This is a legal dispute and your bringing it public reflects terribly upon you.
I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
131–140 of 391 posts
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#132Thank you for posting this. As a community of entrepreneurs and hackers it helps all of us know what happens behind the scenes. Some people may view it as airing their dirty laundry but I see it as a way to keep people honest. The fact that you dropped the production database sucks. However you stayed around and fixed it. I can't really say anything more. My bet is we all handle lots of sensitive data around here. Ou…
I disagree. Handling things professionally and keeping people honest are two different things.
There is no "service to the SV community" that this guy is doing by airing dirty laundry. If you've been wronged by your former company, handle it on your own. Shaming the company is not going to help you, the company, or anyone else. What you're effectively suggesting is that your "service" is to warn everyone to stay away from Miso.
Unfortunately, as a hiring manager, I'm going to stay away from you. While I wholeheartedly agree that you should have gotten your $10K referral bonus, I also believe it should have been while you were still an employee there. Once you leave, you're not entitled to anything more from the company.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#133"Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this bonus." I must say, I completely agree. This is how it works. Your referral bonus is a perk, and nothing more. You didn't claim it. They weren't on top of it. You both failed here. But then you quit. And you left without it. That sucks for you, but they owe you nothing.
When my girlfriend broke up with me, we had a lot of shared stuff in my apartment we had purchased together. I gave her back everything she wanted and more.
Why? I didn't owe her anything. We'd purchased things together, lived together, ownership was undefined, and hell, she left me. Oh wait - human decency. That's what it is.
I guess since HN is full of armchair CEOs, dismissing respectful business relationships is in vogue here.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#134First step after an employer says no to paying you money owed should ALWAYS be a letter on dead tree saying exactly what your email said, signed by your lawyer. You'll come out $9,700 ahead because folks understand that fobbing off lawyers has consequences. Your lawyer would have printed out email #2 ("You nuked a DB. Screw you."), called it a pretext to deny you rightfully earned wages , and told the company to have…
The point about illegal retribution is really good. Notice how email #3 walked it right back and came up with an entirely different argument. They knew they screwed up.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#135If Somrat had not said: "After you lost our data and caused our entire company to scramble for 3 days, I am hesitant", everything might've been fine for Miso. It's too bad he never learned to keep his mouth shut.
That was what kept me reading the entire article.
Somrat started the conversation by making it personal.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#136Stop calling it a bonus, it isn't, it's payment for your services of recruitment. The offer came as part of a written agreement from an officer of the company in relation to the duties required by employees (adding the optional duty of recruitment) and their remuneration for performing said services (your payment for recruitment). Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck. Bonuses are when you receive additional pay for…
For not being a lawyer, this is an awesome reply.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#137"Because you are no longer employed by Miso, you are not eligible for this bonus." I must say, I completely agree. This is how it works. Your referral bonus is a perk, and nothing more. You didn't claim it. They weren't on top of it. You both failed here. But then you quit. And you left without it. That sucks for you, but they owe you nothing.
When my girlfriend broke up with me, we had a lot of shared stuff in my apartment we had purchased together. I gave her back everything she wanted and more. Why? I didn't owe her anything. We'd purchased things together, lived together, ownership was undefined, and hell, she left me. Oh wait - human decency. That's what it is. I guess since HN is full of armchair CEOs, dismissing respectful business relationships is…
Your analogy makes no sense.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#138Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
the email could have said 10k for _current_ employees or something to that effect. i am also leaning towards siding with the founders here, not knowing all the facts. how much time and productivity did it cost the company when this employee lost the data? more or less than 10k? either side of it, does it really make sense to hand someone a 10k bonus after they made a major mistake and then quit shortly after?
It's two separate issues. Sounds like they owe him $10k. If they also want to pursue a lawsuit over his data screw-up, they should. But that's unrelated. (I think such a suit would be tossed, given his screw-up seems to be based upon Miso not having suitable back-ups, which: The fuck?)
If they file a lawsuit against an employee for losing a database that they neglected to backup, I would love to hear a follow up story.
I'm sure that after it gets out how they deal with routine mistakes they'll have highly qualified database engineers lining up at their door to work there because of the excitement of working in such a high stakes environment.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not really how it works. If it's in an e-mail, it's a contract. Me: "Hey, if you do X I'll give you $10k." You: [Does X.] "Can I have my $10k?" Me: "Nah, the moment's passed. I'm not really feeling it anymore." Nope. That's sleazy behavior.
As long as the email isn't as fully formulated as an actual contract I usually tend to see them more as a declaration of an intent that isn't 100% fixed yet and is missing some of the details. (such as: you won't get it after you decided to quit and work somewhere else). That's usually the nice thing about startups, you don't have to fill out gobs of paperwork and have hours of meetings to get these small perks figur…
Do you realize how diametrically opposed your two points are? If an agreement is legally worthless unless it is formally stated, then all agreements will quickly become formally stated, and will devolve into "gobs of paperwork and hours of meetings."
If informal agreements are considered contracts (which they legally are), then the startup (or whatever) won't need all that formal processing.