Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 93 posts

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#71

Post by noir_lord »

jacquesm wrote: post #70
noir_lord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've had something similar to this happen early in my career, it took two years out of my life and cost me what I thought was a good personal relationship but which turned out to be just predatory in retrospect. That is so damn close to me that it was eerie reading it. I think quite often programmers who are good but early in their careers don't value themselves enough and the relationship ends up been exploitative…

I used to work for nothing if the work was interesting enough. Bad mistake. > I worked 80hr weeks for just slightly under 2 years for someone I thought was a both a friend and a boss for it all to go sideways. That is really very familiar. > The lesson was learnt on the spot and while I'm still gregarious these days I operate by the maxim "trust but verify". Good for you. And make sure you pass the lesson on to other…

> Good for you. And make sure you pass the lesson on to others so they don't have to learn it the hard way.

Already did that, I worked at a place where I was the 5th programmer on the team but the most experienced and the lead, the boss was not a nice guy and worked the two youngest programmers like dogs, I soon put a stop to that with the "If you don't turn your computers off, I'm going to go flip the breaker, it's 6pm on a Friday go home".

The thing I've learnt with bosses like that is most of the time if you stand up to them they either back down, respect you for it or fire you at some point in the future (assuming you haven't already left) but in any case your life improves.

The last job I had for someone I came in at 8:30am, left at 5:30pm and outside of work I didn't answer calls, emails or issues unless I was on call, this was despite the pressure to do so that many of the other programmers succumbed to.

Team pressure is a hard thing to fight against but I've seen enough to know that a team working (actually working, not screwing around on a computer all day) 12 hour days 6 days a week can do that for a month at most and then the damage sets in and each day is less productive till you end up getting less done in 12 hours than your team would normally get done in 6.

Tired people don't do good work.

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#72

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #70
noir_lord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've had something similar to this happen early in my career, it took two years out of my life and cost me what I thought was a good personal relationship but which turned out to be just predatory in retrospect. That is so damn close to me that it was eerie reading it. I think quite often programmers who are good but early in their careers don't value themselves enough and the relationship ends up been exploitative…

I used to work for nothing if the work was interesting enough. Bad mistake. > I worked 80hr weeks for just slightly under 2 years for someone I thought was a both a friend and a boss for it all to go sideways. That is really very familiar. > The lesson was learnt on the spot and while I'm still gregarious these days I operate by the maxim "trust but verify". Good for you. And make sure you pass the lesson on to other…

[deleted]

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#73

Post by [deleted] »

jacquesm wrote: post #26
tptacek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a vocal defender of vesting and cliffs, but even I think you shouldn't take a job somewhere where you vest in annual chunks after your cliff.

It's pretty normal though. What does it cost to transfer stock in the US in a privately held company? Here in Europe it can be up to ~$1K to transfer stock in a GMBH or BV, other countries more or less depending on the local situation regarding notary public roles and rates. In a public company it is dirt cheap but this is prior to IPO. That + accelerated vesting in case of wrongful termination or termination without…

[deleted]

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#74

Post by leroy_masochist »

Isn't a father-mother-son leadership team a massive red flag when choosing what company to work for? I mean, whether it's a car dealership or a tech startup, when you have family pride all mixed up in company culture it really tends to be a shitty place to work.

If anyone has any examples of where this type of setup has actually worked out well, would love to know of one.

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#75

Post by chrisbennet »

JonFish85 wrote: post #68
pdog wrote: post #2

> One of the most unnerving aspects of life at Tanium is what's known internally as Orion's List . The CEO allegedly kept a close eye on which employees would soon be eligible to take sizable chunks of stock. For those he could stand to do without, Hindawi ordered the workers to be fired before they were able to acquire the shares, according to current and former employees. Employees at startups generally take a belo…

If generally an employee stock option pool is ~5% of the company, then why is it worth spending time optimizing for that by firing people before stock vests? I suppose it'd be possible that management/investors view the employee ownership as getting out of hand, but even if the options pool is 10-15% (which I think would be fairly ridiculously large), it's likely mostly held by early employees who may have already ve…

Greed isn't always rational.

Scott Kupor [managing partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz] wrote an article [1] suggesting that a 10 year exercise window for employees who leave:

" is really a direct wealth transfer from the employees who choose to remain at the company and build future shareholder value, to former employees who are no longer contributing to building the business/ its ultimate value."

This seems to suggest that the "investment" by early employees who leave shouldn't be treated like the early investments from VC's who decline to keep investing at some point.

