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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?

#201

Post by robertlagrant »

hollywood_court wrote: post #17
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 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.

They don't need to go on strike if there's an alternative employer available. They just need to quit. Going on strike turns these things from being focused on bad managers to focusing on intransigent employees. Leaving means the management needs fixing or changing.

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

#202

Post by simonebrunozzi »

orange_joe wrote: post #36
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…

what's incredible about this is that Activision remains an industry leader whereas I'm not entirely sure if Atari even still exists.

Atari still exists today.

In 2018 I met Frédéric Chesnais in NY, and learned about the latest things related the company. Here's an interview I found from 2019. [0].

It seems that the current CEO is now Wade Rosen. [1]

Company is still up and running.

[0]: https://frenchamerican.org/interview-frederic-chesnais/

[1]: https://venturebeat.com/games/atari-ceo-wade-rosen-interview...

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

#203

Post by refurb »

vaidhy wrote: post #126
refurb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy to say that until people are dying because you fired desperately needed healthcare workers. Across Canada they changed the rules and now Covid positive healthcare workers can now have direct patient interactions . https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-may-allow-some-covid-positive-heal... Apparently they can fire people who won't get vaccinated, but are willing to have Covid-positive doctors treat patients? Something doesn'…

What you said is not what the link says.it specifically says in appropriate places with appropriate protection when it is aympotomatic. You are projecting here. Nowhere does it say direct patient interaction.. in fact it says the opposite that healthcare workers who are sick (whether of covid or something else) should not be near patients.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-health-workin...

The Health Ministry confirmed in an email that it is possible for workers who test positive to be asked back to work, even if they have symptoms, but only in cases of "persistent compromise of access to services" and when all other options have been exhausted.

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

#204

Post by shp0ngle »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #202
orange_joe wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's incredible about this is that Activision remains an industry leader whereas I'm not entirely sure if Atari even still exists.

Atari still exists today. In 2018 I met Frédéric Chesnais in NY, and learned about the latest things related the company. Here's an interview I found from 2019. [0]. It seems that the current CEO is now Wade Rosen. [1] Company is still up and running. [0]: https://frenchamerican.org/interview-frederic-chesnais/ [1]: https://venturebeat.com/games/atari-ceo-wade-rosen-interview...

It’s just a shell that rents the name to whoever gives them the most, right?

There is “atari NFT” and “atari blockchain casino”

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

#205

Post by rgavuliak »

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.

Do you have a source on this? I am currently looking into the limitations on non-competes.

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

#206

Post by YetAnotherNick »

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.

To me honest and harsh conversation, even if it is wrong, is still better than firing 100s of employees in a zoom call with corporate speak.

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

#207

Post by AllegedAlec »

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.

Nope. They're just in legal practice way more limited in scope. It has to be with a company that actually competes with the company you left.

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

#208

Post by [deleted] »

1letterunixname wrote: post #61
RajT88 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of CEO's at places I have worked didn't really make decisions. They schmooze the biggest customers. Constantly, 12-14 hours a day.

It's also on them to manage, handle, and be responsible for everything. Walk a mile in their shoes and then try say it's so "easy" honestly.

[deleted]

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

#209

Post by rvanlaar »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #194
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, design…

What an interesting story. It made me look up how medal of honor started.

Could you clarify a few things? I don't think the story adds up.

Wikipedia has the followin information. Medal of Honor was made by DreamWorks interactive. [..] Filmmaker Steven Spielberg Spielberg founded DreamWorks Interactive in 1995. [1] And: Danger Close Games (formerly DreamWorks Interactive LLC and EA Los Angeles) was an American video game developer based in Los Angeles. [2]

This doesn't sound like 'a small game studio in Oklahoma'.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor_(1999_video_gam...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danger_Close_Games

Edit: It seems you were talking about the acclaimed: Medal of Honor: Allied Assault.

Made by: 2015, inc[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Games

Edit 2: Spelling

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

#210

Post by gfxgirl »

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…

I agree 100% with much of the sentiment here that creators deserve respect and a cut of the spoils

At the same time, it really depends.... I'm pretty confident that there are very few engineers at FAANG that can't be replaced. I'd also expect there are very few engineers at Epic, Activision, Blizzard, Naughty Dog, Sony, Rockstar, Ubisoft, Valve, etc... that can't be replaced. Sure, if 30%-70% of the team left on any particular project it would probably die, but at least for AAA titles, there's usually no one person responsible for that title's success? Or maybe there is but it's limited to a few key people and not every person on that team.

IF you're at some indie firm with 5-15 people that's probably less true.

I mostly made this comment because in 1983 most games were made by 1 to 3 people max. By the end of the 80s there weren't many games that had more than 20 people on them and usually they took less than a year to make. It was only in the mid 90s that we started getting 30+ people teams trying to fill a CD with data and it arguably wasn't until the 2000s that we had games that it was common to teams of 30-100+ people multiple years to make.

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