At least everyone else at Mahalo now knows how to leave the company--no hints and fuck yous on the way out. Don't let Jason beat you to the punch. Bonus points if you quit during the most critical time of a time sensitive project.
Jason Calacanis at his finest
51–60 of 130 posts
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
And to bring the point further: no one cares what you accomplish if you act like a total asshat while doing it. Mussolini and some trains come to mind.
Isn't that being a little harsh? I don't really know anything about this Calcianis guy (until now I thought Mahalo was a brand of shoes), but has he done anything to inspire your ire apart from writing one jerkish email?
> has he done anything to inspire your ire apart from writing one jerkish email?
It's been an ongoing thing, mostly related to his company being pretty spammy, but there are other episodes mixed in as well: http://www.google.com/search?q=site:news.ycombinator.com+cal...
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#53Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
we do know calacanis went on to publicly denigrate the former employee. it doesn't make me think there's more to "his half" than juvenile petulance.
>"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." 10:06 PM Apr 21st via Twitter for BlackBerry®
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#54Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
It's only more from one side of the story, but Evan noted on his Twitter feed that there was previously no anomisity between the two of them. FWIW.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#55Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
> For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad.
Ultimately it doesn't really matter; Jason has a poor reputation here anyway and, assuming this is the full email conversation, this goes a long way to proving why.
How you treat people that piss you off is important in any business; acting like that looks immature and hissy. Polite anger would seem the correct response (if he was angry) - otherwise it just looks like your throwing toys out of a pram.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#56Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
I've been "burned" by exactly what pg just said, on Reddit too. And I agree, because with the labor laws, the employer has more to lose than the employee if they aired certain things. For our non-US people, in California, there are laws that specify that ex-employers cannot say bad things about an employee (a bad one or not), to the employee's next prospective employer.
As the employee, you get away with some things that "structurally" (as pg said) from the legal perspective that employers cannot.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#57Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
> For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Line 46-48 in that email are pretty clear. Gracious and leaving, maybe in person would have been better, but as those emails come it is pretty good. It's not as though he was fired.
Yes but for all you know he could have just spent thousands sending him to conferences or some other specialized training only to have him turn around and quit for a competitor. (I have no idea if that's the case but have seen things like that happen at other businesses) Either way it would be nice if hacker news didn't focus on this drama.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#58Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath…
> For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Line 46-48 in that email are pretty clear. Gracious and leaving, maybe in person would have been better, but as those emails come it is pretty good. It's not as though he was fired.
we're still outside looking in, because writing good emails doesn't reflect a person's actions in real life. I've seen it before, people lying through their teeth .. much less just typing good emails for proper documentation purposes.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#59I've never worked at a company where I tried to be professional and gave 2 weeks notice and was NOT immediately shown the door (hence I learned to prepare and not be surprised). Does it really happen in this day and age? Don't companies lockout high value employees immediately as a matter of security and anti-sabotage?
I've had several developer coworkers leave -- it's always been with 2 week notice, a nice lunch, and a farewell e-mail from the boss thanking them for their contributions. Would not work somewhere that handled employees leaving that way. Sorry Mr. Calacanis!
I've even seen companies ask people to stay for more than the two weeks, to make sure they have time to document miscellaneous loose ends and do some mini-training of their successor. But those were at big engineering firms, which might operate differently? I've never heard of an engineer at a place like Exxon being locked out after giving notice. A VP or something sure, but a petroleum engineer typically sticks around. Besides looking unprofessional, locking them out would be bad for the firm, because they almost invariably have some materials in their head or at home that you really need them to document and tie up so their successor doesn't spend months on archaeology to figure out what's going on.
Employees who are fired or laid off sometimes are locked out, but that's a more confrontational situation where the employer might fear retaliation.
Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest
#60I'm just going to ask a question to the 110 people that voted for this "story". Do we really think it's appropriate to air a company's dirty laundry and/or conflicts on Hacker News? I mean, that's the type of shit they do over at TMZ isn't it? Gossip about people? I don't care who's an ass, who's been wronged and who has sand in their ovaries today. I don't come to HN for this.
I'm glad that this was posted. I applied to Mahalo a few days ago because it's a Django gig in southern California. I was hesitant to apply because of some of the stories I had heard about Jason. However, I try to judge things as I see them, and wanted to give it a shot.
I'm glad that this came out, because it's given me some more perspective on Mahalo and Jason.