I love it when insane discussions like this come up on HN because it gives you a great pool of people and companies to remind yourself never to work for, or with.
I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
281–290 of 391 posts
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#282Lawyer-up. Get paid. Don't get screwed.
I say this as a founder many times over. An agreement is an agreement. I've had to do things like put salaries on credit cards and mortgage my house to make payroll during bad times. I don't appreciate business owners that behave as you described.
The data loss event you mentioned has no relevance here. Yes, you fucked-up. And you own that. Lesson learned. The $10K was not conditional to you being a perfect employee, it only required you to bring someone in that would stay for at least six months. That, you did.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even saying that it could cost him seems like empty threats from the peanut gallery. On what basis, that someone might not want to hire him because they plan to rip him off?
as someone who has been in charge of tech hiring for a startup, this would definitely not be a red flag for me. as you say, it's not like we would be planning on ripping him off, and blacklisting him for what is after all nothing more than human disgruntlement over getting screwed would be petty and childish.
Well in this case, it seems that the company is acting childish. I wouldn't hesitate to hire someone who honest about what he believes in.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even saying that it could cost him seems like empty threats from the peanut gallery. On what basis, that someone might not want to hire him because they plan to rip him off?
It has less to do with planning to rip off a prospective hire than determining whether the hire has a sense of discretion. Do I think he's in the wrong with Miso, absolutely not. He has, on the surface at least, a legitimate grievance. He should have, however, handled this matter with a legal mechanism vs. a blog post. When I hire, I have to look at the risk that a prospect is the type of person who will air his/her…
"Sense of discretion?" Why is this the first time I've ever heard that phrase used in the context of startups? Because it's never a concern and is only a matter of common sense when someone is defensive.
Nobody hiring is ever preoccupied with how a prospective employee will "air his/her beefs" with the company after leaving its employ. Quite the opposite, companies tend to hire for the long term since onboarding new hires is such an expensive process.
This thread has caught fire, to say the least, so I'm thinking the taboo against airing his/her "beefs" has long been an empty threat holding back a lot of pent-up frustration.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#285Really disappointed by this post. As a long time friend of Miso and the awesome people there – the people responsible for several awesome open source projects (Padrino, RABL, to name a few) – it makes me really bummed someone would choose to bring an issue up in this way. I've never heard of a former employee receiving a bonus – referral or otherwise. The idea of a referral bonus is rewarding someone for /growing/ th…
You're an inspiring type. Certainly hope I never need to interview with the likes of you. The guy is owed money. he should be paid, regardless of your love affair with Miso.
He's really not owed anything. He neglected to collect his referral bonus it before leaving, bummer.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#286Really disappointed by this post. As a long time friend of Miso and the awesome people there – the people responsible for several awesome open source projects (Padrino, RABL, to name a few) – it makes me really bummed someone would choose to bring an issue up in this way. I've never heard of a former employee receiving a bonus – referral or otherwise. The idea of a referral bonus is rewarding someone for /growing/ th…
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Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#287The author seems to feel powerless against an employer, and may not realize the choices he has. Disputes happen. What matters is to get a resolution, and there are a few ways to go about it. Lets compare: 1. Public shaming 2. Work with a lawyer 3. Litigation I'm taking this purely from the author's perspective, how can he get a successful outcome? Public shaming has some downsides for the author: - Threatening to pub…
emotionally determined to prove themselves right and him wrong. He's just increased their conviction to the point where they may fight it with irrational determination.
If Miso is anything but self-funded, it would reflect extremely poorly on Miso for their executives to act in the way you describe here. It's simply bad business to dig in your butthurt heels.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#288The correct response here isn't to air your grievances in public, it's to talk to a lawyer.
I agree, yes public shaming is free but he also just told the world he blew up a production database. That said I'll paraphrase Tom Watson when an employee of his made a $100,000 mistake "Are you kidding? We just spent $100,000 on your training".
He also told the world that Miso doesn't have great engineering practices. Deleting a few thousand rows is easy if you forget a "from" clause in your sql statement. Would you consider working at Miso if you knew about their poor moral standards and bad engineering practices?
I feel like more people should be publicly shaming companies so that companies realize they can't pull shit without consequences. I bet you there's a whole list of companies that fire people right before they're eligible for pension benefits, and there's little employees can do.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#289The author seems to feel powerless against an employer, and may not realize the choices he has. Disputes happen. What matters is to get a resolution, and there are a few ways to go about it. Lets compare: 1. Public shaming 2. Work with a lawyer 3. Litigation I'm taking this purely from the author's perspective, how can he get a successful outcome? Public shaming has some downsides for the author: - Threatening to pub…
emotionally determined to prove themselves right and him wrong. He's just increased their conviction to the point where they may fight it with irrational determination. If Miso is anything but self-funded, it would reflect extremely poorly on Miso for their executives to act in the way you describe here. It's simply bad business to dig in your butthurt heels.
True, but I've seen it happen. More big business decisions are made on an emotional basis then you might expect.
I'm just trying to consider the matter from the pure perspective of how to get the best outcome.
Re: I'm a former Miso engineer and the founders screwed me out of 10k
#290Really disappointed by this post. As a long time friend of Miso and the awesome people there – the people responsible for several awesome open source projects (Padrino, RABL, to name a few) – it makes me really bummed someone would choose to bring an issue up in this way. I've never heard of a former employee receiving a bonus – referral or otherwise. The idea of a referral bonus is rewarding someone for /growing/ th…
Why would you ever set this system up so that the employee would have to remember to claim the bonus unless you never really expect to pay it? Surely the company could very easily determine who is woed bonuses when, and automatically disburse them? Mine certainly does! It's great for you that you don't care about $10,000 owed to you, but not everyone is in that position, and that doesn't make them worse people then y…
Oh don't get me wrong, if someone actually owed me 10k, I'd totally care /and/ be aggressive about collecting, but that's not the case here.
Startups, especially small ones, need not waste time with HR infrastructure like this – they're building products. HR should be ad-hoc and people-driven. If that's a problem, there are numerous larger companies to work for that devote their time to things like that. It's not unreasonable to expect someone to ask/remind the company about their referral bonus – and if he cared that much about it, he'd have collected before he departed.
My point is – spilt milk. Move on, build other opportunities for yourself, and don't forget again :D