241–250 of 429 posts
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Such a great book. I've seen his tactics play our over and over again during my working lifetime.
From what I've experienced, I'd like to see both "The Prince" and "The Art of War" banished from the world of business.
>> We canceled our upcoming team retreat to Berlin. Savings: $400,000. Compared to all their other costs that one stood out the most. 500k savings laying off 10% of your workforce compared to 400k for a team retreat in Berlin. Is this typical?
Do you think an office for 100 people would cost less than $400K/year? (I know it wouldn't in NYC.)
See my notes on this here:
http://pixelmonkey.org/pub/distributed-teams/notes/#mixing-d...
This may be a little cynical but: "With our culture of bringing our whole selves to work and seeing team as family, with shared values we live by,..." In the American business world, you are an employee until you aren't. Confusing being an employee with being "family" is a mistake, both for the company and the employee. When times get bad, companies do what it takes to survive, including throwing employees overboard.…
This is so 100% on point. I think the Netflix NYT article from yesterday had a more realistic tone regarding the "family" aspect: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/magazine/can-netflix-survi... > The key concept is summed up in the 23rd slide. “We’re a team, not a family,” it reads. “Netflix leaders hire, develop and cut smartly, so we have stars in every position.” Your last sentence here is really important. If tha…
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My rule is this : if I have equity then I am family. No equity, I am just an employee.
What about if your equity is in stock-options that haven't been exercised, and after you leave you only have 90 days to exercise them? :)
By and large, options are just a symbolic gesture. I'm sure there are some people who've reaped a bounty from them... but it's exceeding rare, and even if everything goes right they still require a liquidity event that isn't guaranteed to include you.
The first couple of times I got stock options, I exercised them... and ended up using them as a tax write-off later when they became worthless. Now, I sit on them like an old comic book that might become valuable someday... and wouldn't think twice about letting them disappear if I change jobs.
It also all seems a bit maudlin — being laid off is a terrible thing, but mistakes happen and employees are aware of risks going in (although as others have noted, this type of situation underscores how inappropriate the whole "we're a big family" idea is). It would seem more respectful to the laid-off employees not to go on and on in this manner.
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1) cron sucks, I hate using it. $10 / month to never configure cron again would be great. 2) Have you ever used Buffer? Chrome extension, in-app experience, cross-posting to multiple sites, drag-and-drop re-ordering, ...? It's not a single feature, it's "organize my social media posting".
Yeah, but Hootsuite costs $10/month paid and has a generous free plan, so yeah...
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The voting on your post implies people disagree, but the method you mention is the way the vast majority of companies try to operate because it intuitively makes sense. Even in a cut-throat industry like sports, athletes aren't cut or traded the instant they enter a slump (if they still have future potential).
As mentioned below, Netflix has the philosophy "we're a professional sports team". Yet they don't pay people millions of dollars like an athlete. If you really want to be cut throat, great, pay people like an athlete then. Otherwise quit the BS.
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1) cron sucks, I hate using it. $10 / month to never configure cron again would be great. 2) Have you ever used Buffer? Chrome extension, in-app experience, cross-posting to multiple sites, drag-and-drop re-ordering, ...? It's not a single feature, it's "organize my social media posting".
Yeah, but Hootsuite costs $10/month paid and has a generous free plan, so yeah...
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The voting on your post implies people disagree, but the method you mention is the way the vast majority of companies try to operate because it intuitively makes sense. Even in a cut-throat industry like sports, athletes aren't cut or traded the instant they enter a slump (if they still have future potential).
As mentioned below, Netflix has the philosophy "we're a professional sports team". Yet they don't pay people millions of dollars like an athlete. If you really want to be cut throat, great, pay people like an athlete then. Otherwise quit the BS.
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I agree 100%. I've worked for multiple companies that say "we're a family", then lay off people with no warning or remorse. Businesses are not families.
They're families when it benefits the business. And businesses are cutthroat capitalists when it benefits them. All that family nonsense is just to talk employees out of looking after their own interests. Your relationship with your employer is inherently antagonistic, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you some BS. That doesn't mean you can't work well together, but sometimes your interests align with the…
You can compare this to big game companies, which have no problem hiring a bunch of people and then laying them off when the project is done. All the disadvantages of being an employee (IP assignment for side projects, low pay) with all the disadvantages of being a contractor (no income stability).
Companies do what they need to in order to survive, but that doesn't mean that the people running the companies are always 100% soul-less