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Goodbye Auth0

joshcanhelp.com

211–220 of 281 posts

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#211

It’s not talked about as much but one of the main reasons for American and European software developers being let go is outsourcing to places like India. Companies save 90% of the cost of hiring someone in America. Very soon we are going to see what happened to manufacturing jobs happen to software jobs in the US unless the government steps in. Unfortunately I don’t see anyone talk about it

What do you mean it’s not talked about? It was an incredibly common theme during the celebrations of remote work increases. A: "Finally, I can work from anywhere and don't have to live in an expensive place and commute to that office every day." B-Z: "Um, don't you think that being able to work from anywhere increases the possibility of the company to hire from anywhere as well? And that it's not guaranteed to be you…

To be fair, there's also those of us in Europe splitting the difference.

Auth0 is interesting in that it kinda did this from the start - a lot of the engineering was in South America - especially Argentina (it was founded by an Argentinian after all!) and there was great talent in nearly the same time zone. I don't understand why more companies in the US don't look at Latin America for affordable engineering talent.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#212
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tradeoff is that people lose their ability to bargain individually, which is why you rarely see unionization of high-paid workers in the US. I think whether it makes sense for an individual to unionize really depends on their ability to negotiate. The more highly paid that a worker is and the more unique their role is, the less they have to gain from unionization vs looking at internal job postings and hiring an…

It absolutely does not mean that. Unions help set minimum standards, not maximum ones. I've worked in private companies where the maximum comp is set by management and they do not allow individual negotiations. And I've worked in heavily unionised organisations where I was able to negotiate a better deal for myself. Do you really think your unique talents will save you from a lecherous boss or protect you from being…

I've negotiated raises without being unionized. I've paid lawyers for contract negotiations. It still stands that in this specific instance it doesn't appear that the suggestion of unionization is relevant. Notably absent from your story is your job title, salary, whether you were personally unionized, and any mention of anything the union actually did for you personally. I'm not saying unions are generally bad, but they aren't magic, and I wouldn't expect one to prevent you from being fired in a merger generally much less in a tech startup.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My family coverage was $1900.

Mine was going to be around $2200/month. Thankfully my company paid for the first 6 months following the layoff.

Mine covered 4 months. I'm glad I was able to find another job before that ran out.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#214
post #4

I don’t get it why the US company layoff culture is so different from what I’m familiar with, the European one. What are they afraid of that people need to be locked out? That one brings a gun to work? Here you get laid off, get a notice, are expected to continue working for a while (but depending on your work ethic you’ll take it easy), consume your remaining PTO, complain to your coworkers about what happened durin…

At my second job, the company terminated an employee for poor performance and intended to let them stay on a short term to wrap things up and then start their severance. The first evening (or maybe the first Friday evening), that dev stayed late in the office and deleted the source trees from as many machines as he could get access to (this was 1996, so most machines didn't have logins) and wiped the hard drive on th…

If your crazy ex steals your watch on the way out, does it mean all new people you meet will get a frisk search at the end of each date?

That’s not how trust works, regardless of potential consequences.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “people first” company was Auth0. The company that sent the email and terminated access instantly was Okta. Fairly clear to me.

How can a company be "people first" when they sell out to a larger company who isn't "people first"?

This is a good question. A lot of people, all over the world, put a lot of work into something and getting acquired turns stock options worth $0 into options worth a lot more than that. It’s just my $0.02 but, knowing the founders and who they are, I’m fairly sure this was more about giving back to the folks that made it happen than it was a purely business decision.

Also, Auth0 was investor-backed so there was likely a lot of pressure to sell at the price being offered. I don’t know how all that works exactly but I can imagine that this kind of decision is made by more people than just the founders.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I prefer 'blessed', and not in the corny #blessed way, to describe my condition. To me, I was given much because so much is expected of me by God, by universe and by my higher self. How do you avoid this leading to a feeling that you, and anyone else "blessed", is more important that others? Should we really assume that the condition of one's life is an indicator of both the existence of a higher power and of that…

Not OP, but I’ll take a crack at responding. The feeling of being “blessed” is the recognition that a substantial component of your current fortune is due to circumstances outside your control, whether due to a higher power, support from family/friends, raw luck, or the kindness of strangers. The proper and typical response to this feeling is one of gratitude, not self-importance, and the desired response is to contr…

I definitely understand it from the angle you're describing, though similar to a sibling comment I'd see that as "lucky" more than "blessed".

