This controversial founder's supposed email to a VC sounds like something out of an episode of Silicon Valley

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Craig Brittain

YouTube/CBS4

A screenshot of Craig Brittain from CBS4.

Craig Brittain, the controversial founder of now-defunct revenge-porn website IsAnybodyDown?, is back with a new venture: an Uber competitor called Dryvyng.

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And Brittain is already raising eyebrows.

On Monday afternoon, developer and security researcher Asher Langton tweeted out screenshots of emails sent to him from one of his Twitter followers.

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This follower had, it appears, reached out to Brittain, presumably about potentially investing in Dryvyng. Brittain apparently responded to the person with a screed that sounds straight out of an episode of the HBO parody "Silicon Valley."

Here's part of the first message:

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"If you don't invest, it's probably because you have no real money to invest and/or you work for a competitor. As an extremely talented company with an incredible idea, our worthless, idiotic competitors are doing everything they can to sabotage our genius. Likewise, anyone who won't invest in us is a f------ idiot. I hope you get a terminal illness. Rot in hell, Ben."

More screenshots of Brittain's emails can be found here. They include obscenity-laced rants against "socialist economics," Democratic voters and government regulation.

"The fastest solution to regulatory interference is open defiance," reads one portion.

Brittain has responded on Twitter to the discussion about the screenshots, saying he doesn't feel sorry about calling out "fake investors, competitor agents of limousine liberal socialists."

Dryvyng seems to be an Uber competitor, marketing itself as a fast, affordable, safe way to hail a ride and get to where you're going. According to Dryvyng's Twitter, it has investors and is announcing a new round of funding soon.

The company claims to have 35,000 people signed up and pre-qualified to drive before it has even launched. Dryvyng accepts cryptocurrency and the pricing model is a negotiation between the driver and the rider, according to Dryvyng's own Twitter account, which has been tweeting out people's responses to the screenshots in addition to tweeting about "SJWs," short for "social justice warriors," a derisive term used by some individuals to describe progressives and feminists.

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Prior to Dryvyng, Brittain was, infamously, the founder of IsAnybodyDown?, a website that posted hundreds of nude photos of women. After reaching a settlement with the FTC earlier this year, Brittain apologized on his blog for "a series of poor decisions" and says he's "a different person now."

We've reached out to Dryvyng for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

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