PayPal chief reams employees: Use our app or quit

"It’s a bit ironic considering that yesterday Marcus took to Twitter to say his credit card was hacked. So clearly not all hacking is acceptable in Marcus’ book — only hacking that supports the company’s business objectives."

sigh.

I don't know how to feel about this. I feel like the sentiment is right (eat your own dog food -- if that's the saying)... But everything about the delivery seems to be wrong

I think it's really disappointing when company heads do this. If you work there, you should be treated as a professional, not some little kid who gets overly excited and tries to break open the coke machine because hey - PayPal. If you want your software devs to go the extra mile either make a product that they can organically care about, or pay them more and make it part of their job description to evangelize your product.

Also, that PayPal 'it' thing seems pretty scummy. Do the engineers get some financial incentive for generating sales leads for the home office?

I like the delivery. There is little "corporate speak" and a lot of frankness. He's not calling out a particular person but a whole office.

I don't see this as a "reams employees" type of email. He's making his case for why everyone should be using PayPal's apps.

His telling employees to go elsewhere if their heart isn't into it is also refreshing.

This is exactly the type of email I would expect from someone at his level that isn't trying to play the "everyone please like me" game and is actually trying to move things forward.

Ideally people are eating their own dog food because they're excited to do so not because the President is telling them.

Even if you force people to use your product it's not going to have the same effect as organic dog fooding. You won't get the same level of passionate feedback because the employees just don't really care.

The correct solution probably IS to tell people to go elsewhere if they don't care any more (or never cared). I'm sure there are plenty of people who would work at PayPal who would have passion for the product. And I'm not saying that it's a bad thing, everyone needs change. Maybe some fresh blood would be good.