14 ms·

Bullshit Startup Experiences

530 points by supjeff 11y ago

supjeff 11y ago
I've worked for startups as a full-stack dev for about 5 years, and spent the last year trying to land a position in as a technical manager. This specific pursuit has lead to some of the most bullshit encounters I've had with startups. What are some of your bullshit experiences?
- sokoloff 11y ago
  In the phrase "technical manager", technical is an adjective; the noun is manager. What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager without tech management experience? It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than many devs think.
  - supjeff 11y ago
    I've been "Lead Dev" for 6 years, and had the responsibility of an actual manager without any of the budget/resourcing ability that's necessary to manage well. I've successfully launched lots of products and platforms with teams of 5-7 people, and had a good tenure earlier this year as a CTO with a team of 5. I would have stayed in that position if the founders hadn't closed it down.
  - hodgesrm 11y ago
    By your logic it is hard to see how anyone technically competent could be promoted into management. Good luck with that.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      "hired as" was intentionally chosen wording. IME, the easiest path is within a company, not in a new hire situation. You take someone with demonstrated technical skill/credibility, a track record of success, and a desire to lead and you give them progressively more management tasks, culminating in a formal role change to manager. They already know the company, the team, the codebase, the business, etc. and it's much easier for them to step back into a pure technical role if it doesn't work out or if they hate it. I've had extremely "good luck with that". It's much riskier to take a fresh new hire with no management experience into a tech manager role at a new-to-them company.
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        The funny thing is, founders in many cases are exactly that Straight into those positions
      - UK-AL 11y ago
        The funny thing is, founders in many cases are exactly that Straight into those positions
  - ToPutItBluntly 11y ago
    Every single manager I have had in the SF Bay Area is at least one position up from where they would be anywhere else in the country. This area has a reputation for being the best place to start a career. Well it also should have the reputation for being the best place to jump into management. Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions. If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to jump).
    - supjeff 11y ago
      Good advice. Thanks :)
- jacquesm 11y ago
  My best one to date: In early 2002 we got an offer of a well-funded start-up to take over our company. We had the technology, they had the sales, the marketing and the $. The CEO met me in an office in SV so lavish it would not have been out of place as a Ferrari showroom. Halfway during the meeting - we didn't hit it off all that well - he made the momentous announcement that if we did not accept his offer we'd be going on a head-on collision course for a game of chicken and he had just thrown away his steering wheel. I just laughed, bade my farewells. They failed spectacularly (not a bankruptcy but the service was shut down) several months later after burning through a very large fraction of $30M. What puzzles me to this date is what he thought he was trying to accomplish by showing me that he was a reckless cowboy with very little sense for business relations but it certainly wasn't going to end in a partnership with him 'at the wheel' (since he'd just thrown that out). He's still around, selling toothpaste.
  - S4M 11y ago
    Maybe he knew that he was going to get bankrupt soon and tried to bluff and scare you into accepting his acquisition offer, so he would get your technology on favorable terms and look good to his investors.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      They were not about to go bankrupt at that point (they never did, they blew through a very large amount of money in no time flat, then this guy got thrown out, a more seasoned CEO was attracted who concluded after a serious rescue attempt that it was pointless). So any kind of existential threat probably was still over the horizon at that point, they never actually went bust they simply shut down.
- jessedhillon 11y ago
  One that I saw on a startup founders mailing list several years back: --- founder: I have a modest, growing business, but the marketing costs are rather high. What can to do to bring that cost down? wannabe-founder: whoa, you really failed to validate the core concept and establish your basic value prop. You're going to see an astronomical CAC until you ultimately pivot and achieve LGTM or BBQ. I'd recommend you shut down and find another vertical.
  - HiLo 11y ago
    This really resonates with me. Without ranting, I kind of think a lot of wannabe's have been sold a dream and a formula, and when it doesn't work, they blame the dream (it's always been 1 in 1,000,000 odds!), or the formula (as per above), rather than the fact they don't have any business or technical savvy.
  - daveguy 11y ago
    I had to look up the alphabet soup, but couldn't find everything. CAC : Cost to Aquire a Customer LGTM : Looks Good To Me? BBQ : ? Not a clue other than a delicious way to prepare meat. Maybe something Quality?
    - jessedhillon 11y ago
      Heh yeah I was trying to convey the gist rather than the actual conversation. He threw a bunch of acronyms at the guy, quoted him the lean startup recipe and with a straight face, told a guy with a viable, profitable business to fold and start over.
      - daveguy 11y ago
        Hah! Thank you. I'm sure the actual barrage of acronyms were just as relevant!
      - daveguy 11y ago
        I would like to make up an businessy acronym for BBQ. BBQ : Business to Business Quotient (or Quantity). A measure of how much of your income comes from B2B transactions as opposed to direct to consumer transactions.
- eitally 11y ago
  If you're still looking, send me a note and we'll talk. I'm currently looking for a full-stack dev who's comfortable leading projects & interacting with both customers & biz execs.
  - supjeff 11y ago
    How do I contact you? My email address is marshall.ent@gmail.com
eecks 11y ago
Are these just made up or are they coming from somewhere?
- ryanmarsh 11y ago
  They're conversations so common that they're memes now.
- supjeff 11y ago
  These are my own personal experiences, summarized for potency
- ddebernardy 11y ago
  The examples ring very true, unfortunately. If you pop in on the Startups Stack Exchange (or the Work Life Stack Exchange), you'll periodically find concrete examples.