The OP comment was removed ,but if I remember right it was specifically calling out their life circumstances as being given by god specifically, and a view that this is both a purposeful prioritization of that person and a responsibility to use gods blessings.

I wouldn't even argue directly against that view, mainly because I strongly believe that everyone has an absolute right to freedom of religion. I would have been curious to hear more though, because at least how I remember the OP describing it there was more to it than a recognition of the circumstances they were born into and how it compares to others less fortunate.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could have been more clear here. When I mentioned companies there I was referring to the people running the companies. Of course a company has no feelings or agency, companies are just a legal structure around a collection of people. Don't get me started on the absurdity of arguing that companies are people, that ruling was terrible. I don't think its reasonable to assume that a company could ever have full safegua…

> Companies must trust their employees at some level, generally the level of trust grows in relation to the employee's responsibilities. Hard disagree. People should be trusted with the things they need to perform their role, and no more than that. You would not give access of a production database to a CTO just because they have more responsibilities than a sysadmin, and any CTO that tries to bludgeon their way into…

It sounds like we actually see that the same, I'm trying to make a slightly different point.

Say I'm a software developer specifically working on the frontend library for an authentication service. The company needs to trust me with access to parts of the system and infrastructure pertinent to that feature. I very much agree that I should be locked out of other areas that I don't need for the job, for example I shouldn't have access to employee records, accounting, etc.

Once I am fired, though, the company has to continue to trust me to not misuse the parts of the system that I do already have access to. If I am fired but allowed to stay for a transition period and my permissions aren't revoked immediately, the company is trusting me. If I am fired and immediately blocked, its a sign that the company didn't trust me rather than an indication of my own mistrust for the company/institution.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies must trust their employees at some level, generally the level of trust grows in relation to the employee's responsibilities. Hard disagree. People should be trusted with the things they need to perform their role, and no more than that. You would not give access of a production database to a CTO just because they have more responsibilities than a sysadmin, and any CTO that tries to bludgeon their way into…

It sounds like we actually see that the same, I'm trying to make a slightly different point. Say I'm a software developer specifically working on the frontend library for an authentication service. The company needs to trust me with access to parts of the system and infrastructure pertinent to that feature. I very much agree that I should be locked out of other areas that I don't need for the job, for example I shoul…

You could continue to work on things, but your access would be set to read-only and you'd lose commit rights, or you'd be working on a completely separate branch and as part of the transition process someone else on the team would have to be able to report they have successfully merged worked from your tree to the main one.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my second job, the company terminated an employee for poor performance and intended to let them stay on a short term to wrap things up and then start their severance. The first evening (or maybe the first Friday evening), that dev stayed late in the office and deleted the source trees from as many machines as he could get access to (this was 1996, so most machines didn't have logins) and wiped the hard drive on th…

If your crazy ex steals your watch on the way out, does it mean all new people you meet will get a frisk search at the end of each date? That’s not how trust works, regardless of potential consequences.

No, but you probably do get your key back immediately after your next breakup.

Re: Goodbye Auth0

#220
post #52

Do a lot of companies actually fire people via email? That seems very cold! Most of the companies I've worked for they will call you into a meeting with your boss and HR and then have security walk you out after gathering your things. Not ideal, but at least has a human element. If this person was remote then it could at least be done via phone.

Once I got laid off via 1:1 call. Once I got laid off via a mass call with HR, they canned my entire department at once (300+ people). Once I got laid off via bulk bcc'd email because I was on vacation and missed the last-minute mass call with HR. This has never happened to me, but I am absolutely 100% positive some companies just shut your access off, send you an email to an account you can't log into any more, and…

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