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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?

#191

Post by echelon »

dahart wrote: post #143
Kapura wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

> Stop perpetuating shit you read on some gamer forum Whoa brother, maybe cool your jets and don’t make hasty assumptions. I was a lead game dev for a decade. I didn’t work on Call of Duty, but I did work on some large titles, and I did put in two decades of work hours in one decade. The studio I worked at was always perpetually on the edge of closing, and that was used to push people to work harder. I also worked an…

I would love to read a write-up of your experiences if you have written them down somewhere or plan to do so in the future.

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

#192

Post by nikau »

ipaddr wrote: post #94
pc86 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane to me that this got downvoted. Medical exemptions are a thing. If you truly can't receive a certain vaccine, you should still be allowed to get whatever job you want. But I'm sorry, if you "don't believe in" vaccines in general, or certain specific vaccines that have - for reasons passing all comprehension - become extremely political, you should not be a healthcare provider.

There are many valid reasons for not wanting to take part in the covid vaccine experiment. The first long term studies are due in 2024. Whatever informed opinion you hold the studies haven't come out yet and you are taking a gamble. A gamble society encourages all to take and punishes those it can. If you can't staff your healthcare clinic or hospital because you fired experience doctors, nurses and staff there is a…

This is akin to my mechanic being anti oil change due to some conspiracy theories - I don't want them touching my car.

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

#193

Post by giantrobot »

xani_ wrote: post #73
ethbr0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a lot of hospitals in the US and Canada right now. Turns out if you cut nurses' compensation and retirement match during the pandemic, ask them to work overtime due to understaffing, and then don't restore benefits or give them raises to match inflation after... they walk. Who knew?

I cannot imagine how the healthcare can cost so much yet still somehow there is not enough money to pay people that run it decently

There's plenty of money. It's just not going to pay workers.

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

#194

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

zomgbbq wrote: post #25

Atari in 1983 went from the leader in video game production to completely imploding. In 1979, four of their best programmers left after demanding equity in the sales and were refused. Their CEO Ray Kassar famously said, "You’re no more important to those projects than the person on the assembly line who put them together. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re not unique. Anybody can do ­a ­cartridge.". They left and formed A…

Gaming abounds with stories like this.

A friend of mine went to work for a small game studio in Oklahoma that'd gotten some acclaim for their quake mod pack. They took that momentum and started on their own novel IP as a quake licensee. They made a ahem mildly successful game named Medal of Honor.

Some time down the road, the owner of the studio didn't want to share the wealth.

As a result the top programmers, designers, etc, grouped up and negotiated a deal to become a 2nd party dev studio with a competing publisher. Nearly the entire company left with them. They couldn't take the IP with them so they rebranded their new game franchise as Call of Duty.

That studio owner literally made a billion dollar mistake by not simply being fair early on to the team. Never, ever, treat a team that has achieved rare success as replaceable cogs. If they've shipped, they can find more money people any time they want.

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

#195

Post by tdeck »

heavyset_go wrote: post #34
hollywood_court wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could not imagine being a nurse or a teacher in the US right now. I wish they realized that they have the leverage and can go on strike. I imagine that's difficult for many of them as they most certainly need the income. A rock and a hard place. I always smile when I read about a nurse or teacher switching to a completely different career field and finding themselves more content.

It's sometimes illegal for teachers to even go on strike. My area had an incident where striking teachers were arrested and taken to jail.

Sometimes they win demands even when the strike is illegal. The 2018 West Virginia teacher's strike turned into a wildcat (unauthorized) strike but that didn't stop them from winning a 5% pay raise. It does depend a lot on community support and sympathy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_West_Virginia_teachers%...

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

#196

Post by jasonwatkinspdx »

dahart wrote: post #123
Kapura wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you'd ever worked on a call of duty you'd realize how foolish a statement this is.

Try not to take it personally, there are both devs who are replaceable and devs who aren’t, and with ~40 Call of Duty titles on almost as many platforms, a million and one people have worked on it, some doing more mechanical port work than others. There’s truth in there; the games industry is tough, and it’s relevant that some studios that (for example) demand lots of overtime haven’t seen any large exodus, or someti…

It's particularly ironic that you mention CoD as an example of how you can treat gamedevs as replaceable cogs. Here's the history: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32833895

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

#197

Post by deckard1 »

senko wrote: post #186
zomgbbq wrote: post #25

Atari in 1983 went from the leader in video game production to completely imploding. In 1979, four of their best programmers left after demanding equity in the sales and were refused. Their CEO Ray Kassar famously said, "You’re no more important to those projects than the person on the assembly line who put them together. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re not unique. Anybody can do ­a ­cartridge.". They left and formed A…

> Their CEO Ray Kassar famously said, "You’re no more important to those projects than the person on the assembly line who put them together. You’re a dime a dozen. You’re not unique. Anybody can do ­a ­cartridge.". Imagine any software company CEO nowadays saying that out loud, no matter what they privately thought.

today they have their scrum masters whisper it in our ears at the daily stand up

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

#198

Post by robertlagrant »

fakedang wrote: post #150
Cyph0n wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of a Tobias who ended up working as an analyst-therapist before switching to a successful acting career.

Don't know a Tobias, but I've heard of a Saibot. He was pretty much a noob.

Very two dimensional person as well. Or at least he was 20 years ago; perhaps he's improved himself since.

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

#199

Post by Aloha »

justinjlynn wrote: post #187
Aloha wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shockley inadvertently by being an asshole created more wealth for more people possibly than any other single person.

Shockley deserves as much credit for the creation of that wealth as the wind deserves credit for an amazing photograph of a beautiful summer sky.

How do you figure? He invented several kinds of semiconductors he assembled the team that went on to found an entire industry. Much of that wealth could have been held onto by him, had he been less of an ass.

People didn't leave over equity, or pay, they left because he was an asshole. Without him being a jackass, his company might have invented the things later invented at Fairchild.

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

#200

Post by morelisp »

pjmlp wrote: post #180
n0tth3dro1ds wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Noncompetes are pretty toothless Not true. They’re illegal in California, but in other US states where they are legal they can be quite toothful. I have seen several ex-employees of my prior company get sued and lose. It became a silent doctrine to just leave a two year gap on your public LinkedIn after working there. If you put anything in that period (the length of the non-compete), you were at risk of the CTO sui…

They are also illegal in most European countries.

They're not illegal in Germany, but the legal requirements are so onerous (50% salary paid for the duration of the non-compete) nobody does it. I believe it's similar in France.
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