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Failing the startup game at Unbabel

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Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#191

Post by hawkice »

blauwbilgorgel wrote: post #175
dang wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (YC XYZ) tags are for major third-party articles and launches. We take them out of the titles of blog posts. I'm not sure exactly why, but it's been the convention for a long time. This, however: > I don't recall ever seeing it when the story was positive ... is just sample bias. By far most cases of this are positive stories. Indeed most are blog posts written by the companies themselves. Sometimes they even com…

Thank you. Just a small piece of feedback: I clicked the title expecting a story on Unbabel failing the startup game, ie: I thought they'd gone bust and this would be a post-op.

I had similar expectations, and I am glad the flags / downvotes still had weight. I was able to chime in on a code quality discussion, but this has been, for the most part, a very bizarre discussion that I (and most of HN, I assume) is not capable of litigating.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#192

Post by practicalpants »

ryanx435 wrote: post #188
vasco_ wrote: post #131

For the record I am a co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. I feel that I should respond to these allegations. 1 - The contract we had with Andreas was full time employee contract. The first three months were "at will" which means that either one was free to terminate the relation at any time. We have a signed contract to prove it and I am happy to share a sample of the contract to anyone that wants. When we fired him, we n…

> every Wednesday we go surfing. I was in the military were they have a thing called mandatory fun time. basically, you are required to go to a bbq or some other "fun" thing. I hated it. I'm one of those people who draw a hard line between work and the rest of my life. when I'm at work, I'm working crazy hard to get the job done. period. when I'm not at work, I'm doing my own thing. period. I have no desire to mix th…

This point was cited in a recent article I think debated here (or Reddit), "This is why you never end up hiring good developers." You push away a lot of talent when you select for some narrow culture fit, or mandate that they be your friend too.

IMO, the obsession with culture fit and team bonding is really just a way to trick engineers into devoting more of their life, mindshare, and personal freedom to laboring for your startup.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#193

Post by andreasgonewild »

BSousa wrote: post #3

I feel sorry for you, I really do! Not knowing the details of your contract I can't say for sure, but with the recent changes in employment law in Portugal, I think legally (not ethically) they maybe in the right. I can put you in contact with a lawyer that specialises in this kind of situations, but honestly, for 1.5 months salary, it isn't probably worth it for you (justice system in PT is very very slow, though th…

I only learned about the loop hole in Portuguese employment law from this discussion. That's one thing I really hated about Portugal, they just don't offer any information in English, even the signs in the museums are in Portuguese, it's no mystery to me that a lot of the translation startups are based there.

The thing is, were I come from, if you have a contract for three months, you have a contract for three months. And I was treated like royalty up until the exact moment when I didn't agree with their practices. Live and learn, I guess.

Unbabel is unique in that it's based in SF and offer compensation on that level in Portugal. Landing a job in SF is pretty much impossible as a European so this seemed like a nice compromise.

Thanks, but from the experience I had with both my employer and my landlord in Portugal I'd rather not do business with any Portuguese people ever again. Sorry.

Thanks!

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#194

Post by andreasgonewild »

ehurrell wrote: post #2

I have to say I admire your courage in writing this. I've been put in a not dissimilar situation in the recent past. I said nothing. I'm hoping one day the situation will resolve itself, but I doubt it, and I suffered a lot for it. Thankfully I'm out of immediate danger now. I hope this leads to a positive conclusion for you, as I have a lot of respect for the difficulty of startup life, but none for those who behave…

Thanks. At this point this isn't about me anymore, it's about transparency and telling both sides of the story. In my opinion Unbabel behaved like total jerks and were getting away with it. I'm getting to old to let stuff like that slip anymore.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#195

Post by annnnd »

gone35 wrote: post #181
vasco_ wrote: post #131

For the record I am a co-founder and CEO of Unbabel. I feel that I should respond to these allegations. 1 - The contract we had with Andreas was full time employee contract. The first three months were "at will" which means that either one was free to terminate the relation at any time. We have a signed contract to prove it and I am happy to share a sample of the contract to anyone that wants. When we fired him, we n…

A position just opened up :) Most inappropriate HN job posting, ever. Is it perhaps a culture/language barrier? Do they even realize how callous their little segue is?

