Failing the startup game at Unbabel • Hacker News Board

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#201

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:12 AM UTC

carterehsmith wrote: post #185

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.

Good point. To add to that, I must say that something is odd with this story. Honestly, if I hired a 37-year old, that started programming at the age of 8, I would have thought that I was hiring a “senior developer” (or hopefully a “wizard”). Salary would be, appropriately, much higher than that for a beginner, or an intermediate. What I would expect is, that the “senior developer” will look at our code, understand w…

To me, being employed as a senior developer doesn't imply being able to figure out the whole system and assigning tasks by yourself from day one. I didn't bitch and complain, or twiddle my thumbs for that matter. I asked for help, told them what I thought didn't work and how we could improve it, and here we are.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#202

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:13 AM UTC

god_bless_texas wrote: post #4

I'm sure there are two sides to every story, but you can guarantee that if they did this to you they'll do it to someone else. I'm consistently amazed by people and companies who operate without integrity. I think about Paul Graham talking about startup founder factors as people who break the rules. I'm fairly certain this is not what he's talking about.

On the other hand, and this is really the point of the whole thing to me, maybe next time they'll think twice.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#203

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:15 AM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #66

I see two sides to this: - Is Unbabel making money? If they haven't shipped yet, bad for them, but on the other side, the software may be doing its part (of generating revenue) - People sometimes come with an idealized view that in a perfect world all code is fully tested and follows all rules and conventions. Most often than not, it doesn't. There's a balance between improvement for the sake of code and adding new f…

I'm all for finding stuff out by myself if the company culture embraces failure as a method of learning. Unfortunately, at Unbabel that's not the case.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#204

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:20 AM UTC

chroma wrote: post #85

I agree with many of the other comments here: If this story is true, Unbabel's behavior is reprehensible. That said, look at Andreas Wild's G+[1]. He has another recently-created blog in which he spouts off some weirdness about consciousness and astrology[2]. This makes me think he is a somewhat unstable person. And it reinforces my initial feeling that we should wait for both sides of the story to emerge before form…

You have got to be f*cking kidding me! I've studied more Esoteric literature and practiced more Yoga than most. Have you considered that maybe, just maybe, you have no idea what you're talking about?

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#205

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:24 AM UTC

anmonteiro90 wrote: post #63

As injust as Unbabel's behavior towards you might have been, I feel this story is being told from a rather extreme perspective, wouldn't you agree? As a 37-year-old who has been writing code since 8, I feel that you should be more used to finding clumsy code, especially in a startup (that I suppose is iterating very fast, trying to make ends meet). As someone who confidently relocated from Sweden to Portugal, were yo…

I wasn't surprised to find bad code there. I was surprised that my job didn't seem to include making it better.

Unbabel is based in SF and is unique in offering SF level compensation in Portugal. Perhaps I was naive in expecting them to honor our contract, it does seem like fucking people over is business as usual in Portugal.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#206

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:30 AM UTC

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #151

spinlock wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP had a 3 month contract which was not honored (according to this side of the story). That's why he lost his deposit on the apartment that he'd let for 3 months.

But did it have an early termination clause he omitted. Every single contract I've seen has an early termination clause in it.

Kind of hard to tell when the entire fcking contract is in Portuguese and you depend on someone else to explain it to you. I still have no idea if the clause is in there or not.

What I can't get through my head is why you'd write a contract at all if both parties are free to do whatever the fck they want anyway...

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#207

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:32 AM UTC

nrshirj wrote: post #89

>I arrived in the final stages of a big rewrite of the core architecture that was already late. The code was a tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments. Of the few automated tests that existed, most didn't even run anymore. I feel for you. But with your experience, this shouldn't be a surprise for you?? The focus in Startups is to get the code out and get a (paying) cust…

The surprise was that my job didn't seem to include flagging problems or improving the code.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#208

Post by Tyrannosaurs » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:35 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #148

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…

I'm always surprised when a company is so quick to publicly comment on a sensitive personnel matter, but that said, it's interesting to note what this response doesn't contain. The OP basically called into question the quality and stability of Unbabel's platform ("The code was a tangled mess of mindless duplication, half-implemented features and misleading comments. Of the few automated tests that existed, most didn'…

I disagree, there really is little beyond a "he said, she said" type argument to be had here and that really doesn't benefit them (or indeed Andreas). Much of that is subjective and they're not going to publish code to prove it one way or the other so there will never really be agreement. Best case is they reply and he refutes it which puts them pretty much back where they are now.

As a company you want to shut this sort of discussion down as quickly as you can. A detailed rebuttal may appear to do that but doesn't - the more you say, the more you raise questions, invite rebuttals and encourage further debate.

Maybe this doesn't answer some claims and they suffer some very slight damage because of that, but far worse damage is often (possibly even usually) done by detailed replies which keep the story going and fuel the fire.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#209

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:36 AM UTC

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #103

andrewljohnson wrote: post #67

If the contract says 3 months, he should be paid for 3 months, end of story. I think the blog needs to include the contract to really know if anything illegal is going on.

The thing is we're only seeing one side of the story. It assumes both parties agree. That being said generally all contracts have an early termination clause. He doesn't comment on what that is. Generally with 3 month contracts, it can be pretty short. It doesn't necessarily mean finish the 3 months. To give you an analogy if you hire a general contractor to renovate your home for a 3 month contract, you can terminat…

The whole contract was written on paper in Portuguese. I still don't know if the clause is in there or not. They certainly didn't mention it when they explained the contract to me. Naive, yes probably, but I prefer not suspecting everyone of being assholes before the fact.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#210

Post by andreasgonewild » Wed, Sep 03, 2014, 8:46 AM UTC

pender wrote: post #111

The real lesson to be learned: don't jump out on a limb without pre-established safety net. Moving to a new country seems like pretty big risk to take on a 3 month contract. Heck I wouldn't move from a current job to another one in town without a signing bonus to cover the risk.

The problem here isn't that I didn't have a safety net, I'll survive. The problem from my perspective is they behaved like total jerks and were getting away with it.