[1] http://a16z.com/2016/06/23/options-timing/

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#76

Post by papabrown »

While stealing the employee stock options is beyond pale, the real issue is what the working environment must be like there. I was in a similar situation many years ago with a completely corrupt management team. My boss and I got off on the wrong foot when he asked me to lie about another employee he wanted to fire and I refused (which led to him then trying to find people to dish dirt on me so he could fire me).

The CEO and president were fully aware this kind of stuff was going on but looked the other way because he was producing the results they wanted to see (they weren't exactly clean either and several years later were both indicted on criminal charges).

I saw multiple people break down in tears due to the pressure he put on them. Everyone was stressed out all the time. People were constantly in poor health due to the stress. Backstabbing was normal operating procedure just to stay off the hit list. People would doing anything to suck up to the boss so they could keep their job another week, or month, or quarter hoping things would get better.

After I left the company I couldn't believe I put up with that. My health was in the toilet. Mentally I was wasted. I remember at my next job constantly worrying that everyone who was being nice to me was setting me up. I parsed every word people said to me looking for a trap. It took me a full year before I could sleep more than four hours a night.

The ones who have left or were let go are the lucky ones. The stock can't be worth the physical and emotional damage.

I've worked in a lot of high pressure jobs before that one and since then but that place will always stand out as the most damaging period in my life.

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#77

Post by gkop »

chrisbennet wrote: post #75
JonFish85 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If generally an employee stock option pool is ~5% of the company, then why is it worth spending time optimizing for that by firing people before stock vests? I suppose it'd be possible that management/investors view the employee ownership as getting out of hand, but even if the options pool is 10-15% (which I think would be fairly ridiculously large), it's likely mostly held by early employees who may have already ve…

Greed isn't always rational. Scott Kupor [managing partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz] wrote an article [1] suggesting that a 10 year exercise window for employees who leave: " is really a direct wealth transfer from the employees who choose to remain at the company and build future shareholder value, to former employees who are no longer contributing to building the business/ its ultimate value." This seems to s…

Wow. Remind me never to be an employee at one of Scott's portfolio companies.

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#78

Post by duck2 »

botverse wrote: post #53
CalChris wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There must be 50 ways to leave your lover. If you've made up your mind, you can just tell them off and walk out. You can take your sweet time and interview while you still have a paycheck and benefits. You can wait until the cliff and leave the next day. You can give two weeks notice. It's your choice just as it's their choice.

Last company I left I did working till the last minute, on my own unpaid time. I've been treated so well and we shared such a strong spirit of unity in the good and bad times that I can't regret it. No body was ever bullied. Main difference with other tech companies I worked for before: CEO is a woman.

why downvote? this is just some anecdotal data provided. no strong claims, no offensive phrases.

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#79

Post by cpeterso »

balladeer wrote: post #46
pdog wrote: post #2

> One of the most unnerving aspects of life at Tanium is what's known internally as Orion's List . The CEO allegedly kept a close eye on which employees would soon be eligible to take sizable chunks of stock. For those he could stand to do without, Hindawi ordered the workers to be fired before they were able to acquire the shares, according to current and former employees. Employees at startups generally take a belo…

My friend worked for startup, here in India, that was doing work with drones and water level measurements or something like that. It was and still is a pre-VC startup. He had left a huge European MNC where did cutting edge research but was bored and needed the bleeding edge rush and excitement as he put it. He's awesome in his field and then excellent at coding too (not a CSE grad) he was paid really grand in that MN…

> Only remaining team mate was a confounder who used to pass on requirements.

Is "confounder" a typo for "cofounder"? Too perfect. :) I've known some confounders responsible for product requirements!

Re: Tanium is facing employee unrest and an executive exodus

#80

Post by Balgair »

papabrown wrote: post #76

While stealing the employee stock options is beyond pale, the real issue is what the working environment must be like there. I was in a similar situation many years ago with a completely corrupt management team. My boss and I got off on the wrong foot when he asked me to lie about another employee he wanted to fire and I refused (which led to him then trying to find people to dish dirt on me so he could fire me). The…

Now, I read these accounts and I wonder, if this is how businesses are run, even a small fraction of them, how are they in business at all? Like, it seems 'business' is really forgiving in terms of staying alive, like turning a profit must be really easy if these morons can do it and stay afloat for any length of time. But you go on /r/entrepreneur or some threads on HN and it is made out to be just a real drag and really really hard to do. What am I missing here, why the disconnect?
Post reply on HN