Roritharr 11y ago
My favourite: Founder Institute - run by international group of millionaire magazine-cover entrepreneurs - doesn’t invest a penny in its companies - charges founders thousands of dollars for mentorship - well-regarded startup accelerator ------------------- I was once offered the position to head the local chapter, after having a private phonecall with Adeo, I declined as I couldn't see the value offered. The next person took it, and as expected, the local chapter failed spectacularly and the people founding it were out of a lot of work and didn't get anything in return. It's still a mistery to me why that organization has credibility.
- argonaut 11y ago
  In their limited defense, they do position themselves more as an educational program than as an incubator.
  - tomasien 11y ago
    In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.
  - tomasien 11y ago
    In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.
- elmar 11y ago
  Some good answers here. Is the Founder Institute a good deal for entrepreneurs? Why or why not? https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Founder-Institute-a-good-deal-for-entrepreneurs-Why-or-why-not https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Founder-Institute-a-good-deal-f...
  - tptacek 11y ago
    After reading these, Founders Institute still seems like a _really_ bad deal.
hackermom 11y ago
So assuming these are real, this guy gets fired (or just plain ditches companies) very often. Sounds like the diametrical opposite of a good employee.
bsdpython 11y ago
A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that waste your time. I guess it's not limited to just the startup space but one thing I've learned is that there is an unlimited number of people that are willing to waste your time and boy is it frustrating.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  As soon as your name is out there as a successful founder you'll get a ton of this, the more media coverage you get the worse it gets.
  - bsdpython 11y ago
    A few years ago I got publicity (TechCrunch among others) for a side project I developed. For at least 6 months I got non-stop solicitation emails for outsourcing and 30 second promotional videos. I can only imagine if I got that same publicity tied to a business with known funding.
    - sytse 11y ago
      After announcing the GitLab's A round I'm getting two recruiting emails, one outsourcing and one investor email per day. Having a note on our jobs page https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ doesn't seem to help.
      - watmough 11y ago
        Your job descriptions are the very model of clarity. I wouldn't normally comment, but it makes a great impression.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  > A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that waste your time. Having been both a founder and an employee, these examples don't really ring true to me. At least personally I've seen a lot more employees and consultants wasting founders time than the other way around.
smcl 11y ago
The "less than half for cash" one is something I used to see from customers all the time when working in a bar. You'd say "£10.50, please" and they'd reply "£10 for cash?" as if I'd happily chip in 50p myself (till shortages need covered somehow) instead of having to accept a card payment. I never understood the mentality - it costs £x, so pay £x or go away
- jacquesm 11y ago
  They assumed that you'd simply pocket the 10 quid rather than book it officially so 'everybody would come out ahead'. Never mind that you'd be committing fraud.
  - smcl 11y ago
    Ahh I never considered that option
  - tedmiston 11y ago
    On a recent trip to Greece, I found this being asked by businesses, especially restaurants and bars, but down to my hotel that I reserved with a CC: "Could you please pay in cash instead?"
    - flippant 11y ago
      It might be because banks were forced to place a limit on withdrawals.
    - joezydeco 11y ago
      Thats kind of a different situation, isn't it? The Greeks are probably abandoning banks altogether and going to an under-the-table cash economy, given what happened this past summer.
    - jakub_g 11y ago
      It's not unheard of in Europe to get 2-3% discounts if paying by cash (particularly in computer stores). The reason is that in some countries, merchants pay that percentage of Visa/MC commission (and in case of Amex even more) plus a fixed fee per transaction. For that same reason bars usually accept cards only over a threshold of 5-10€ or so. Though if that happens in hotels indeed it is strange then.
cft 11y ago
Somebody who dedicates his time to publicly spew this toxic attitude will likely not archive success that is pleasant for him.
- sohcahtoa 11y ago
  This sentence sounds like an Evil Fortune Cookie.
  - chvid 11y ago
    I like it!
- logicallee 11y ago
  you'd be bitter too if your idea of success consisted, in full, of convincing startups to pay you a rate you pulled out of thin air yet which somehow adequately captures the whole nuance of your existence and career ambitions. Especially if, like OP, you considered a cash offer for half this amount you've pulled out of thin air to be a damned, laughable insult, a ridiculous slight, completely amateurish, a clownshow run by idiots. (Although multiple of them have suggested this as an appropriate rate.) I wish everyone in life were as easy to please as OP. (Just pay him the number he wrote down on a piece of paper, approximately twice what he commands in that market.) Of course, you're never going to build something big with him, I would never try. I have no idea why he's applying to startups.
  - logicallee 11y ago
    -4. Pray tell why this guy is applying to startups? Also his objection to someone getting an internship at a startup because they're a "beautiful 18yo girl" is the most sexist thing I've read in a while.
    - grkvlt 11y ago
      You may not have understood that properly. Hint: he isn't the one being sexist...
pyb 11y ago
I've had 2 of these exact interactions, in the London local startup scene, and that was just last week.
leroy_masochist 11y ago
> me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position > CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers > me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position > CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball? > me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit? It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.
- tedmiston 11y ago
  I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?" Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.
