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Four Years in Startups

newyorker.com

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Re: Four Years in Startups

#41

Post by glalonde »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #28

> On the train home, I leaned into Ian and recounted the interaction. What sexists, I said. How dare they be so dismissive, just because I was a woman—just because I did customer support and was considered nontechnical. Ian cringed and pulled me closer. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. “But you were trying to talk shit about self-driving cars with some of the first engineers ever to build one.” I wonder who…

Presumably early waymo. Ian probably worked for bot & dolly which was bought by Google.

Re: Four Years in Startups

#42

Post by a_imho »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #28

> On the train home, I leaned into Ian and recounted the interaction. What sexists, I said. How dare they be so dismissive, just because I was a woman—just because I did customer support and was considered nontechnical. Ian cringed and pulled me closer. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. “But you were trying to talk shit about self-driving cars with some of the first engineers ever to build one.” I wonder who…

With the benefit of hindsight the shit talk was pretty spot on?

Re: Four Years in Startups

#43

Post by MaxfordAndSons »

plinkplonk wrote: post #32

The Mixpanel (if that is the company being referred to, seems pretty obvious) CEO's callous firing of someone who asked for a raise, then threatening anyone who disagreed with this decision with termination is horrendous (if true).

Yea that scene was bonkers. Is that even legal, to demand resignation of an employee if they admit to disagreeing with a decision of yours? I hope I would have the courage to speak truth if I were ever put in that situation.

Re: Four Years in Startups

#44

Post by sixstringtheory »

Rarely do I get the uncanny feeling of someone else describing my experience or taking the words out of my mouth, but this one did it so, so well. Somewhere in between The Circle and Silicon Valley (the show).

I often think about walking away and working as a baker.

Re: Four Years in Startups

#46

Post by hobofan »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #28

> On the train home, I leaned into Ian and recounted the interaction. What sexists, I said. How dare they be so dismissive, just because I was a woman—just because I did customer support and was considered nontechnical. Ian cringed and pulled me closer. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. “But you were trying to talk shit about self-driving cars with some of the first engineers ever to build one.” I wonder who…

Limited-capability self-driving cars have existed for quite some time, like in the DARPA Grand Challenge[0]. One could definitely see the people who competed there as "some of the first people to ever build a self-driving car".

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARPA_Grand_Challenge

Re: Four Years in Startups

#48

Post by hobofan »

barry-cotter wrote: post #17
undefined3840 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Facebook engineer just committed suicide last week due (allegedly) to workplace bullying made possible in part by his immigration status. Something like 45 women from Google just came forward claiming they were retaliated against for bringing up sexual harassment claims to HR this week. You can’t generalize the claim that things are different at FAANGs either.

Don’t Facebook and Google each have over 100K employees just in their Bay Area offices? This is like FoxConn[1]. You can be doing substantially better than average and still have constant bad news by virtue of your size alone. [1] The suicide rate among their employees was below the general population’s.

> The suicide rate among their employees was below the general population’s.

Was their suicide rate lower or higher then that of employees with a similar socioeconomic status?

Re: Four Years in Startups

#49

Post by whitepoplar »

askafriend wrote: post #34
rainyMammoth wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't know why you are being downvoted but you your TLDR is pretty much spot on. I would suggest to any techie who finds this not true to leave the bay area for a couple months then come back. It is amazing how entitled everyone is over here.

What entitlement do you see?

Lack of self-awareness. Attributing outcomes to merit when such things are often pseudo-randomly distributed. Lots and lots of arrogance, whether overt or subtle.

Re: Four Years in Startups

#50

Post by whitepoplar »

aditya34 wrote: post #26

"The employees tried to be the C.E.O’s friends, but we were not his friends. He shut down our ideas and belittled us in private meetings; he dangled responsibility and prestige, only to retract them inexplicably. We regularly brought him customer feedback, like dogs mouthing tennis balls, and he regularly ignored us. He was expensive to work for: at least two of my co-workers met with therapists to talk through their…

Any chance you can elaborate on the cruelness, either publicly or privately?
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