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Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

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Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#131

Post by emitstop »

aleyan wrote: post #80

Issues raised in the article aside, I am here to argue semantics. The article used the word start-up 3 times, plus one more in the title of his book. The company he worked for however, HubSpot is 10 years old and public and thus by definition is not a startup. Other two companies mentioned, Amazon and Netflix are both over a decade old and public and thus are not start-ups by any stretch of the imagination. Startups…

You're confused on the definition of startup. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company

Generally newly created, but not necessarily. In 'The Lean Startup' by Eric Ries one of the primary examples is based around Intuit, which is a large publicly traded company.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#132

Post by tostitos1979 »

theoh wrote: post #73
slg wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the Silicon Valley TV show, the truthfulness of the specifics of this story aren't really the important part. If public perception of startups is as childish frat house like cults, that is a problem whether or not specific startups are in fact childish frat house like cults. I mean that is the exact reason why we use the phrase "frat house" as a pejorative regardless of the merits of specific fraternities.

Actually, what you are asking for is cumulative correct reporting of individual cases leading to a correct impression of the whole sector. I may just have downvoted you (fat finger error, and no way to reverse a vote on HN) but I agree.

I'm an older tech worker (sounded weird when I just read it out :-p ) and I've found there are two gross classes of startups. The ones that have a fire fast mentality, burn workers to the ground, etc. mentality and others which take it like a marathon as opposed to a sprint. I wish we had names for these two kinds of startups because they would save everyone some time when it comes to figuring out who to work for. Both are good in certain situations and for certain clases of people IMHO.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#133

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

ditonal wrote: post #51
ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

Most of the positive things I read about company cultures, the "best places to work" lists, the glowing pieces on the founders, the TechCrunch articles, the phony Glassdoor reviews, are infinitely more self-aggrandizing fluff PR pieces than anything Lyons has written. No doubt about it, he's promoting his book and his show, but I'm glad some other sides of the story are being told.

It's maybe useful not to confuse specific criticisms of HubSpot with more general criticisms of the culty stage-managed hyper-enthusiasm that surrounds startup culture in general.

Just because someone is earning $150k doesn't mean they're not being sweated and exploited. To its owner, an expensive machine is still just a machine, and not an equal partner.

The tell is always the quality and genuineness of the relationships between employees and owners. It's completely possible for owners to take a genuine interest in the welfare of employees, and to see them as colleagues instead of productive units to be sweated.

But this may not happen as much as it should. And the boilerplate puppies-on-adderall always-crushing-it change-the-world so-very-excited incredible-journey rhetoric turns out to be an excellent smoke screen for owners who have no interest in anything except personal gain - and aren't even slightly concerned if they leave a trail of human wreckage behind them.

And even if you start off wanting to be a humane founder, there's no guarantee investors will let you run your company like that.

So it's easy to criticise Lyons for playing to the gallery with his book. But that doesn't mean that what he's playing is an improvised fiction.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#134

Post by skewart »

neurobuddha wrote: post #63

I have to wonder how many anti-Lyons comments in this thread are HubSpot employees in stealth mode. Doesn't HubSpot do 'Sentiment Analysis' and that sort of stuff?

There may well be plenty. There are probably also a lot of people, like myself, with no connection to HubSpot who dislike Lyons's latest writing.

Having read a few of the promotional articles for the book, I'm certainly not a fan. He seems like he went looking for the worst and is generalizing as broadly as possible to create a sensation. A publicly traded email marketing company founded by a couple of MBAs in Boston 10 years ago doesn't really represent all of Silicon Valley startup culture.

Lyons does touch on some genuine problems. But he doesn't seem to approach ageism or problematic work cultures with much thoughtfulness, and he isn't contributing much to the conversation.

At the same time, HubSpot doesn't seem like a great place to work. In fact it seems like they have (or have recently had) some serious issues they need to sort out.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#135

Post by drumdance »

josh_carterPDX wrote: post #42
BurningFrog wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like it's more about the manager having no clue than their age.

But what does it say about those that put these people in a position of power?

It's just the Peter Principle in action. It long predates startup culture.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#136

Post by dmihal »

skennedy wrote: post #6

> Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and you have an idea of what it’s like [working at a startup]. Is this an accurate description? I feel this might be more of the well funded ones but would not know.

I interned at HubSpot while Lyons was there. Theres some truth to this, but it's greatly exaggerated.

"Frat house": Like many companies, HubSpot often provided alcohol and would host parties for big events. As for personality types, the engineers I worked with were pretty typical engineer types.

"Kindergarden": HubSpot has a big intern/co-op program, and likes to hire former interns as full-time. I can imagine Lyons might feel a bit out of place with so many young people.

"Scientology": The company didn't feel much more cult-y than other young software companies. I'd describe the culture as "We work hard, build products customers love, and treat our employees well".

For what it's worth, I really enjoyed my time at HubSpot and have only good things to say about the people I worked with. However, I was an engineer, and can't speak to the marketing team that Lyons was a part of.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#137

Post by MaysonL »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #36
guelo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're searching for a good adhominem attack, coming up empty, and asking for the startup community's help in taking him down.

No I'm not. I'm looking for more information, because I don't want to buy into outlandish-sounding PR articles on their basis alone. While you were writing this comment, I was editing my comment with insights from the interview that @CPLX linked to ;) and I agree with him.

Another good interview, on Recode Media: http://recode.net/podcasts/from-fake-steve-jobs-to-hbos-sili...

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#138

Post by Mikeb85 »

Interesting article, but this has nothing to do with startups. This is simply the new equilibrium in the job market. Employees have lost power. Unless you guys unionize or something, it'll only get worse from here...

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#139

Post by pythonistic »

deanCommie wrote: post #60
JayHost wrote: post #17

Amazon is new Walmart. They don't care that you don't like their work environment.They have money; you need money and have little options. I think instead of being interested in recycling talent; Amazon is interested in those who will take the most abuse.

Let's back off with the Amazon hate. Right below it on the same list is Google with an average tenure at 1.1 years. Nobody tries to use that as an argument that Google burns through workers who quit in dissatisfaction.

They're up to 1.1 years now? Wow! They were at six months for developers for most of the time I was working there (2006-2010). At three years, I was in the top 25% of seniority ("old farts").

By comparison, Overstock.com averaged five years for developers between 2010-2013.

Re: Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

#140

Post by [deleted] »

ianstormtaylor wrote: post #5

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in th…

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