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Jason Calacanis at his finest

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Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#121

Post by skorgu »

sokoloff wrote: post #80
jayliew wrote: post #23

Having been through a few conflicts myself, as an independent observer and as one of the parties in the conflict .. I'm not taking sides, but just wanting to note that although the employer definitely could have handled it better, I have a feeling we're only scratching the tip of the surface and we don't know much what really happened between the employer-employee. The "pack and get out now" is actually very standard…

Who's to say that Evan only resigned via this communication to the team? Presumably, as an honorable individual he resigned to management privately, and then in addition sent a mail to the team stating the facts of his resignation, thanking them and wishing them well. That's the classy way to go about it. If that was the first communication he had with Mahalo about his resignation, bad on him. Given my perception of…

Frankly even quitting via email would only be a minor count against him to me. Having difficult conversations face to face is a skill not everyone possesses, that was a polite and professional resignation letter no matter the delivery (or whether he was lying through his teeth) and the proper response in a business context is "We're sorry to hear that, good luck at Yahoo!." especially if you mean what Jason wrote.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#122

Post by almost »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
wdewind wrote: post #35

Earlier 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.

http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/trains.asp

Thank you, at least now I've learnt something from this silly drama thread :)

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#123

Post by ahoyhere »

wyclif wrote: post #79
jayliew wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Another perspective: in some states, such as Pennsylvania, employment by law is "at will" and you can be fired/sacked/relieved "without cause." So you might lose your job. You'll get a reference but nothing that your future employer is really going to base a hiring decision on. I'm not convinced that the old employer loses any money by replacing and retraining employees once you subtract raises that would have been e…

Almost every state is like that, with a few exceptions only.

The corporation is favored by law over the individual in almost every law that governs corporate-individual commerce, of any kind, in the US.

And they wonder why their employees don't feel loyal.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#124

Post by WWZJD »

wdewind wrote: post #35
jacquesm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. you could be #3, I couldn't care less, mahalo does not exactly contribute, it just rehashes. 2. good for you 3. The only one I've heard of is 'blippy', and that's only because of some fairly sloppy coding there. 4. great. I'm fairly sure they would have made it without your personal contribution though, you can't possibly take personal credit for that, just like Paul Graham doesn't take personal credit for dropbox…

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.

The use of "asshat" made my day.

Agreed.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#125

Post by jacquesm »

mrkurt wrote: post #100
jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could have sworn that wasn't there when I first answered. /me needs glasses ?

It's an eisenclarification! It was there. :)

I believe you. But I've fallen in to the habit of quoting the bits I'm replying to just to make sure I'm not hallucinating, after the fact edits which make your comments look like you're an idiot happen all too often.

Literal quoting seems to be a good protection against that.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#126

Post by theBobMcCormick »

jasonmcalacanis wrote: post #16
37prime wrote: post #11

Seriously, Jason Calacanis has not done anything considered smart since he sold Weblogs, Inc. to AOL. Other than that he's not a graceful entrepreneur and an attention seeker (I refrain myself from using a harsher term).

1. Mahalo is a top 200 site, over 10M uniques and operationally profitable. 2. Open Angel Forum has been hosting in five cities in the first four months of 2010. 3. I've done seven angel investments including gdgt.com, gowalla.com and blippy.com. 4. TechCrunch50 has made millions of dollars, but more importantly launched amazing startups like Mint.com, Powerset and yammer. 5. This Week in Startups about to have it's…

Regardless of what you may have accomplished, your handling if this guys resignation was incredibly immature. You sounded like a petulant 3 year old.

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#127

Post by mavelikara »

exit wrote: post #81
scorxn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withholding judgement and taking that tweet at face value, it does touch on something important. Usually when entering a job, a candidate will be excited and say just about anything. "Hell yeah I could see myself here for the next 5 years!" Who knows if that happened here. The employer may take on certain expectations, possibility choosing a hire based on that enthusiasm and apparent commitment. Either way, no one ex…

and usually when interviewing for a job, suggesting you might not stick around for a long as is convenient for the company will disqualify you. invariably hr gives you the "we're looking for someone will grow with the company ... " , and you're expected to oblige them with some reassuring "enthusiasm".

Nothing like a greencard application to show such "enthusiasm"!

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#128

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #34

Let'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…

[deleted]

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#129

Post by jasonmcalacanis »

pg wrote: post #34

Let'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 think I give some reasonable perspective on the overall issue at the 1:34 minutes mark in this YouTube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9DUK_4fbg

While the email was obviously a mistake on my part (I would take it back it I could), it was a personal message from me to an employee who I was very disappointed in. It was real--perhaps too real--and it is based on my passion for young people and their potential. Nothing more.

There's a ton of backstory, but I don't want to make this anything more than what it is: a personal issue between a startup founder and a kid with a lot of potential who left to do something else.

Rock on HN

Re: Jason Calacanis at his finest

#130

Post by SRSimko »

jacquesm wrote: post #77
scorxn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Withholding judgement and taking that tweet at face value, it does touch on something important. Usually when entering a job, a candidate will be excited and say just about anything. "Hell yeah I could see myself here for the next 5 years!" Who knows if that happened here. The employer may take on certain expectations, possibility choosing a hire based on that enthusiasm and apparent commitment. Either way, no one ex…

Plenty of people resign via email simply to make it official. That's where the whole 'handing in your notice' expression comes from, people used to literally hand deliver their termination letter, these days letters are emails so it is a logical - even if it feels rude - development.

I am sorry, maybe I'm old school but resigning by email is weak. If you think you know how it'll go, prepare, have a response ready. Maybe, you'll be surprised at the very least you will be respected for walking in the door.
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