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Failing the startup game at Unbabel

esoteric-code.blogspot.com

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Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#131

Post by vasco_ »

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 not only paid him what we owed, but we paid him an extra 15 days of work in addition to $1000 dollars to offset any unexpected costs. Which we didn't have to. We also have receipts of all the transactions, If need be.

2 - We fired him because he was a terrible fit to Unbabel. It became clear very quickly that it would not work. In the end the responsibility of hiring him was ours, and we are really sorry it did not make the right choice. This made it clear that we have room for improvement in our hiring processes.

3 - He did really well on interviews and we went to considerable lengths to bring him to Portugal. We paid his airplane ticket, we lent him money for rent, we helped him search for a house, amongst other things. I am personally really proud that Unbabel is an example of how we can capitalize on excellent talent in Europe and Andreas was the first person from Sweden. We have people from 5 nationalities at Unbabel and we pride ourselves in having a great environment to work with.

4 – We believe that the culture of the company is extremely important and we devote a lot of energy to it. Everyone in Unbabel is expected to participate actively in the company Meaning that they are part of the planning, and encouraged to be autonomous in creating the best products possible. We truly enjoy working with each other and spending time together. For example, every week we go surfing on Wednesday morning in the beautiful beaches of Lisbon. It is not mandatory, but every one has loved it so far. It is an amazing way make sure that every week we hang out together outside the company.

We try really hard to make sure that working at Unbabel is an amazing experience. We pay well above average for Portugal, which means that you get a really good life here. We offer health insurance, surf lessons, catered lunches once a week and beers on Friday afternoon. We give you autonomy and agency, we are transparent about the company every employee has a chance to make a difference. Come and see for yourself what it is like to work at the best Translation Startup in the world. A position just opened up :)

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#132

Post by PaulHoule »

untog wrote: post #83
linker3000 wrote: post #15

I feel for you too. It wasn't a startup and the job was local, but I took a salary drop and swapped a cosy-but-unrewarding role with a global corporate to join a 40-strong SaaS development company that wanted someone to come in and sort out their internal and customer support infrastructure - they had no strategy, procedures or hierarchy and were constantly firefighting - shuffling resources between projects accordin…

Stories like this (and my own experience) kind of sum up why I don't intend to work for another startup unless it's one I've founded. Too many people out there are taking roles with because it's a startup is always a bad idea.

I can say you also see the "perpetual clusterfuck" antipattern in organizations that don't fit the traditional "startup" mold.

You can definitely see it in government, non-profits as well as existing businesses. It's the end result of a culture that values "getting shit done" and ends up with nothing but "shit".

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#133

Post by jprince »

chaostheory wrote: post #118
jprince wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy is a symptom of an alarming trend I've seen in the field. We're all riding high, spending every $ we make because we think the end will never come. I think it will, and a lot of us are going to be bankrupt. I don't care what financial disasters may occur - I very much doubt they'd occur in such frequency that over 20 years of working in a high income job this guy wouldn't have 15,000$ handy for something lik…

It's not a new trend with engineers. It's been around since the mid-20th century if not earlier. On the other hand, you still also have a lot of engineers living like college students with a lot of savings and investments.

Good point

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#134

Post by jprince »

BSousa wrote: post #106
bellerocky wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$80K is not so much at it might seem when you're living in the Bay Area. Rent for a small apartment $24K a year living outside of San Francisco, and up to $30K+ inside the city. Everything is very expensive. When I lived in another city I could get by at $500 a month for a similar apartment.

That is an excellent point, and very fitting. If you take in account 80k is current salary, and most likely started at 40k and over 20 years raised it (lets say linearly), making an average of 60k over those 20 years, and paying high taxes, I doubt many would be able to save much as well unless your partner also worked. Also, Stockholm has quite high rents, looking at [1], studios start at around 1000 usd and small a…

Whether or not you can live comfortably is not in question. If you're only making enough in your city to live comfortably if you use all of your money to do so, then you need to live uncomfortably. There are plenty of poor living in all of these major cities and they get by on less than 80k, or even 60k, so it stands to reason if you're making that much and you can't afford a burn-fund then you're probably making bad choices.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#135

Post by dang »

teraflop wrote: post #116

Is this a good place to ask why the title of this link was changed? It was originally the same as the title of the blog post, including "(YC/2014)". I've noticed this kind of alteration a number of times on stories about YC-backed companies, and I don't recall ever seeing it when the story was positive. EDIT: And now the post is getting rapidly demoted on the front page, below links that are older and have fewer vote…

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 complain and think we're biased against them, which of course is not true, just sample bias again.