  - leroy_masochist 11y ago
    That's a valid point and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. I think the litmus test should be, "do I not dislike spending a lot of time with this person", not "do I really like spending time with this person". Shooting the shit over beers and foosball is really testing for the latter, not the former. Plus let's face it, a lot of technically gifted and experienced people ain't exactly extroverts. And people act different when they know they're being evaluated anyway. So some founders' insistence on fratting it up for step one of the hiring process just strikes me as stupid. And by the way...I'm a tall, white, former college athlete male. I'm VERY comfortable in a "drinking beer in bars with dudes" environment; it's what I often do with my friends on my own time. I'd likely be even more opinionated about this if I were not as naturally comfortable in a bro-y environment.
    - supjeff 11y ago
meesterdude 11y ago
I loved these! I certainly have been through some of that nonsense. i would add: job offer: salary range $100-$130k interviewer: the max for this position is $80K interviewer: hello?
- lucisferre 11y ago
  I see this a lot with startups hiring on Angel List. Angel List makes them specify a salary range so they do, but always offer well below the minimum. At best they are blatantly insulting the candidate, at worst they are liars. Probably both.
  - meesterdude 11y ago
    wow, they've all been from angel list for me too! i didn't realize the connection till now.
    - amitm 11y ago
      Sorry to hear about your experience. We take abuse like this seriously. If possible, could you email me the names of the companies at amit@angel.co?
      - lucisferre 11y ago
        I think it's awesome that you take this so seriously. I also think it's great that you ask companies to be upfront about compensation (I say this as an founder). It irks me when companies aren't forthright with potential hires.
      - sterl 11y ago
        Definitely replying to this, I've had this happen more than once at the offer stage.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - deleted 11y ago
ditonal 11y ago
Feel free to steal mine: #1 me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes. CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and err on the side of caution! ...later CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis! #2 CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world! me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary. CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we can't even do that....
- leroy_masochist 11y ago
  Well, if it were actually one of the smartest people in the world then they'd understand the true value of a 0.5% equity stake vesting over four years :-/
  - joezydeco 11y ago
    Which is exactly why he asked for a large cash salary. =)
  - aaronem 11y ago
    Well, I'm not very smart, and even I understand that the true value of 0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero...
    - potatolicious 11y ago
      > "0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero..." More importantly, that even if you beat the odds and the company is a smashing success, 0.5% over four years is likely worth less money than the cash/stock bonuses major tech companies are handing out anyways, especially accounting for liquidation preferences and ratchets. The big lie in startup equity isn't how unlikely they are to succeed, it's how little you would walk away with even if they do.
      - paulddraper 11y ago
        Exactly. An 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of millions is different than an 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of 70k. And a lot of people fail to identify the difference.
pbreit 11y ago
Many/most seem more an indictment on engineer lack of understanding what it takes to get a startup off the ground.
- kevinmobrien 11y ago
  Agreed.
- HiLo 11y ago
  You're getting downvoted, but I have to agree to an extent. To be fair, many business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground. The irony is, I guess, that most people involved in a startup don't know what it takes to actually get it off the ground, because the formula they've been sold doesn't really actually work, and they don't have the business (or technical!) savvy to correct course.
  - pbreit 11y ago
    "business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground" I would not totally disagree with this. But here's the thing: no-one really does. It's extremely difficult. If many people did know, it wouldn't be as lucrative. Being the boss is by far the hardest position in the whole endeavor.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  That might be part of it, but it also speaks to an extremely common mentality among founders that they can (and should) get a business off the ground with only a tiny fraction of the capital that's actually needed to do so. They're unwilling to bootstrap, but they also want to build a business that needs $25m of runway with $5m, and take the rest out of their employees' pockets. There are four parties to blame for this: 1. VCs, who refuse to adequately capitalize their portfolio companies. 2. The cultural environment that encourages this approach. 3. The founders, for their lack of business sense and willingness neither to bootstrap nor demand adequate startup capital. 4. The employees, for going along with it.
- deleted 11y ago
padobson 11y ago
Based on my experience, there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the type of charismatic pitch founder capable of raising money and getting people to work for less than their market rate, and the bean counter-oversight founder capable of running an efficient business. But it's the former type that is able to raise money, so they find themselves in a position to have conversations like these.
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  Have you read Good to Great? The book describe those founders as rockstar CEOs. Very charismatic and good for morale, but not so much for business. http://amzn.to/1SVR48M http://amzn.to/1SVR48M
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  That's fine, but if you're that kind of founder you have to know your limitations and hire a top-flight COO to handle that side of things. If you can't, or won't, you're just another shitty founder-CEO whose company is going to fail.
ninkendo 11y ago
