people who will come to the party and carry on ’til we finally shut it down, reluctantly, gratefully – until we do it again. (Read more)