Re the story rank: users tend to flag stories that have a high controversy-to-substance ratio, and moderators penalize such stories. In the case of negative posts about YC or YC-funded startups, our policy is to penalize them less, not more. But that doesn't mean we do nothing. Why? Because the heat of indignation guarantees massive upvotes. There needs to be a countervailing factor or such posts would fill the front page every day. It's a balancing act.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#136

Post by readymade »

FollowSteph3 wrote: post #46

I hate to say this but whenever you relocate that is your decision. The company isn't really in any obligations to keep you or pay your move back unless you pre-negotiate that either with a signing bonus or as a clause in your contract. Generally a relocation is offset with a signing bonus and higher salary which is why the risk is worth it, but never doubt that it's a risk you have to take. I know because I've done…

Why do you hate to say it?

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#137

Post by parennoob »

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…

"Everyone in Unbabel is expected to participate actively in the company Meaning that they are part of the planning, and encouraged to be autonomous in creating the best products possible. We truly enjoy working with each other and spending time together. For example, every week we go surfing on Wednesday morning in the beautiful beaches of Lisbon. It is not mandatory, but every one has loved it so far. It is an amazing way make sure that every week we hang out together outside the company."

Maybe I'm reading too much into your comment, but are you saying that enjoying surfing is a necessary part of your company's “culture fit”?

If someone is physically or otherwise disabled or unable to participate, does that preclude them from being a part of your company?

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#138

Post by seestheday »

potatolicious wrote: post #114
seestheday wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people are realistically willing to do a trial for a month? Developers are in demand. They likely already have a job.

Depends on where you are. Developers are in demand in major US tech hubs (read: SFBay, NYC, Seattle, Austin), they are not nearly as hotly fought over everywhere else, particularly in Europe and Asia. It's important to remember that the "companies prostrating themselves at your front door offering you bonuses and perks and lavishing dining you" is an American Tech Hub phenomenon. While I doubt UK coders are doing bad…

I still think that this is very limiting. I'm in Canada (Waterloo, Ontario) and I just can't see trying out at a company for a month.

That said, I'm "old" (36), and have family responsibilities. If I were a naive recent grad I might have entertained doing this.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#139

Post by stretchwithme »

parennoob wrote: post #137
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…

"Everyone in Unbabel is expected to participate actively in the company Meaning that they are part of the planning, and encouraged to be autonomous in creating the best products possible. We truly enjoy working with each other and spending time together. For example, every week we go surfing on Wednesday morning in the beautiful beaches of Lisbon. It is not mandatory, but every one has loved it so far. It is an amazi…

They say its not mandatory, right there in your quote.

Re: Failing the startup game at Unbabel

#140

Post by enjo »

btipling wrote: post #59

The truth of it is that the startup life isn't for every engineer. Startup code is messy. You don't have architects who draw UMLs for you, you don't have the luxury of time to do things right. At a small startup everything is often falling apart at the seams. Morale can rise and crash, repeatedly, like a roller coaster. Small startups often have to visit the iron bank of technical debt and take out a huge loan to put…

>At a small startup everything is often falling apart at the seams... >Morale can rise and crash, repeatedly, like a roller coaster... >You're looking at the short term: days and weeks, not months and years...

None of this rings true to me. Not at any startup I've worked at/founded at least(6 in total over the last 12 years). In reality good startups are relatively even keel.

Hell I would argue that startups, almost by definition, think MORE in the long-term than their larger counterparts. In a startup you are always progressing towards a long-term goal, constantly taking in feedback and making adjustments.

It's much like sailing to a small island thousands of miles away. A mistake in navigation in the beginning that goes uncaught will put you farther off course than one farther along on your journey (although sometimes that mistake means you discover North America and then pretend like you meant to do that all along).

The point being, if your startup is constantly in panic mode or is constantly trading long-term stability for short-term satisfaction then you should probably be thinking about leaving. At least from my point of view.

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