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

Post by jollybean » Wed, Sep 14, 2022, 9:20 PM UTC

dawnbreez wrote: post #426

jollybean wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this story has a problem. An entire company 'quits' and just 're-does the thing' is almost assuredly theft of know-now and IP, but more than that theft of the operating modality. It takes in incredible amount of work, risk, investment etc. to 'get something up and going' - with all of the parts working. Any time you walk into a company you'll see what looks like 'things working' on some level, usually that took…

I mean, you can call it IP theft, I can call it wage theft. The article quotes one of the devs as saying they had "unpaid milestones", which reads an awful lot like the "major publisher" he didn't want to name for legal reasons had violated the one term that mattered: the part where they pay for the game. The lesson to take away here, for management, is that you can't get away with everything forever. Whether you vie…

Post by mdcds » Wed, Sep 14, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #406

Not really that worthy of note, but I worked at a small startup in SF in 2014 with 2 founders and 3 employees. We all quit within 2 days. It was uncoordinated and coincidental. The founders were flabbergasted. I spoke with the others and the reasoning was the same. We were all very seasoned senior engineers, but the founders didn't trust us and handed us kanban tickets like short order cooks because they had PhDs. It…

Post by pvillano » Wed, Sep 14, 2022, 9:56 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #71

yardie wrote: post #12

Printing press. The pressman that operated the largest press quit, fired, no showed, or whatever. Margins are already thin so losing just 1 press can be pretty devastating. A pressman, even a trained one, has to be trained since each machine is build to order. It’s not something you can post a job in Indeed and have a new employee after a week.

I've seen this happen, and the company end up in serious danger (and they still were down a pressman and flailing last time I heard.) Somehow the fact that everything is depending on pressmen doesn't affect the way management pays or treats them, though.

Post by arinlen » Wed, Sep 14, 2022, 10:16 PM UTC

bigie35 wrote: post #360

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I'm talking about 2015. The first two Playstation only MoH games were not exactly failures, but they were little more than Goldeneye clones with WW2 themes. The first PC game is really the start of what we think of as the Medal of Honor franchise proper. The team that bailed founded Infinity Ward, which was the origin of Call of Duty, or at least the first like 8 games in the franchise. So yes, my story does in…

Lately HN feels more like a bunch of lawyers quibbling over semantics... It gets really old, really fast. Whatever happened to assume positive intent?

Post by egberts1 » Wed, Sep 14, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #442

egberts1 wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if and when the design team of Google hiring are not made up of HR personnel, it could be construed as a violation of Federal labor law. It becomes a violation if the hiring (non-HR) team are privy to sensitive info of applicants. and if HR design team and hiring (non-HR) team are one and the same playing fast and loose with privilege info, many lawyers will be all over this. Of course, I am unwilling to find out bec…

I think you are grossly misinformed. >when the design team of Google hiring are not made up of HR personnel, it could be construed as a violation of Federal labor law. There is nothing illegal about the design team participating in or even running the hiring process. >HR design team and hiring (non-HR) team are one and the same playing fast and loose with privilege info, many lawyers will be all over this. There is n…