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OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

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Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#41

Post by fleitz »

RexRollman wrote: post #26

I don't understand this. Pierce didn't slam OMGPOP, from what I have read, just Zynga's unwillingness to exempt his personal project from its IP clutches. I have to wonder why OMGPOP's CEO felt the need to do this.

He sounds incredibly insecure about it which probably belies a lot of the truth about what Shay Pierce contributed to the team.

Shay probably didn't have a lot at stake and it was just a job, as a leader it's a sign of leadership failure if your troops don't follow you which is what the CEO is likely insecure about. He's also working at Zynga and who knows what the management team will think next week about what OMGPOP really contributed to Zynga.

Both of them look incredibly insecure, but Mr. Porter is the guy with $200 mm in the bank who is expected to show some class. If Shay's weak why even pay attention, just smile that you avoided bringing a weak link with you.

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#42

Post by [deleted] »

itsprofitbaron wrote: post #38

FWIW Dan Porter (OMGPOP CEO) has responded on Twitter[1] saying: What I meant to say was... I want to celebrate the people who worked on the game. Who have stuck together. They are everything. Thank you. He also responded to Notch[2] saying: @notch it's been a the craziest ride. So yes I may be temporarily insane. I just wanted my team who stuck with us to shine. [1] https://twitter.com/#!/tfadp/status/18643678761752…

[deleted]

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#44

Post by vaksel »

zrgiu_ wrote: post #15

Like Notch said... "you are an insane idiot!". What did the CEO of OMGPOP had to gain from making those remarks ? He surely didn't expect the world to take his side.. Even if Shay Pierce really was "the weakest link of the team", you just don't say that. You just got bought for $200 million, now it's the time to show that you deserved to be the CEO of that company, by being diplomatic, respecting those around you (or…

yeah, the 2nd one was even dumber:

  What's so interesting about success is the number of   
  failures who try to ride on your back. Shay Pierce is 
  just one of many...
since the guy specifically went out of his way not to "ride on his back" because of morals.

Frankly from his tweets it sure looks like the biggest failure on the team is the CEO...they just got lucky and instead of being humble, he is doing the completely wrong thing...and if he was such a failure as an employee, why did such a great manager keep him employed

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#45

Post by huggyface »

scott_w wrote: post #31

What a fool. Shay Pierce's article was incredibly polite and graceful, so there's no way OMGPOP can come off looking like anything but pathetic and vindictive. I think the worst thing I've heard our CEO say about a former employee is "it was time for the company and X to part ways" after X took a job elsewhere, and this was an internal meeting. We don't take to tweeting the inner workings of our company.

"Earlier this week – days after Zynga bought OMGPOP for $210 million – a now former OMGPOP engineer named Shay Pierce wrote a column for gaming news Web site Gamasutra explaining that he would not join Zynga because it is "evil." He said that companies like Zynga think of users as "weak-minded cash cows.""

Come on. OMGPOP was a fast rising company with a very green CEO. Expectations that they're going to act like the CEO of Oracle (boom, bad example) or something seems out of place. The CEO is a person just like everyone else, and had a moment of weakness.

The CEO took it personally. And rightly so, because in his implications Pierce was saying that everyone else were willing to join an "evil" company that treats people as "weak minded cash cows". When we make personal statements of values and their justifications ("I don't eat meat because I don't like murdering innocent animals, blood on my hands"), we naturally raise the hairs of those who make different decisions.

EDIT: Normally I just bear those downvotes, but in this case I find them a little disturbing. The whole narrative around this has taken on a distinctly "we are the 99%!" type of schism. The CEO is a human being too, and there is no reason to value or respect the opinion of Pierce.

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#47

Post by _delirium »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #27
zrgiu_ wrote: post #15

Like Notch said... "you are an insane idiot!". What did the CEO of OMGPOP had to gain from making those remarks ? He surely didn't expect the world to take his side.. Even if Shay Pierce really was "the weakest link of the team", you just don't say that. You just got bought for $200 million, now it's the time to show that you deserved to be the CEO of that company, by being diplomatic, respecting those around you (or…

True. It is indeed very unprofessional. But how come people like him are held up to such high standards? When you're not anyone important you can be brutally honest and say what you want like everyone else does. But as soon as you're in the public eye you're put on this pedestal. This is what scares the hell out of me. I'm a very uncensored person who says what he means and means what he says (and am an asshole somet…

I think some of it is the kind of comment it was as well. Negative public comments about specific employees are the kind of thing that would make a lot of people think the CEO was someone you should steer clear of, even if he weren't that high profile. If you saw it in a Tweet from a 10-person startup, it probably wouldn't make news, but it might be a red flag to potential employees. When you add to it that the guy is hugely wealthy, it just gives it an added aura of entitled-rich-asshole-looking-down-on-the-plebs.