-- me: sits through yet another mandatory hours-long meeting where the loudest two developers one-up each other to find the best hypothetical solution to the most convoluted problem they can imagine as it relates to the urgent, critical problem we currently face whose simple, plain solution goes entirely ignored and where no decision is made. -- I have trouble laughing at what I know is supposed to be humor, because of how tragically true this is and how much this affects me on a regular basis. But I don't work for a startup! I thought it was supposed to be different in that world. Perhaps some problems are just universal.
- iolothebard 11y ago
  It's amazing how many of these apply to the company I just quit. I emailed it to their lead developer. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.
- ratsmack 11y ago
  How about the meeting where the non-problems and false concerns are beaten like a dead horse by people without the knowledge or skill to be in the discussion. But you have to just sit there with your face in your palm because if you say anything to try and correct the misdirection, you will be considered not a "team player".
  - ryanmarsh 11y ago
    This is the default for Fortune 500 work. Case in point, grossly expensive COTS implemtation requiring 80 consultants to build ETL pipeline to handle roughly 5,000-10,000 transactions A DAY simple XML files to DB rows. Told client a few smart devs could build this in a few months. Got the ಠ_ಠ
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - supjeff 11y ago
    If you're not the leader, you're waiting quietly for the leader to take action, but more often than not, the leader is enthralled by the exhilarating debate taking place before them. A non-technical leader takes it as an opportunity to learn, which is a great attitude to have, but the rest of us are dying. Other times they know they need to get things back on track, but they don't know how to stop the runaway train that is a developer ruminating on something that gets more convoluted with each syllable.
sohcahtoa 11y ago
Interviewer: We need someone with [describes soft skill set for my dream job] Me: Great career opportunity, I'd certainly be willing to move across country for this Interviewer, day 1: Here's your desk, now I'm going to assign you a ticket off the backlog. Let me know when you're done and I'll assign you another one. [pats me on the head and walks away] Bait'n'switch, and I fell for it. I think it's the only way they can get people to come to this no-good podunk town, with not a sushi bar for miles, and 19th century development practices. And yes, I am preparing my awesome flameout exit. I hope to hear the lamentation of their womenfolk.
- eitally 11y ago
  If you're in the Bay Area and want a new dream job, send me a note. I'm incubating new B2B/B2C products at Google and need a senior full stack dev* who's as comfortable talking with customers & biz execs as they are coding. * Google SWEs aren't typically swiss army knives. I need a swiss army knife, so this is not a SWE position, if that matters to you.
  - jamespshields 11y ago
    Bay Area swiss army knife here. That sounds awesome! @jamespshields
- rco8786 11y ago
  Not sure what your dream job is. But pulling a few tickets off the backlog is a pretty normal way to ramp up new hires.
  - sohcahtoa 11y ago
    I take your point, and I do that with new hires myself. I'm compressing things for comic effect, but I promise you the core of the story is true - I got suckered in by wonderful promises, and interviewing in the industry hot spot I was in is going to involve significant time and cash outlay.
- x0x0 11y ago
kelukelugames 11y ago
YC helps young founders because of stereotypes against them. I wouldn't imply that someone lacks merit because she is 18 and attractive. There needs to be more context for that post.
- moron4hire 11y ago
  Who says this has anything to do with YC?
  - kelukelugames 11y ago
    Hi. Thank you for asking. I should have clarified. The tumblr post is not related to YC. I cited YC's philosophy as an example of why we shouldn't judge people by their age.
    - supjeff 11y ago
      Funny thing is, this happened at a YC company.
- supjeff 11y ago
  I'm not implying that the intern lacks merit. She was brilliant. The thing is, this was a company of 5 very busy people working round-the-clock in a startup house while going through YC. We didn't have the bandwidth to offer a proper internship; one where we teach relevant skills at a beginner's pace. I intended for the readers to draw their own conclusions from my note of the founders' gender, orientation and marital status.
- outworlder 11y ago
  The implication is that they didn't need or even have the budget for an intern. And they hired an intern anyway, which just happened to be young and attractive. This should be enough as an illustration of "bullshit experiences".
Giorgi 11y ago
It's beyond me why would anyone would want to give away part of his/her company just because of some shitty development work, and most of developers do just that - write shitty code because they don't give a crap about quality As a founder you are better of paying some random developer do have viable product and then if it works - hire someone. NEVER GIVE AWAY EQUITY FOR JOB.
- bm1362 11y ago
  Uh, well you have to pay them. So either pay them cash or incentivize with equity? Aligning interests is essential for a startup.
- fredkbloggs 11y ago
  I actually agree, but you have to pay people. That means you need to have enough cash -- either in startup capital or revenue -- to pay a fair market wage for the work you're getting. If you do, then absolutely that's how you should compensate your work force; it's better for everyone. But too many founders take $400k in seed money to start a business that's going to need 12 months and 4 people's time to reach revenue and another 18 months to break even. How are those founders supposed to make that work? The right answer is not to accept the $400k because he really needs more like $2m, but that's not what people are doing, so the extra money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the employees' pockets.
- hamburglar 11y ago
  It seems like your "developers only produce crap" and "don't make offers that are favorable to developers" philosophies may be more related than you think.
mrcrassic 11y ago
this is amazing.
adeadb2bcompany 11y ago