It could be a culture/language barrier - I am not a native speaker (and obviously not from USA) and it didn't strike me as callous (or even inappropriate) at all. Especially given the in-depth explanation above the remark.

Interesting! I will need to be more careful in my own writing... :)

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#196

Post by andreasgonewild »

jprince wrote: post #52

As terrible as this experience was, what's most alarming is that you're 37, have been working for nearly 20 years in this field, and don't have enough savings to tide you over even two months without work. You really need to learn to save your income and cut your lifestyle. I hope that if it turns out your story is true, that these guys are in some way brought to justice, karmic or otherwise. Best of luck.

With all due respect, my personal finances are none of your business and have nothing to do with this.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#197

Post by andreasgonewild »

seren wrote: post #51

This is a bit of a cliché but I wonder if there are some cultural differences at play there. Like the hectic and chaotic pace for a Swede, would be business as usual for a Portuguese. This is likely not the root cause, but it probably did not help the miscommunication, maybe even during the recruiting phase. I also assume that if OP is not a native Portuguese speaker, it was harder to fit in, and it was easier to mis…

From having lived most of my life in Sweden and three months in Portugal I'd say it's mostly the opposite. The further south you go the more things slows down.

But I agree, some of the parameters that got us here are probably cultural. One thing I did notice was that a lot of the communication in the office was in Portuguese, which obviously means I didn't get that information.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#198

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

mmgm wrote: post #62

In the Portuguese labour law the default "experimental" period lasts a minimum of 90 days (for both employer and employee). During the experimental period any of the parties may void the contract without any compensation (except for the time already worked) unless noted otherwise in your contract ... Also there is no notice period required. As a disclaimer, I note that I am friends with one of the founders of Unbabel…

This highlights one of the risks with going and working in another country - what seems fair, reasonable and legal to you may be very different in another country.

As someone who lives in Europe I find American hire / fire at will contracts terrifying (getting rid of someone in the UK can be a torturous process, in other European countries even worse) but obviously in most states (?) in the US they're the norm.

Lesson to learn - before you agree to work somewhere else, understand the culture and legal framework you're going to be working in if at all possible and set your expectations accordingly.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#199

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

practicalpants wrote: post #192
ryanx435 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> every Wednesday we go surfing. I was in the military were they have a thing called mandatory fun time. basically, you are required to go to a bbq or some other "fun" thing. I hated it. I'm one of those people who draw a hard line between work and the rest of my life. when I'm at work, I'm working crazy hard to get the job done. period. when I'm not at work, I'm doing my own thing. period. I have no desire to mix th…

This point was cited in a recent article I think debated here (or Reddit), "This is why you never end up hiring good developers." You push away a lot of talent when you select for some narrow culture fit, or mandate that they be your friend too. IMO, the obsession with culture fit and team bonding is really just a way to trick engineers into devoting more of their life, mindshare, and personal freedom to laboring for…

In some countries (the UK is one), you need to be very careful with "cultural fit".

For instance, not hiring someone because they don't want to go for beers on a Friday can accidentally become a proxy for excluding certain religions at which point you can be in all sorts of bother legally.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#200

Post by annnnd »

a_c_s wrote: post #157
annnnd wrote: post #72

There is a slight point in founders' favor - sometimes when you need to get out and just get the stuff done, you don't write test for every non-essential piece of code. You also just copy/paste that controller, because you know you will probably throw most of the code away anyway. All you want is to know if the business model works. After all, you are not building core systems for a financial institution. And you kno…

Fired after 1 month but paid for 1.5 months: seems generous to me.

Depends on the contract - they agreed on 3 months.

The core of the problem is that they didn't hire him for a shorter time (test run) / weren't able to use him for the remaining time.

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