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CTO day 2: downsizing the team

danlebrero.com

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Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#101

Post by Brian_K_White »

jacquesm wrote: post #85
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the story does not give that background well i have no insider knowledge of any kind, i just looked left and right beyond the blog post instead of making assumptions.

In a way that just makes it even worse. Because a newbie that lands in a situation like that might be excused, a former team member isolating himself from his own responsibility by asking his computer who he should fire is an even bigger insult than if he came in as an outsider. This company is dysfunctional. They have a CTO that doesn't report to the CEO but where the CEO will cross their lines of command to give di…

Why is everyone talking about the computer like it has it's own agency and inhuman agenda?

The computer in this story was nothing but a human's pencil and paper.

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#102

Post by benibela »

SMFloris wrote: post #18

In the beginning, you are on an island, you have an idea to go on an adventure, so you start building a raft with the other guy on the island. The other guy has no building skills, but he procures food, water and wood. The resources on that island are dwindling but you manage to finish the raft just in time. You begin to sail the raft, you start fishing while out in the open seas. You reach another island and sell th…

So the lesson is to not throw people overboard?

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#103

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

jacquesm wrote: post #95
Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only pointing out the context and that the first sentence is a rather obvious tell that it is part two of a series and should not be interpreted literally.

I have a pretty simple rule for evaluating articles: if not indicated otherwise I assume they stand on their own and that the article writer means what they say. It's on them to communicate any circumstances that are required to be able to read the article, at a minimum a link should be provided to such context if it is available. Just read this thread and see how many people are wrong-footed by the article.

> It's on them

Honestly, i think your reaction to having an assumption collapse is rather terrible

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#104

Post by ricc »

SMFloris wrote: post #18

In the beginning, you are on an island, you have an idea to go on an adventure, so you start building a raft with the other guy on the island. The other guy has no building skills, but he procures food, water and wood. The resources on that island are dwindling but you manage to finish the raft just in time. You begin to sail the raft, you start fishing while out in the open seas. You reach another island and sell th…

> people to cook

Are they cannibals? :-D

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#105

Post by epsilonclose »

SMFloris wrote: post #18

In the beginning, you are on an island, you have an idea to go on an adventure, so you start building a raft with the other guy on the island. The other guy has no building skills, but he procures food, water and wood. The resources on that island are dwindling but you manage to finish the raft just in time. You begin to sail the raft, you start fishing while out in the open seas. You reach another island and sell th…

Sounds like a bad captain, entirely reactive and not proactive at all. Those people were brought onto the boat to perform these duties but were given no oversight? Why didn't the captain have any knowledge of the fires that were happening so often? The captain had no idea what was being used by the cooks? He didn't talk to the people who bought the fish oil? Never had a meal with any of the lookouts or fishermen?

The captain should be the one to jump overboard in your story.

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#106

Post by valuearb »

The only ethical and correct decision was to resign.

First, he’s likely close to 15% of the budget, so problem solved.

Second, you join a company either so incompetent or venal that they didn’t give you notice they were on the verge of a substantial revenue loss. You’re the CTO, you are one of a small team of leaders with biggest stake in company, and supposed to be part of these discussions. Even before your official start day and especially day one.

So what was it? They knew this was likely to happen but didn’t tell you because they were afraid you’d back out? They are unethical, liars, untrustworthy, I quit.

They didn’t see this coming because the VP of Sales never flagged it as a risk? Ok, the Vp of Sales is either not being transparent or us incompetent, either way fire them, or I quit.

The execs at the top of a small startup need to be a team, brutally honest and transparent with each other. No hiding information, working together to solve problems.

Or I quit.

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#107

Post by valuearb »

bartread wrote: post #32

I read a lot of criticism of Daniel's approach in this discussion. People don't like the fact that he wrote an app and tried to deal with the problem objectively. But, really, how is this so different to any other objective approach? Here in the UK there is a significant body of legislation around the process of making people redundant, so it would have worked differently, and particularly it will work differently fo…

There were 17 employees. You don’t need a program to solve that.

And his first step should have been to the CEOs office to find out why this clusterfuck was thrust on him out of the blue.

He’s showing he’s not a leader, just a Jr Manager given a fancy title.

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#108

Post by valuearb »

vntok wrote: post #42
narcissismo wrote: post #11

From the numbers, it sounds like you could have saved 10% by firing yourself.

In what world would leaving an already weakened company without a CTO be a desirable outcome?

He’s not a CTO, his whole post demonstrates that clearly. He’s a floundering middle manager given a fancy title.

And they built the company without him. Pretty sure he’s unnecessary.

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#109

Post by valuearb »

dmak wrote: post #87
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #68

> There are broadly 3 experience levels: > Senior: creates the plan. > Mid-level: follows the plan. > Junior: needs to be taught to follow the plan. This person is a horrible leader and failure if they think this way. This tells you all you need to know about the rest of the article. And indeed: > “The ideal team would be one that has all disciplines covered at a senior level with multidisciplinary people working in…

Could you share more about your opinion on why this makes a horrible leader?

It says Junior devs are useless. If they are useless, why were they hired?

Re: CTO day 2: downsizing the team

#110

Post by devdas »

user5994461 wrote: post #88
barthvr wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes zero sense to keep people who are being fired, they are being fired for a reason. The problem addressed here was "is my reason valid". If you fire someone for the wrong reason, and then everything crumbles, having them on paid leave for 1 month or 2 won't hurt the company financially, and allow to test "how are we doing when X is not there anymore".

And that's exactly why middle managers in large companies have zero power to fire. They can't be trusted to fire for valid reasons so they don't get the ability to fire. Gotta go through HR and due process, that typically sets the bar to assaulting coworker and stealing from the company.

Or you give people low performance ratings repeatedly.
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