Hi, so this is all happening at the startup I work at: #1 CEO: We just closed a XX million dollar Series C funding round! -- later at an a company wide meeting --- CEO: we have zero revenue. if we asked our customers to pay us, they would drop our product in a second... so, uh, we really don't have product market fit yet. me: ... CEO: no worries. we are attacking such a large market. surely we'll find something. and when we do it will be HUGE... it'll be... it'll be... it's so huge I'm having trouble even describing it! #2 -- at an important weekly product meeting -- CEO: okay it's been ten minutes. where is [cofounder] CTO: oh he's in china for the week. CEO: ... CTO: On vacation. everyone else: ... (your cofounder didn't tell you that?) #3 me: your company name "cadabra" sounds like cadaver. ceo: nah, dude. me: you had to spell it out when I asked you to pronounce it. ceo: nah, we just need to hire more marketing people. #4 wannabe designer: so tell me how you approach design. me: well I really like being apart of the process from start to finish, since I've also done UX wor-- designer: great, let me tell you how we do design here. i draw up the stuff and you do it, unless there's a technical problem. you can argue and you will be wrong, ha ha. me: you're joking right? designer: * proceeds to create barely passable UIs * And the list goes on. I have plenty of more stories to share but I am currently busy seeking employment elsewhere. Shameless plug: If you're looking for an American android developer (10,000+ install base on play store), or a front end web developer ( Tech Giant), a back python/java developer ( past startups ), let's talk shop at snarkyhackernewsuser@gmail.com.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Ah, #1 is very familiar. Except that your CEO is slightly better in that he can admit they don't have product-market fit.
  - adeadb2bcompany 11y ago
    Not completely honest however. Before I joined, she overstated the number by a factor of 2... without clearly defining that that the company was making no revenue. She's extremely stressed and there's a lot of pressure on her. I understand that and I commiserate-- the problem is that at this point, it's all just "playing house".
tdaltonc 11y ago
> married hetero male founders: we're thinking of getting an intern > me: okay but I don't see what we could offer. You know we're on a really tight > married hetero male founders: we're getting an intern. > intern: (beautiful 18yo girl) Young male intern --> Everyone assumes you're a Wunderkind. Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you. Startupbullshit
- adeadb2bcompany 11y ago
  for me at least, I would assume the young male intern got in through nepotism of some kind. Actually, I would say I would stereotype first on their credentials before their gender (since I would likely see their resume first before seeing them in person)
- supjeff 11y ago
  I hold founders' motives suspect. Not the relationship (which actually seems to have worked out) that resulted.
- neilk 11y ago
  Hells to the no. In my experience, if you see a useless young male intern, he's probably the nephew of the dumbest investor. But the pattern holds in one way, because to keep up appearances, we're supposed to put the useless male intern on coding projects. So he's more of a net negative.
- bsder 11y ago
  > Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you Well, to be fair, a young, attractive, competent female intern has far better opportunities than intern at a shitty startup.
l_stover 11y ago
Been hearing a lotta stories out there,but the truth is most of them arent certified! I came across a pretty good hacker some years ago,damn too good! Genius Hack with the email geniushack08@gmail.com He is the first of hackers i'll be recommending for any hacking service! Email hacks,banking hacks,school grade changes...
giis 11y ago
>Would you sign something saying you'll give me $250k in cash one year from now if I work for the company? this is classic ! :)
kevinthew 11y ago
happened to be recently: Manager: Hey you're here for the xx position right? You know, you sound like you'd be a really good fit for this new job that opened up, I just fired this guy, millennials amirite, so let's talk about that for the next hour.
giis 11y ago
--- During interview with founder: me : I believe 'honesty is the best policy' founder: Great! we need like-minded people like you. (after few months) founder: He creates negative environment within the team!
- taurath 11y ago
  Honesty is in general the best way to foster trust, but extreme honesty and off-the-cuff opinion-giving is a good way to make everyone afraid of giving honest assessments.
bflesch 11y ago
This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor level day in and out. I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind. As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors' management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying for three weeks, etc. I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves). We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in (his, kind of) round. They not once called him. So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.
- colordrops 11y ago
  The reason your comment is so highly rated is that your description of European VCs pretty much matches those of US and Asian VCs as well. Many VCs got where they were by being sociopaths that threw a lot of social convention out the window.
  - puranjay 11y ago
    Social convention! How can you disrupt industries by following social convention! Always remember: nothing is impossible when you're an asshole. /s
  - bflesch 11y ago
    This thought is often voiced, but I think on a partner level most of them are somehow nice and clever guys. What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards their partners / managers. Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off. Very anecdotal of course!
eitland 11y ago
Three of mine: Recruiting company: Someone needs a php developer for work in X industry. I work on the industry, take the test they give me, get a perfect score, never hear a word, no interview. Big company : I travel across the mountains to an interview, 15 minutes before arriving I get a call, "we can't meet you today, we will come back with another time". Startup: we need someone with strong cognitive skills and php and javascript experience (8 y ago, before everyone had 10 y javascript experience). In interview: you are one of two qualified, the otherone is from <other country, more than two hours away, by plane>, -goes on to advertise the position again, then after realizing there are no other goes on to offer me below market rates. I go on to learn Java in a better paid job with better well - everything.
bsg75 11y ago
Has anyone done the math to show if your odds are better at the typical startup vs the typical craps table? Equivalents of time and money, and the odds of wasting it all on chance?
- huac 11y ago
  craps is expected value of ~0.96 of what you put in. i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds'
  - bsg75 11y ago
    > i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds' Perhaps, a sampling of people who took the option to work for equity, and the ratio of those whose investment in time made the equity valuable, over those who would have had a better income with a typical salary.
