Holland's former startup aimed to be "the Uber of towing" there by providing a quick way to call a towing contractor like Andriske when a vehicle had to be impounded for violating what Australia calls "anti-hoon" laws, or laws against reckless driving. Joe Andriske is quick to offer his assessment of how Holland's last business failed.Īndriske runs Harvey's Towing Services in the Australian state of Queensland, a region in the northeastern part of the country that contains the major metropolitan area of Brisbane and the Gold Coast's more than 40 miles of coastline popular with surfers and tourists. dollars, according to a document reviewed by NPR.Īustralian tow-truck owner: 'There's a lot of people he ripped off' His lawyer wrote to Domm Holland's company in March 2018 stating that Harvey's Towing was still owed about $423,000 U.S. Joe Andriske, owner of Harvey's Towing service, in Park Ridge, Queensland, Australia, received a fraction of the amount he says he was due. On Tuesday, Fast Chief Communications Officer Jason Alderman sent NPR a minute-long audio recording of a prepared statement. Over the course of three weeks, NPR asked repeatedly for an interview with Holland and for on-the-record responses to questions about his past and Fast's business. "But what's important is how the failure happened." "Failure is not a curse," Strebulaev said. Ilya Strebulaev, a professor of finance who studies the venture capital industry at Stanford University, noted that more than 80% of startups fail, so past stumbles alone have never been counted against a founder. While failure and reinvention are embraced in Silicon Valley, the way Holland has rewritten and polished his past raises questions about how far the envelope can be pushed before crossing ethical lines. to refashion his identity and move beyond the controversial legacy of his last business. Who wants to skydive with /cFmIqgyB4s- Fast April 4, 2021īack in Holland's home country, though, some cannot believe their eyes.Īs some Australians see it, Holland moved to the U.S. They have lined up in droves, pouring millions into Fast, Holland's San Francisco startup that offers one-click checkout and password storage, a competitive corner of e-commerce where a handful of upstarts are attempting to challenge the might of Apple, Google and Amazon. Now he's exported that brash style to the U.S., where venture capitalists have lapped it up. It's an early career example of something Holland would become known for in Australia: pushing boundaries to command attention and make a buck. The airline did not return a request for comment. Records show that it is now registered to Qantas Airways Limited. He eventually claimed he had sold the domain for $1.3 million, but refused to identify the buyer. To apply even more pressure, Holland redirected Qant.as' web traffic to Virgin Blue, a rival airline. "The domain name Qant.as could be snapped up by a competitor so damage to Qantas's business could be in the millions of dollars," Holland told the Australian at the time. He had bought the domain Qant.as for just $20 and practically waved it in the face of Qantas Airways. In 2010, Australian entrepreneur Domm Holland had an idea: he was going to punk the country's largest airline. Harry Murphy/Sportsfile for Web Summit/Getty Images Domm Holland, Fast, on Centre Stage during day one of Web Summit 2021 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal.
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