Famo.us pivots, fires 20 employees • Hacker News Board

Re: Famo.us pivots, fires 20 employees

#151

Post by 7Figures2Commas » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 8:19 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #150

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He probably spent hours (invaluable hours!) thinking about those ceiling panels. When you run an unprofitable company that subsists on investor money, every single hour of leadership's time is invaluable. > I dunno, should their office be a hovel? So the choice for startups is a) a swagged-out office in one of the most expensive commercial real estate markets or b) hovel? What world do you live in? > Because you ap…

Your hypothesis is perhaps ten thousand dollars of noise panels and hours of a CEO's time is material to a company and/or a factor in its success. Neither of those make or break a company. It's hardly "swagged-out", and is cheaper than other office space according to the very video you watched. Low noise levels do contribute to both productivity and someplace being nice to work in. There's plenty of counterexamples (…

> Believing spending well under one engineer's annual salary made a bad outcome more or less likely is nothing other than dumb.

Now you're being obtuse. It is the cumulative effects of leadership having out-of-whack priorities that can lead a company to the deadpool. Get it?

In any case, I'll take being Common Sense Dumb and having a successful, profitable business over being Silicon Valley Smart and handing out pink slips any day of the week.

Re: Famo.us pivots, fires 20 employees

#152

Post by zem » Sat, Nov 07, 2015, 8:20 PM UTC

coke12 wrote: post #142

zem wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the bit that made me shudder was "Our mission at Famous is to empower digital marketing professionals to build beautiful branded apps that amplify every aspect of their digital marketing campaigns.". if you believe (as i do) that people just tune out and skim over everything that sounds like "marketese", that says absolutely nothing. surely there are better ways to say the same thing, that actually make people intere…

It's a little flowery, but what about it is marketese to you? Other than the fact that they're talking to their new audience; terms like "branded app" are specific terms that have meaning to marketers.

what does it actually say? it's all entirely generic, and they're using a boatload of buzzwords to make it sound like there's more there than there actually is. the sad thing is there probably is more there, but that quote (which they've featured prominently on their webpage!) doesn't say it.

Re: Famo.us pivots, fires 20 employees

#153

Post by argonaut » Tue, Nov 10, 2015, 3:38 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #126

argonaut wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you know it was he who personally spent his time buying those noise panels (and not, say, the office manager) because...? My broader point is people are just trying to find any excuse to uncharitably interpret anything just so they can to crap on the company.

"One of the things I wanted to sort of like inspire people with that worked here is you always feel beautiful while you're here." Those are the words of the chief interior designer himself. Bottom line: this company crapped on itself. You're deluding yourself if you truly believe office managers are driving decisions to waste time and money on stupid sh*t like beautiful noise panels.

He doesn't actually say he bought the panels. In that sentence he's talking about something he thinks is a company value.

Re: Famo.us pivots, fires 20 employees

#154

Post by chejazi » Tue, Nov 10, 2015, 7:08 AM UTC

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #126

argonaut wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you know it was he who personally spent his time buying those noise panels (and not, say, the office manager) because...? My broader point is people are just trying to find any excuse to uncharitably interpret anything just so they can to crap on the company.

"One of the things I wanted to sort of like inspire people with that worked here is you always feel beautiful while you're here." Those are the words of the chief interior designer himself. Bottom line: this company crapped on itself. You're deluding yourself if you truly believe office managers are driving decisions to waste time and money on stupid sh*t like beautiful noise panels.

It's easy to criticize a figure who has made mistakes over his/her values that are unrelated to those mistakes. It seems that may be happening here.