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Call me jaded, but when a company that hit 750 staff and then loses 2/3 of them says "it's a fucking startup" I don't read that as genuine or motivational.
Call me jaded, but when a company that hit 750 staff and then loses 2/3 of them says "it's a fucking startup" I don't read that as genuine or motivational.
I totally agree with you too... "startup" term is becoming an umbrella to cover up bad decisions or situations nowadays for founders. "Startup" should be a phase and a culture for companies. It should not be the excuse of bad days...
And yes, I would demand equity and compensation commensurate with the risk being taken and the effort being put in. No-one is promoting slave labor here.
I'm curious: at what point do we stop calling a company a "startup"? A company that has 750 employees (as Fab had before their restructuring) and has existed for three years sounds like a somewhat mature medium-sized company that has accumulated a substantial amount of inertia and bureaucracy (a horde of middle managers, an HR department, etc.). When I think of startups, I think of at most a few dozen employees strug…
I would say a "startup" is a a company trying to find a business model that is scalable & repeatable. I would go as far as argue that a startup is any company pre Series funding i.e. seed. Series A funding investor expectations are for the company to grow/scale. At that & subsequent funding phases the startup should be called a business. Not a startup.
Translation:he wants everyone to work hard, to pay them little and fire them when he needs to cut costs some more.
He even threw in this "No true Scotsman:"
"If you’re a real startup person, this is the best time to be at Fab."
i.e. No true startup-loving engineer would think it's a bad time to be at Fab.
Making employees justify why they are there? How about why did you convince 750 people to put their faith in you then fumble the ball so badly you had to sack 400 of them... The post comes across too much like a dad-trying-to-be-cool moment. "We are a start-up, I need 18 hour days from everybody. Now that we have lost sight of our objectives we need to redouble our efforts!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I totally agree with you too... "startup" term is becoming an umbrella to cover up bad decisions or situations nowadays for founders. "Startup" should be a phase and a culture for companies. It should not be the excuse of bad days...
Bad days always happen, mistakes are always made, nothing ever goes according to plan. If you don't fail some of the time, you're not taking big enough risks. Jason's post attracts people that understand this to work for Fab - clearly you're not his target audience :) And yes, I would demand equity and compensation commensurate with the risk being taken and the effort being put in. No-one is promoting slave labor her…
Taking smart risks doesn't always pan out, and tolerance for failure is necessary. But failure by itself isn't an indicator of greatness. Carl Sagan put it best:
>But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Lame. 2011 called and wants its entrepreneurial war stories back. Stories with "suffering" and "struggle" where all in the employees are "all in", but not sharing the profits of course, oh and you can be cut or fired anytime, while your out of touch CEO/founder is having the time of his life. I think I have grown an internal immunity from this bs. (Or maybe I am just older and more mature now). What does fab do this…
'Share my enthusiasm but not my profit' and even worse 'write me an essay about that' is more fitting to north corea way of behaving.
This is not the way to keep quality people for long.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bad days always happen, mistakes are always made, nothing ever goes according to plan. If you don't fail some of the time, you're not taking big enough risks. Jason's post attracts people that understand this to work for Fab - clearly you're not his target audience :) And yes, I would demand equity and compensation commensurate with the risk being taken and the effort being put in. No-one is promoting slave labor her…
>Bad days always happen, mistakes are always made, nothing ever goes according to plan. If you don't fail some of the time, you're not taking big enough risks. Jason's post attracts people that understand this to work for Fab - clearly you're not his target audience :) Taking smart risks doesn't always pan out, and tolerance for failure is necessary. But failure by itself isn't an indicator of greatness. Carl Sagan p…