tonecluster 11y ago
Here's one (not solely experienced in startups, however): manager: "Since you're single, can you work through the holidays and cover the systems/push this feature/go the extra mile so that the people with families can spend time with them?"
- mrbill 11y ago
  Being that guy before, and with family an 8-hour drive away, I've volunteered to do that more than once. Earns goodwill from the people with families, the boss has one less thing to worry about at end of year, and the holidays are usually "dead time" so I got a lot of slack time in.
  - tonecluster 11y ago
    Volunteering is one thing, and very cool to do to take some of the stress off of people with children. But asking an employee is quite another (IMO). It's a form of soft discrimination, though not intended as such I'm sure. (Though, thinking about it, I was told once "Yeah, well, you don't have kids, so this [the holiday] isn't that important for you." that wasn't a startup, however, that was a F100)
velox_io 11y ago
It's quite scary how many startups treat Lean Startup as the gospel and follow it word for word.
Jean-Philipe 11y ago
I had this: young male intern: talks a lot but is not working young female intern: does all the work of the male intern, gets half the pay me: why? ceo: because the male intern is from some important school!
- mziel 11y ago
  Not trying to start a flame, but what difference does it make that they're male or female? The difference is as you said "some important school".
  - Jean-Philipe 11y ago
    Okay, I actually consider that a valid question. The thing was: all the female employees in that team got half (!) the pay of the guys. The guys of that team didn't work, but the women were much more productive. The fact that he's "from some important school" wich in this case didn't provide any value at all, was just a lame excuse for "he has a p*nis". Another excuse I heard from that CEO, when one of the underpaid team members asked him about the difference in pay, was this: "It's your market value!" which reads quite clearly as "You earn less because you're a woman" PS: Had a lot of these cases in that company and the gender was the only common denominator. I'm glad I left. Meanwhile they have a new CEO, and things have improved.
- MertsA 11y ago
  And this right here is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to go back to college.
nlh 11y ago
A lot of these appear to stem from inexperience -- the founder/CEO/CTO doing and saying what they think they're supposed to do or because "that's what successful people do." I'm going to be slightly reverse-ageist for a moment: I'm at a startup where the average age is over 40, the founder is deeply experienced as both an engineer and a manager, and I can honestly say that NONE of this stuff happens. I took my reading these anecdotes to appreciate how nice (and apparently rare?) this is.
- stanleydrew 11y ago
  The anecdotes show inexperience on both sides. If you are taking interviews with so many bad startup founders that you are able to compile a list like this, maybe you should work on your own filtering mechanism to stop talking to people who will waste your time.
- supjeff 11y ago
  Can you say which company this is? I feel like I should try to work there
cinquemb 11y ago
After a round of interviews/ in person with a public software company in Boston (who just acquired last pass): Company recruiting lead: The team enjoyed meeting you. They felt you are very smart and personable. [VP of engineering] liked your work with machine learning. At this time, they feel you are a bit junior for the team. I had to laugh, glad I dogged a bullet.
sijoe 11y ago
Been thinking about doing the customer version of this. [after a long indepth technical discussion with a qualified opportunity, quoting, resources allocated, ready to pull the trigger on a large project] me: So we are ready to go, waiting on the PO them: Sure, just working through our process (falls off internets, doesn't respond to phone calls/emails/rejects visits) Months go by them: We set up an RFP and bought from someone else. me: Er ... you used our confidential material (marked as such) to set up a public RFP, that you didn't even invite us to, or respond to our queries? Seriously? them: Yes. [bangs head on table, but it gets better ... no ... the other thing] them: the system we bought (not yours), isn't performing nearly as well as your system that we POCed on. me: So? Why not call your vendor and have them help you? them: they aren't able to. They don't know this stuff as well as you do. me: So, let me get this right ... you want me to provide consulting services to help a competitor of ours ... compete ... with us? them: Not so much consulting, as free advice and guidance. Like you did during the POC. [resumes banging head on table] them: hello? whats that noise? [years pass] them: we need to rethink our strategy, it was an order of magnitude slower than your unit at about 2-3x the cost. me: no kidding Sherlock them: we want to start this process again .... me: (fits of laughter) uh ... no.
- supjeff 11y ago
  This is my worst nightmare.
- odonnellryan 11y ago
  I had a client who was curious why I was charging him to draw up quotes as a sub-contractor. Weeks went by after they proposed the project. Later, I found out in a slightly roundabout way they went to another developer (overseas, cheaper) after sharing my quote and spec with the client :)
- drodgers 11y ago
  The customer version already exists: http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/
- caseysoftware 11y ago
  Years back, I was on the other side of this. They didn't like my mockups but they liked my price, so they took the other company's comps and handed them to me. Their logo, "confidential" and the like were still on them. I told the customer I wanted a written release from the other company to use their stuff, especially since some of it would end up in our promo/marketing info. They called me "not a team player" and cut my team loose from the project. Six months later they fired many of the senior staff for missing funds and a lawsuit from that other company. Karma is a bitch.
Jemaclus 11y ago
me: I'm here for the engineering manager position them: great, can you come in for a front-end developer interview at 2? me: I'm here for the engineering manager position them: here's an offer for a front-end position making below-average $ me: thanks for your time them: ??????? CEO: Why won't anyone work for us? them: we offered them a job!
hwstar 11y ago
