Thanks and No Thanks: surprised by the generosity of some and the lack of same by others

generosity-and-greed.gifAs you might imagine, 2007 ended on a pretty down note for me having lost my best friend just a few weeks before the end of the year. Add to this the fact that I’m out basically around $40,000 that I’m owed for the work and accrued travel expenses from the Blognation debacle and the manipulation and theivery of Sam Sethi and you can understand my rather glum demeanor.

The one silver lining – if there was one – was the truly remarkable generosity of people that so kindly donated funds to help Marc Orchant’s family out during what can only be described as a truly impossibly painful time.

As anyone that has been monitoring this site knows, I have kept an updated list of the people that have made donations via the PayPal donation link on this blog and the various links from other blogs to the donate pages here.

There were however, in addition to these donations, several companies that deserved special mention for being more than honorable in their generosity where none was required.

A big thank you to TJ, Jonathan and the folks at ThinkFree who in a real show of class did the right thing and honored Marc’s contract to the end.

Another note of huge appreciation to the folks at The David Allen Company. You guys demonstrated exactly why Marc was so pleased to have been a part of your team.

Of course I want to once again tell all those that gave so generously how deeply what you did has been appreciated by Marc’s family. Especially in the first weeks immediately after Marc passed your kindness made a very real difference which will never be forgotten.

As I said in the title, I was surprised by the generosity of so many but at the same time, I was also surprised by the fact that certain individuals were so notably absent from making any show of support not the least of which would have been a small monetary contribution that was badly needed and which in general would have been largely insignificant to certain people.

I’ll refrain from naming names, as I’m sure that these folks know who they are but just to be sure I’ll point out a couple of the key qualities of those so disappointingly missing from the list.

In particular, there are two people who have been enormously successful for whom Marc had been a key employee. I’d have thought that both of these men could have made a meaningful contribution. Even a substantial one wouldn’t have amounted to a day’s worth of interest on their respective bank accounts yet apparently they got rich and stay rich by keeping every cent. Thanks but no thanks.

Mr. Sam Sethi (okay, I said I wasn’t going to name names but this creep who owes Marc’s family so much money couldn’t even make good on one dollar of the debt) – don’t worry Scammy Sammy…I’m coming for you via the UK courts and it’s gonna be a party when I come to town.

The vast majority of the current blognation crew. You guys just suck. Marc edited your posts (particularly one blogger who had no business blogging in English considering it wasn’t a langauge he really spoke let alone could write in) and another that got to travel to events on Marc’s dime but couldn’t be bothered to contribute a penny to his family. (in my eyes he’s the definition of pathetic for many reasons least of all this one)

And thanks but no thanks to a few others that made such open shows of emotional trauma at the loss of their friend, Marc, but who couldn’t be bothered to find the paypal link and make some small gesture to help out where it was needed and would have made a difference.

If you made the list above and you know it for shame. Marc would have done better by you and in basically every case, he already had in one way or another. Particularly those of you so well-heeled (and in part because of Marc’s efforts on your behalf) you should be ashamed. Such a lack of generosity is – as Marc would have put it – profoundly broken- and I hope you read this and feel truly cruddy for being so unrelentingly greedy in your life. I really hope that karmic debt exists and you’ve just dug yourself a nice hole.

Yeah, I realize that this post isn’t destined to make me terribly popular with certain people but that’s okay. If the way you treat your friends is evidenced by the way you treated such a basic request for help I don’t want any part of you in this world or the next one.

Update:  Sue wanted to remind me to also extend her (and of course my) thanks and appreciation to Curl and Jnan Dash,  Takayuki Yoshida, and Richard Treadway, all of whom have also shown tremendous class and compassion in addition to those people previously mentioned above.

About Oliver

Oliver Starr is a well known blogger, speaker and serial entrepreneur. His current blogging is focused on mobile technology and applications, green (eco-protective) technologies, and entrepreneurs and their companies. He is currently engaged as the Community Evangelist for Pearltrees.com, a new social curation tool. Oliver was also a professional cyclist and six time member of the US National Cycling Team.
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One Response to Thanks and No Thanks: surprised by the generosity of some and the lack of same by others

  1. MJett says:

    Oliver,

    What are the Orchant family’s current needs?

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