131–140 of 194 posts
I bought a copy of Connectrode ( http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/connectrode/id438450056?mt=8 ) to support the guy, but it's actually a pretty fun game on its own. It'll be hilarious if he ends up on the leaderboard because of his former boss's lack of civility and professional decorum.
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wr…
they just got lucky Can't stress this enough. I liked OMGPOP from the start, when they were still that obscure flash-site for 6-12yr olds. But that was before the CEO announced that he's an asshole... "DrawSomething" most likely got popular mainly because the implementation is much better than the other Pictionary clones (which have been around forever). And that's an aspect that Mr. CEO probably wasn't involved with…
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…
If he really was awful and got called on it, that would be one thing. But to be libeled for no reason other than writing up your decision not to take a new job is terrible. Nobody should do that, CEO of something or not.
I worked on Wall Street 2006 to 2008, and I had friends on the Street before that. I went into "tech" in 2008, saw the mini-crash and read the Sequoia ScareDoc, and now I'm watching this bubble.
Wall Street has a bad reputation, but I've seen far worse ethics and much less professionalism in technology, which is supposed to be above that garbage. On Wall Street, people know what the rules are. They're pretty clear, because the scummiest shit has generally been tried. You front-run your customer, you go to jail. You get a reputation for being unethical, it ruins your career. You defraud people, you get fired for life from the securities industry. You have to take a Series 7, so you have no excuse. Sure, the industry has some slimeballs and some slip through, but not so brazenly, and they at least are supposed to feel bad about it. In technology these days, there are so many people who don't give the square root of a shit about making good software but just want to play the angles. The vast majority of them aren't engineers, those who are tend engineers turning into junior executives by putting their ethics through a fire sale, but none of those fuckers belong here.
Google: generally professional and probably ethical macroscopically, but careerist to a fault. Bureaucratically overgrown. Full of horrid legacy systems that are built to flip-- specifically, to be "interesting" enough to merit a promotion for the original architect, who then moves on before it goes into maintenance phase and falls to pieces. That's how you get promoted at the big G. Launch and flee, every 18 to 24 months.
Startupland: I can name two major ($100M+ valuation) VC-funded companies that have committed major ethical faults in the past 6 months (one wasn't published and won't be, one developed last week and might be in the next 3 weeks). Both of these startups have some of the best, nicest, and most interesting engineers I've ever met... but are run by scumbag executives that would have fit in better with 1980s private equity people than with the (more decent, much more boring) typical Wall Street quant. I've never met a VC and I'm sure they're not all bad, but my theory is that the scumbaggery in so many VC-funded startups has to come from the top. I assume they fund people who are like them, and that would make sense, given that VCs are mostly MBAs, and something like 60 percent of B-school students at top schools cheat in their coursework.
Why do I bring this up? Because it's fucking nuts that some unprofessional, vindictive jerk like this guy was just acquired for $200 million. The world is seriously on tilt here. What are we even doing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
they just got lucky That's what unsuccessful people say when someone becomes successful. I think there are two reasons for the typical "he just got lucky" insult. 1) When you tear down a successful person, you get to transfer a little of their success to you. (aka "player hatin'") 2) Level playing field. It's nice to imagine that everyone has the same amount of "luck," and therefore the same chance of being successfu…
I agree with you. Hard work drastically improves your chances. But there are indeed times when people hit the silicon valley lottery. I suspect marc andreessen's secretary's peers were just as hard working as she was. Maybe he is indeed an exceptional CEO. If you rank CEO's by quality, I suspect the top half of the list has better things to do than fumble around on twitter Saturday afternoon.
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Being able to keep legal ownership of what you have done in your spare time in the past is not really a minor detail. I think it's important.
Wouldn't it be possible to create a trust (or even a corporation), transfer all of your IP to the trust and then appoint trusted third parties as trustees? There seems to be a world of difference between personally holding IP and being the sole beneficiary of a trust that holds IP. For my part, I'll stick to working for employers with reasonable terms of employment.
Two important things to remember about negotiating contracts: A) They are mainly about the spirit of the agreement, and B) If any of the language actually gets as far as being tested in a court and you're just an individual, you're probably already fucked.
Zynga/OMGPOP clearly think it's unreasonable for any of their employees to do any outside game work. When Shay said, "Hey, can have an exception for my pet project," they said no. If Shay had tried to find some behind-their-back trick, the best case is that they just wouldn't care.
The worst case is that they fire him and bring a suit to take the game from him. Whether or not they win, Shay probably can't afford to spend $100k or more on a lawsuit, not for a little side project. So if he's lucky he escapes with $5K in legal bills so that he can hand the game over to him and agree in writing never to utter the word "Zynga" again.
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…
Sentiment towards the likes of EA and Sony are at an all-time low for their consumer-hostile behaviour, and I think the market is ripe for being shaken up. We've already seen in recent weeks that the games-playing public are prepared to reach into their wallets even in the middle of an economic downturn and help fund videogame projects through Kickstarter.
If the people who make videogames refuse to be treated like disposable commodities by obnoxious pricks like Dan Porter by boycotting working for them, then eventually these organisations will have to change their ways, or risk being replaced by companies who will treat their staff with respect and humility.
Porter forgot the number 1 rule of politics: If your opponent is making a mistake, don't stop him. I understand what Pierce is saying (and can't help sympathizing), but I can't help thinking that writing that editorial was poor taste on Pierce's part, and probably would have reflected poorly on him had Porter kept his mouth shut and not turned him into a martyr. I mean, if you disagree with a potential employer's" va…
Personally, I'd have no trouble hiring Shay Pierce. I like it when people I hire have some backbone and some moral sense. Obedience is occasionally useful, but making software is essentially a creative effort (as is starting a new company). For that, you need people who can think independently from the basis of shared values.