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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?

#391

Post by schnevets »

It's not quite "dying", but there is a pattern that is so obvious it's confounding:

> Small group of experts form Boutique Consultancy focused on specific technology (Cloud, SaaS Product, Framework, Open-source tool, etc.); Headcount = ~10 employees

> Experts start making referrals and mentoring analysts in specific technology; Slight diversification in offerings; Headcount = ~100 employees

> Boutique Consultancy makes major splash with huge client; Hire like crazy; Maybe accept additional investment; Headcount = ~300 employees

> Boutique Consultancy gets acquired by Global Service and Consulting Provider; Assurance that branding and leadership will remain; Buyers interested in "synergy deals"; Headcount = ~300 employees in +100,000 employee network

> Original experts and early employees take acquisition payouts and find/found new Boutique Consultancies; Buyers satisfied with acquired brand and customer base; Headcount = ~100 employees

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

#392

Post by egberts1 »

_nalply wrote: post #175
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…

So the good ones left when they realized what was going on and the mediocre ones stayed. I, being Deaf, would have been forced to stay with the mediocre ones because interviewing is difficult for me. I am lucky that I don't need a job now.

As I’ve posted my story below, I also wanted to point out that I was uniquely Deaf, but nonetheless a rockstar programmer then.

Interviewing is hard. Notably Google’s digital interviewing where they insist that they call you for an interview. I aced all their backend questions so they kept trying to call me until I insisted that I call them. Then it went silent. Their loss.

This approach doesn’t leave us Deafies a whole lotta time to arrange for an American Sign Language interpreter to come and sit with us before the phone rings.

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

#393

Post by stackbutterflow »

cxr wrote: post #353
rkangel wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's hostility on both sides here. "Could you clarify a few things?" is one thing, but "I don't think the story adds up" is a direct accusation of lying.

The problem is that the anecdote, as originally told, was told poorly. This: > 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 ... makes it sound as if the studio started the franchise—which is not helped by the fact that it says "Medal of Honor" (which is apparently a thing), not "Medal of Honor: Allied Assault" (which is app…

It's easier to start from the end by googling "Call of Duty founders" than starting from Medal of Honor and hoping there aren't too many branches with only one leading to Call of Duty (which is the case here).

"Call of Duty founders" -> first link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward -> 3rd sentence: All of the 22 original team members of Infinity Ward came from the team that had worked on Medal of Honor: Allied Assault

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

#394

Post by clavalle »

ChrisLomont wrote: post #309
neffy wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you take the truly non-performing folks, well sad to say you can probably get rid of most of them and improve performance. Otherwise, get rid of any engineer and the minimum impact is 3-6 months code and culture familiarisation before they get up to speed with your particular application/code base/equipment. Can easily be more than a year - especially with some of the big systems. So yes there is an impact on busi…

>get rid of any engineer and the minimum impact is 3-6 months code and culture familiarisation On a big project, say 100 devs over 3 years, 6 man months is 1/600th of the work, so a single person is replaceable and it's not even noise. If the replacement takes 6 months to get up to speed the replacement is certainly not a very good developer, even on the biggest projects. At that size, there's lots of small side proj…

>If the replacement takes 6 months to get up to speed the replacement is certainly not a very good developer

I think you're mistaking 'becoming a contributing member of the team' for 'contributes at the level of the developer that left'.

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

#395

Post by conductr »

Not really notable but I know of this impacting local businesses in my area due to the labor shortage

* nursery where I buy plants couldn’t find laborers over this past spring/summer and decided to close up shop. It was a pretty big operation as they go. Owner was near retirement age and the land is probably worth 10x the business at this point so just decided to call it quits because he couldn’t do the basic stuff of caring for plants/moving them around.

* dog boarding/kennels/grooming seems to be hit very hard on labor shortage. The place I board our pets is at 50% capacity due to labor shortages, probably a downward spiral

* several/most restaurants in downtown area never reopened because of no staff

* I work for a healthcare company and we actually have nursing homes temporarily closed as mentioned as an example. We almost had to close a few of our ICUs with ventilators during peak Covid because we had no staff. In some cases, FEMA nurses actually came in to help keep it open. Anything with a mandated staffing ratio is challenging at the moment. It’s improving as Covid cases improve though.

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

#396

Post by scarface74 »

ethbr0 wrote: post #352
pc86 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How does a person's personal vaccination status affect the care you're likely to receive? Because it shows that they're not intellectually capable of making good medical decisions. The risk that the other medical decisions they will make are equally bad despite all evidence to the contrary increases.

As far as I've met people, there are three groups: - Those who believe that anyone who doesn't vaccinate "isn't intellectually capable of making good medical decisions" - Those who are opposed to vaccination because they believe in conspiracy theories - Those who are are either pro- or anti- vaccination, but realize it's a complicated issue, with evidence-supported pros and cons, that other humans of reasonable intel…

Either way, just like I wouldn’t want a religious zealot who has convictions about performing an abortion while my wife is laying their bleeding, I wouldn’t trust the judgement of an anti-vaxxer.

One of my best friends who lived in Seattle whose wife did have complications during pregnancy. He told his doctor that in no uncertain terms if they had to make a choice between his wife and his unborn son, to save his wife’s life. They had to perform a c section early to save his wife. His son is healthy and thriving and he had a vasectomy soon after their child was born to not risk another pregnancy and they adopted a child.

He said in today’s climate. If he had lived in a state like Texas, he would have found another job and moved.

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

#397

Post by golergka »

joyfylbanana wrote: post #366
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. That wisdom applies to that specific industry. In gaming, the people you hire are the asset. However the same doesn't apply to all industries. Sometimes people are…

If that's true (your statement, not mine), this just means that compensation fast fast-food employees get is completely fair.

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

#398

Post by bubblematrix »

astura wrote: post #234
rvanlaar wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 g…

If you go to the souce on the Wikipedia page, it tells a slightly different story than what the OP said - https://www.mcvuk.com/business-news/publishing/the-medal-of-... >Yet 2015 would never get the chance to make another Medal of Honor. EA decided to take all development for the franchise in-house. Morale was low amongst the team and they were looking to start up on its own. >We had bonded as a team, but decided we…

No post body was provided.

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

#399

Post by pinewurst »

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’d read that Kassar actually compared the programmers with towel designers, having come from Burlington Industries (a textile company) himself.

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

#400

Post by dahart »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #196
dahart wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is a great story, and should be an inspiration to aspiring gave devs. As you can clearly see in the thread, I did not bring up CoD. Two comments above me were discussing it. I was just pointing out that it’s now a huge franchise. All the franchises, large and small, have cycled through many, many programmers and artists and designers. It does not disrespect your friend to point out that there are multiple studios he didn’t start that are now developing CoD, or to point out that it has been ported to so many platforms that there has been a metric ton of unsexy porting work alongside the original content work. Having worked on both game and movie franchises, I can safely say that there’s less room for individual input. Not none, just less. I’ve witnessed whole studios (both in games and films) push and push to work on an original non-franchise production, because everyone knew it’d be more fun and felt less like being a cog. The fact that your friend made a wildly successful franchise is absolutely great for him, and for his business, but you can’t claim that it’s creatively great for everyone else involved, even if it does support them financially.
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