Hell is other people: performance management at Big Tech

However, do not underestimate the fact that some of these stories might not be easily disclosed.

A "friend of mine", let's call it Bob, decided to leave one of the big tech companies (call it "A"), and join another big tech company (call it "B"), which offers him exactly double the salary.

Due to a very unlucky combination, a former colleague at A gives the 30-day notice, then announces it on Twitter, and then speaks with Bob, who tells him that he's just joined company B, but another company has a perfect job for his. He applies, gets his job, and tells people that Bob gave him a hand.

Company A, as nasty as these big tech firm can be, decides that Bob needs to "receive a lesson" to avoid further "bleeding", or loss of other talent. See, my friend Bob was evidently quite popular when he was at A. So, A threatens to sue Bob, and company B, for breach of whatever.

The next three months are extremely painful for Bob, who has to go through a third party security audit and let them go through all his files, emails, etc, to then end the process with a mutual agremeent in which B pays the costs of the audit, and all is clear and done. AAaaand, Bob is never to disclose anything about this, publicly, ever.

I can tell you that Bob would love to tell this story, but alas, that's life.

Back to me: I had corporate jobs for 12+ years in different countries, most notably the US, and now I run my own firm (a VC based in Venice, Italy, called Rialto). I'm so happy I don't have to deal with this kind of crap anymore.

I wish all the Bobs in the world the same joy and freedom.

Even my short stint as a manager (with one report, lol), I wasn't on any of the stack-ranking meetings, thankfully.

That's mostly not true.

Which is coincidentally, usually, the most productive problem-solvers. The biggest talkers tend to not be doers, at least not in a way that is beneficial to the company, just themselves.