Problems are not just limited to startups. Here's some of the shenanigans which went on in the last company I worked for: Company is constantly on credit hold. Engineers receive calls from suppliers stating that they haven't been paid and no one in accounts payable is returning their calls. Company does layoffs on a recurring basis, and then hires different people for a new project. In one case they hired back the same people they laid off a year ago and paid them signing bonuses. CEO shows gross indifference when someone leaves the company. Just shrugs it off. CEO walks into VP of HR's office with someone and states that you're fired, and this is your replacement. CEO constantly worrying about getting delisted from NASDAQ. CEO and VP Engineering "chum" thinking they know the price of components and stating that that should cost $5, when everyone supplying stated item is asking $15.
mrbill 11y ago
Reminds me a lot of http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/
rcurry 11y ago
Startup: We need an experienced Foo programmer. Me: Those are easy to find. Startup: Our lead developer keeps shooting them down because they don't know (obscure keyword). Me: How long would it take an experienced programmer to learn (obscure keyword)? Startup: I don't know, maybe an hour? Me: How long have you been hiring for this position? Startup: About six months. Me: Would it help if I sent you a transcript of this call? Startup: What? Me: Never mind...
- chrisbennet 11y ago
  I might have down voted you by accident. Was trying to up vote you, little arrows/big thumbs/mobile. Sorry.
tonecluster 11y ago
So many... so many. me: (up all night fixing bugs in production due to technical debt and mistakes from overworked and tired devs. Sleep from 5am to 9am, show up to office at 10am) CEO (sales background), walking by as he sees me enter the office: "Hey tone, I want butts in seats, including yours. We have a culture of hard work here. Set an example." ... CTO: "We don't need to hire expensive devs. Just hire from overseas and promise them an H1B. They'll work for the minimum." me: "That's not only unsustainable, it's unethical. H1B is a lottery, we can't promise that!" CTO: "I don't expect them to know that, and you're not going to tell them! Get them on-boarded and working a.s.a.p." me: (goes home, writes resignation email)
spinlock 11y ago
Am I the only one who would have really appreciated a trigger warning?
the_cat_kittles 11y ago
love the equity one. imagine asking "what is the expected value of the equity?", getting a number, and then saying "ok, pay me that when it vests instead of giving me the equity".
doctorpangloss 11y ago
It's probably unfair to pin all the sexism stuff on startups. If you've ever been to a big company, you'd know that the pink collar workforce idea is way worse. There are a lot of women in junior or administrative positions who can only really interact with their bosses and immediate peers professionally but whom the entire organization, from CEO to lowly PA, tries to hit on.
htaunay 11y ago
CEO: We gonna need to do some crunch time the next 2/3 weeks. Unfortunately, we fell behind schedule and we can't let this next delivery be late. We can't pay any of you overtime because we are already on a tight budget, as you know, but to raise moral after we deliver the company is going to take everyone out to this great restaurant + drinks to raise our morale and toast of the future of this great and promising business! The team: Ok. Not what we expected, but we have some equity, its a tough market, and we have been working on this for a while. Let's hope it pays off in the future. Three weeks - working from Sunday to Sunday - later... The Team: Yes! I can't believe we delivered! We are more motivated than ever! Now let's celebrate! CEO: Yeah, sorry, no time for that. Here's a $40 dollar check for each of you to go out and grab a bite. Oh, and by the look of our roadmap we might need to crunch some more next month. The Team: [starts quitting one by one]
junkilo 11y ago
one from the devops/sre trenches... > (devops guy) hi, im here for the lead devops role > (CTO) awesome, you'd be a great fit here. can you write a sudoku solver in ruby real quick? > (devops guy) [writes solver in ruby] > (CTO) wow looks great... when can you start? do you have any questions for me? > (devops guy) I do have a question: how do you shard your bigdata installations and what is it built on? > (CTO) oh I wrote my own, we call it redisbigtable -- its the worlds first CAP compliant data store. oh, and we shard by customer. > (devops guy) thank you for your time.
- dlitz 11y ago
  > (CTO) Look, we're a startup; we don't have time for the perfect solution here. You should consider being more pragmatic...
- killface 11y ago
  to be pedantically fair, most people who use the CAP theorem to describe a system aren't following the academic usages of C, A, and P, and thus are probably describing the system incorrectly. Look at this discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156359
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hcndaytonnews 11y ago
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michaeloblak 11y ago
This is so true! Awesome (and sad)!
randycupertino 11y ago
My first startup's CEO practiced "The Game" and used to bring the dev team out in SF to practice peacocking, negging and other ridiculous seduction techniques on unsuspecting women. I'm in an ltr and dreaded having to go, but didn't want to be left out so I would tag along. It was horrible.
- pzone 11y ago
  That is absolutely horrifying. How could someone like that possibly make sound business decisions?
  - randycupertino 11y ago
    Yeah. It was kinda a joke-ish type thing but then it started being totally not a joke because he and his buddies were really taking it very seriously. He had a bunch of fratstar intern types and they just encouraged the behavior even more. I'm so glad I got out of there and went to a real company.
- JBReefer 11y ago
  How many sexual harassment lawsuits were there? Why would anyone think this is OK?
  - randycupertino 11y ago
    Ugh I don't know. I've since gotten a new job but he's still there as a figurehead CEO... the COO makes all the decisions/runs the show from what I've heard. Glad I got out. It was just one of many many juvenile actions from that boss.
b123400 11y ago
We are working in a coworking space, but the CTO doesn't seems to like this idea at all, he keeps asking people in the common area to shut up.
fny 11y ago
COO: We need to crush the MVP, so unfortunately we'll be working weekends now. Designer: ... COO: Don't worry everything will cool down after Thanksgiving! Designer: Fine... (Week before Thanksgiving) COO: Finish everything? Like is X, Y, Z all good to go? Designer: Yep, everything's finished! COO: Awesome! Unfortunately, we're going to have to let you go...

