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Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

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Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#161

Post by mxkopy »

Waterluvian wrote: post #56
denkmoon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically however modern day Activision has the exact same attitude of Atari that caused their founding.

But they might be right this time. Many game devs are fungible cogs, implementing a well-defined blueprint. Especially Activision games like Call of Duty. It doesn’t help that there’s just so many devs these days that they can seemingly abuse them for decades and nothing has collapsed.

Games have seen incredible growth as an industry over the past couple decades. It works because everyone and their grandma wants to play CoD, not because what they're doing is sustainable. Let's see how they fare once the markets saturate

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#162

Post by ehnto »

danieltanfh95 wrote: post #80
xwdv wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s justified though. Games are basically a solved problem these days, and the developers of today are most of the time just building on abstractions and best practices that didn’t exist during Atari’s time. Once a particular domain of software becomes sufficiently mature, there is no real opportunity for heroic programmers to emerge who become too valuable to replace. Eventually more people emerge who are just as g…

I very much doubt that. There's a reason why innovation in games often happen, entertainment is not an easy problem to solve, with no set quantity to achieve

I agree as well that technology wise it still isn't solved, but I think it is the creative side that will be the most unknown part of the project these days.

That is why we have so many bland but technically impressive games. Studios want safe bets, an FPS game is easy, making it interesting to play is still very hard.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#163

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

Bakary wrote: post #127
replwoacause wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first time I have encountered the word meat space.

It's a very dated expression

This is the first time I’ve encountered the word “dated”.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#164

Post by boredtofears »

Gigachad wrote: post #51
denkmoon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically however modern day Activision has the exact same attitude of Atari that caused their founding.

Clearly the situation is very different. Activision is much much bigger than Atari was. 4 of the top developers leaving wouldn't cause the company to implode.

The more I learn about game dev the less I think this is true. The number of programmers that can work on bleeding edge game engine tech is incredibly low and the learning curve has only gotten more severe over time.

I mean, I'm sure they wouldn't implode, but I bet they pay their core engine devs a more than decent wage.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#165

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #97
lvspiff wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not OP but work in healthcare. The culture of leadership in healthcare is frustrating. It's very political with everyone having their own agendas and fiefdoms. Cap it off with ever changing Govt regulations and you end up with a never ending cycle of audits, crazy ideas, and projects that go no where because the vendors are so far behind they don't understand anything. For the last year I worked on a scheduling syste…

> always fun rotation of passwords on over 1000 servers in 3 months that were mostly manual because the vendors all charge for an SOW to do that (oh yeah this is a YEARLY activity). Why do I smell Windows Server 2008?

NIST stopped recommending regular password rotation years ago. Why are mega corps still insisting on this? Security theater? Unknowledgable?

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#166

Post by denkmoon »

xwdv wrote: post #74
denkmoon wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically however modern day Activision has the exact same attitude of Atari that caused their founding.

It’s justified though. Games are basically a solved problem these days, and the developers of today are most of the time just building on abstractions and best practices that didn’t exist during Atari’s time. Once a particular domain of software becomes sufficiently mature, there is no real opportunity for heroic programmers to emerge who become too valuable to replace. Eventually more people emerge who are just as g…

>Games are basically a solved problem these days

I... have you played games at all recently? Have you seen the recent major releases? BF2042, Cyberpunk, etc. Even the highest quality game studios (not the aforementioned) have trouble making good high quality releases, especially with consistency.

Games are certainly not a solved problem.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#167

Post by gumball13 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #63

I worked for a company big enough to be in the HN headlines (sorry, have to stay somewhat anonymous) where development virtually stalled for a couple years after a mass exodus event. The CEO went on a rampage and fired some people on the spot for something they weren’t even responsible for, which destroyed the already fragile morale and created a steady exodus of good talent over a couple of years. It didn’t kill the…

No post body was provided.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#168

Post by that_guy_iain »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #63

I worked for a company big enough to be in the HN headlines (sorry, have to stay somewhat anonymous) where development virtually stalled for a couple years after a mass exodus event. The CEO went on a rampage and fired some people on the spot for something they weren’t even responsible for, which destroyed the already fragile morale and created a steady exodus of good talent over a couple of years. It didn’t kill the…

I honestly, can't believe how many companies I've seen that have had the problem with new hires churning really quick.

When I lived in the UK, I saw one company that was like that. When I moved to Berlin, it's pretty much been like that at most companies. Various reasons from the tech being crap, the culture being crap, or managers being crap.

While the company normally survives for a while, since if you have the cash you can survive for a while no matter what. The company never really reaches it's true value. Most do end up being acquired by a competitor for very little money or going out of business.

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#169

Post by jamestimmins »

pryelluw wrote: post #140

I once worked for a small but very profitable tech company. The owner pretty much had to sit back and rake in the money. He was, however, a huge asshole and alcoholic. Wasn’t able to let it function without him. Went from a couple of million dollars profit to closed when I quit. He couldn’t find other devs. Tried to outsource it but just failed. I quit because he tried to treat me like shit. Like he treated his other…

Now that the company is gone, have you considered using your experience to build a similar product in that space?

Re: Ask HN: What are examples of companies dying due to many people quitting?

#170

Post by solarmist »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #165
aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> always fun rotation of passwords on over 1000 servers in 3 months that were mostly manual because the vendors all charge for an SOW to do that (oh yeah this is a YEARLY activity). Why do I smell Windows Server 2008?

NIST stopped recommending regular password rotation years ago. Why are mega corps still insisting on this? Security theater? Unknowledgable?

Yes and trying to find a bargain on staff.
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