Big Cuts at Airy Labs, Ex-Employees Blame Management

and necessary...

Education is the worlds biggest problems and opportunities right behind healthcare. People risking everything to make the world a better place shouldn't be denigrated like this. Their failure means there is more for someone to learn from.

Using your example, if the said article goes deep into the matter, talks about what methods they've tried, how those methods failed, what was the outcome of using those methods, the couple's discussion on the said methods... then yes, I'd consider the story to have some useful nuggets... but that's assuming the article is non-tabloidy (you're begging the question here)

The article is the price he paid for screwing up, yes. I much prefer entrepreneurs entering the space with a realistic model of their responsibilities, rather than "Do whatever you want, we'll just sweep your mistakes under the rug :)".

Okay, I was hoping to keep this civil and dispassionate, but I'm really strongly taking issue with your words.

"Two Minutes Hate", "Romans chanting for gladiatorial blood", "Vigilantism", what are you on about? You seem more interested in throwing as many weasel words and colorful, fear-mongering imagery into your comments than actual commentary. Are you writing "1984" or are we talking about the article?

Let's dive into the article first, though, and list out some verifiable, specific claims being made:

- Hsu's family is the actual senior management, despite not holding any officially recognized position.

- The unofficial/family senior management sequestered themselves in an office inaccessible to other employees, and in fact acted so collectively that there was a single email address to reach all of them.

- Employees were forced to commit to 9-6pm quiet hours. Promised breaks of this silent period were not honored.

- Some employees were forced to give lengthy debriefings at the end of the day to senior management, keeping them at the office until 9-10pm.

- The expectation from senior management is to work 6-7 day weeks.

- Management actively discouraged documentation of complaints.

- Management told employees to not speak to ex-employees.

These are concrete claims that the founder and startup can refute definitively. These are also factual findings that one can discover interviewing past and current employees. This is a long way from making vague, non-specific accusations about a company.

So much for your "the claims are neither specific nor verifiable".

You also seem to be making a lot of assumptions about myself and others who have commented in this thread. You accuse us all of "taking smug delight in the bruising... of another person", and likened people commenting on this article to Roman gladiatorial spectators.

As an Asian I'd rather that these accusations not be true, since they inevitably raise stereotypes that I have to live with every day, and I certainly do not want people to check my office for my parents when I do business in the future. Far from taking schadenfreude in these accusations, these sadden me, and if they pan out to be true, will mean a genuine step back for Asian founders.

And yet, if these accusations are true, they deserve to be aired. The bruising of one's reputation is entirely deserved if the claims being leveled are true.

You have an incredibly wide definition of the word "vigilantism", and I suggest you look into its historical uses before trying to weasel that word into anything where any group takes any action against anyone.

I lied. :)

I'm not interested in the article's claims, so I'm not going through them point-by-point.

I apologize for my metaphors. They aren't weasel words, though. I'm not equivocating about anything. They're direct, if non-literal, expressions of my opinion.

I think the article is lurid and vulgar. I think it's designed to stoke a mob response (cf. earl's comment). I don't think the goal was to uncover "the facts" any more than Hannity and Colmes is designed to uncover the facts.

I also think, even if the claims in the article were true, it's tantamount to an article about someone seeing Jack Nicholson yelling at a waitress and making her break down in tears.

We like that article because it makes us feel righteous. It's still vulgar, though.

(This is actually my last response. I hope the above was sufficiently civil and dispassionate. I'm not sure why being dispassionate is a virtue, though.)

I'll probably get flamed/negative karma for this, but here goes. I actually know the folks involved so I won't comment on any of the details. Anthony and Andrew are both doing their jobs. How well they are doing it is up to you to decide.

I will say that taking one startup's stumble, or even their eventual demise, as a data-point to slam a whole program is pretty harsh. I'm a Mentor for 20 Under 20 and I certainly don't think the mission is to get kids to drop out of college, but it's easy for the media to push this little sound bite. If you've meet any of the Fellows you would know they're out to change the world and would likely do so with or without Peter's money. Failure is the expected outcome for the vast majority of startups. All you Founders here know that, or will learn it first hand. Most of these kids have never failed at anything in their lives, and will unfortunately face these hard lessons in the public eye. It's really easy to criticize and grab pitchforks online.

You can think whatever you want about the situation at Airy Labs and you are entitled to your opinion of Andrew Hsu as well. But to try and lump all the other Fellows into this is unfair to them and quite disappointing.