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I'm not saying they are evil people, but I am saying that many of them are very "ethically challenged". You are the one putting words in my mouth, and I really don't appreciate that.

I have no problem with honest businessmen, I've run my own business before, but I have a very big problems with people with no regard for laws and rules of behavior. The sad fact is that our legal and political systems are broken, and this encourages undesireable behavior on the part of those who have the most power and influence in our society.

P.S. We had "non-disclosure" agreements and legal council before we talked to VC's. We still got screwed. It all comes down to who has the most money to spend on the case.

There are many everybody that's ethically challenged doesn't really matter.

See now you're finally moving away from crass generalizations. Before it was "CEOs", now it's "bad CEOs". Now you're making sense, before you weren't.

Having been along for a similar ride (we didn't get ripped, but eventually a big VC firm looked at us and were shocked and amazed we hadn't been ripped off because we'd done the same thing as you) I know the drill, non-disclosure is nice but nothing talks like copyright. The difference between non-disclosure infringement payouts and copyright infringement payouts is the difference between your story and owning the company that screwed you (copyright payouts can be everything they earned from the infringement, promisory infringements tend to have negligible payouts). You've got my full sympathy and I agree that the people that ripped you off were bastards. But there are plenty that are ethical and, as I've been taught, there are ways to gaurd against the unethical (copyright law is very well established and most of the hard work has already been done by the government, doesn't take nearly as good a set of lawyers to win copyright cases).

We had "non-disclosure" agreements and legal council before we talked to VC's. We still got screwed. It all comes down to who has the most money to spend on the case.

I've worked 30 years for corporate lawyers -- and you hit the nail on the head. In this country, justice goes to the guy with the deepest pockets and the ability to keep the case alive.