Actually it reminds me of the kinds of reactions Sebastian Marshall gets around here for his jerky/arrogant/employee-badmouthing style of blogging, and that guy isn't even wealthy or famous (except HN-famous).

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#48

Post by ohyes »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #27
zrgiu_ wrote: post #15

Like Notch said... "you are an insane idiot!". What did the CEO of OMGPOP had to gain from making those remarks ? He surely didn't expect the world to take his side.. Even if Shay Pierce really was "the weakest link of the team", you just don't say that. You just got bought for $200 million, now it's the time to show that you deserved to be the CEO of that company, by being diplomatic, respecting those around you (or…

True. It is indeed very unprofessional. But how come people like him are held up to such high standards? When you're not anyone important you can be brutally honest and say what you want like everyone else does. But as soon as you're in the public eye you're put on this pedestal. This is what scares the hell out of me. I'm a very uncensored person who says what he means and means what he says (and am an asshole somet…

> But how come people like him are held up to such high standards?

Because he is supposed to be a leader. Leaders are held to higher standards. They are supposed to have integrity and good character.

The people you cite are celebrities, not leaders. We do not take them seriously. They are there to entertain us, make a lot of money, do drugs and fade into oblivion. Comparisons are irrelevant. All that you get making comparisons is a race to the bottom.

And it wasn't that he was profane. He wasn't profane in the tweet at all. (No one really cares about profanity anymore anyway).

He went out of his way to demean another human being (who he likely knew and worked closely with) when it was really not necessary. That is the shocking, self-serving, and utterly ugly part about his statement. It shows that he lacks character.

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#49

Post by sgentle »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #27
zrgiu_ wrote: post #15

Like Notch said... "you are an insane idiot!". What did the CEO of OMGPOP had to gain from making those remarks ? He surely didn't expect the world to take his side.. Even if Shay Pierce really was "the weakest link of the team", you just don't say that. You just got bought for $200 million, now it's the time to show that you deserved to be the CEO of that company, by being diplomatic, respecting those around you (or…

True. It is indeed very unprofessional. But how come people like him are held up to such high standards? When you're not anyone important you can be brutally honest and say what you want like everyone else does. But as soon as you're in the public eye you're put on this pedestal. This is what scares the hell out of me. I'm a very uncensored person who says what he means and means what he says (and am an asshole somet…

I can't speak for everyone else, but it wasn't the honesty I had an issue with, it was the reckless disloyalty and willingness to publicly burn people who've worked for you.

For sure, this guy called Zynga evil and said he didn't want to work for them, and that's the last thing you want showing up in Mark Pincus's news feed when he's just bought your company. But to shoot back in public and call him a parasite and the weakest person on the team? That's just vengeful and childish.

Forget censorship, it's just about having a shred of professional respect. Maybe he has a fat mother, or erectile dysfunction, or shitty dress sense. If you do something to upset me, what would you want me to post about you on Twitter? There's a line that even DHH-style "I'm funny because I'm callous" can't cross.

Any business relationship carries with it a certain amount of trust, and between a leader and their team most of all. Pierce said he didn't like Zynga (his personal opinion) and he was attacked by someone who had the ability to expose private information about his job performance, and who should have owed him better than that.

Personally, I wouldn't care if Porter said "Shay Pierce is wrong and doesn't know what he's talking about", or even if he said "Shay fucking Pierce is fucking wrong fucking" while hanging out of a porn-funded blimp. It's the intention, not the words, that I find offensive.

Re: OMGPOP CEO tweets: "Shay Pierce was the weakest employee on the team"

#50

Post by j_baker »

scott_w wrote: post #31

What a fool. Shay Pierce's article was incredibly polite and graceful, so there's no way OMGPOP can come off looking like anything but pathetic and vindictive. I think the worst thing I've heard our CEO say about a former employee is "it was time for the company and X to part ways" after X took a job elsewhere, and this was an internal meeting. We don't take to tweeting the inner workings of our company.

Out of all the ways I can think of to describe Pierce's article, "incredibly polite and graceful" is probably at the bottom of the list. Pierce branded a potential employer "evil" because of a minor detail in his contract (granted, a minor detail he had every right to turn the contract down for). Zynga isn't exactly well known for having the most integrity as a company, but it's certainly neither polite nor graceful for him to publicize his dispute with them like that.

A better way to phrase it would be to say "Pierce's article says something impolite and ungraceful in the most polite and graceful way possible".

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