530 points by supjeff 11y ago

I've worked for startups as a full-stack dev for about 5 years, and spent the last year trying to land a position in as a technical manager. This specific pursuit has lead to some of the most bullshit encounters I've had with startups. What are some of your bullshit experiences?

sokoloff 11y ago
In the phrase "technical manager", technical is an adjective; the noun is manager. What would lead you to expect a smooth path to being hired as a tech manager without tech management experience? It's a different job and the skills required to succeed have less overlap than many devs think.
- supjeff 11y ago
  I've been "Lead Dev" for 6 years, and had the responsibility of an actual manager without any of the budget/resourcing ability that's necessary to manage well. I've successfully launched lots of products and platforms with teams of 5-7 people, and had a good tenure earlier this year as a CTO with a team of 5. I would have stayed in that position if the founders hadn't closed it down.
- hodgesrm 11y ago
  By your logic it is hard to see how anyone technically competent could be promoted into management. Good luck with that.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    "hired as" was intentionally chosen wording. IME, the easiest path is within a company, not in a new hire situation. You take someone with demonstrated technical skill/credibility, a track record of success, and a desire to lead and you give them progressively more management tasks, culminating in a formal role change to manager. They already know the company, the team, the codebase, the business, etc. and it's much easier for them to step back into a pure technical role if it doesn't work out or if they hate it. I've had extremely "good luck with that". It's much riskier to take a fresh new hire with no management experience into a tech manager role at a new-to-them company.
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      The funny thing is, founders in many cases are exactly that Straight into those positions
    - UK-AL 11y ago
      The funny thing is, founders in many cases are exactly that Straight into those positions
- ToPutItBluntly 11y ago
  Every single manager I have had in the SF Bay Area is at least one position up from where they would be anywhere else in the country. This area has a reputation for being the best place to start a career. Well it also should have the reputation for being the best place to jump into management. Unfortunately, all of these managers also got in through networking not demonstrated ability. So to the person that wants to jump into management, you need to focus much more on networking and less on applying to open positions. If you can't get in through networking, you need to put in the long slog to get in through working at the same employer (and likely suffering on the pay front until you make it into management and have enough experience there to jump).
  - supjeff 11y ago
    Good advice. Thanks :)
jacquesm 11y ago
My best one to date: In early 2002 we got an offer of a well-funded start-up to take over our company. We had the technology, they had the sales, the marketing and the $. The CEO met me in an office in SV so lavish it would not have been out of place as a Ferrari showroom. Halfway during the meeting - we didn't hit it off all that well - he made the momentous announcement that if we did not accept his offer we'd be going on a head-on collision course for a game of chicken and he had just thrown away his steering wheel. I just laughed, bade my farewells. They failed spectacularly (not a bankruptcy but the service was shut down) several months later after burning through a very large fraction of $30M. What puzzles me to this date is what he thought he was trying to accomplish by showing me that he was a reckless cowboy with very little sense for business relations but it certainly wasn't going to end in a partnership with him 'at the wheel' (since he'd just thrown that out). He's still around, selling toothpaste.
- S4M 11y ago
  Maybe he knew that he was going to get bankrupt soon and tried to bluff and scare you into accepting his acquisition offer, so he would get your technology on favorable terms and look good to his investors.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    They were not about to go bankrupt at that point (they never did, they blew through a very large amount of money in no time flat, then this guy got thrown out, a more seasoned CEO was attracted who concluded after a serious rescue attempt that it was pointless). So any kind of existential threat probably was still over the horizon at that point, they never actually went bust they simply shut down.
jessedhillon 11y ago
One that I saw on a startup founders mailing list several years back: --- founder: I have a modest, growing business, but the marketing costs are rather high. What can to do to bring that cost down? wannabe-founder: whoa, you really failed to validate the core concept and establish your basic value prop. You're going to see an astronomical CAC until you ultimately pivot and achieve LGTM or BBQ. I'd recommend you shut down and find another vertical.
- HiLo 11y ago
  This really resonates with me. Without ranting, I kind of think a lot of wannabe's have been sold a dream and a formula, and when it doesn't work, they blame the dream (it's always been 1 in 1,000,000 odds!), or the formula (as per above), rather than the fact they don't have any business or technical savvy.
- daveguy 11y ago
  I had to look up the alphabet soup, but couldn't find everything. CAC : Cost to Aquire a Customer LGTM : Looks Good To Me? BBQ : ? Not a clue other than a delicious way to prepare meat. Maybe something Quality?
  - jessedhillon 11y ago
    Heh yeah I was trying to convey the gist rather than the actual conversation. He threw a bunch of acronyms at the guy, quoted him the lean startup recipe and with a straight face, told a guy with a viable, profitable business to fold and start over.
    - daveguy 11y ago
      Hah! Thank you. I'm sure the actual barrage of acronyms were just as relevant!
    - daveguy 11y ago
      I would like to make up an businessy acronym for BBQ. BBQ : Business to Business Quotient (or Quantity). A measure of how much of your income comes from B2B transactions as opposed to direct to consumer transactions.
eitally 11y ago
If you're still looking, send me a note and we'll talk. I'm currently looking for a full-stack dev who's comfortable leading projects & interacting with both customers & biz execs.
- supjeff 11y ago
  How do I contact you? My email address is marshall.ent@gmail.com

eecks 11y ago

Are these just made up or are they coming from somewhere?

ryanmarsh 11y ago
They're conversations so common that they're memes now.
supjeff 11y ago
These are my own personal experiences, summarized for potency
ddebernardy 11y ago
The examples ring very true, unfortunately. If you pop in on the Startups Stack Exchange (or the Work Life Stack Exchange), you'll periodically find concrete examples.

Roritharr 11y ago

My favourite: Founder Institute - run by international group of millionaire magazine-cover entrepreneurs - doesn’t invest a penny in its companies - charges founders thousands of dollars for mentorship - well-regarded startup accelerator ------------------- I was once offered the position to head the local chapter, after having a private phonecall with Adeo, I declined as I couldn't see the value offered. The next person took it, and as expected, the local chapter failed spectacularly and the people founding it were out of a lot of work and didn't get anything in return. It's still a mistery to me why that organization has credibility.

argonaut 11y ago
In their limited defense, they do position themselves more as an educational program than as an incubator.
- tomasien 11y ago
  In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.
- tomasien 11y ago
  In marketing material they use the word "accelerator" constantly. Poke around Twitter, you'll see it. Not cool IMO.
elmar 11y ago
Some good answers here. Is the Founder Institute a good deal for entrepreneurs? Why or why not? https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Founder-Institute-a-good-deal-for-entrepreneurs-Why-or-why-not https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Founder-Institute-a-good-deal-f...
- tptacek 11y ago
  After reading these, Founders Institute still seems like a _really_ bad deal.

hackermom 11y ago

So assuming these are real, this guy gets fired (or just plain ditches companies) very often. Sounds like the diametrical opposite of a good employee.

bsdpython 11y ago

A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that waste your time. I guess it's not limited to just the startup space but one thing I've learned is that there is an unlimited number of people that are willing to waste your time and boy is it frustrating.

jacquesm 11y ago
As soon as your name is out there as a successful founder you'll get a ton of this, the more media coverage you get the worse it gets.
- bsdpython 11y ago
  A few years ago I got publicity (TechCrunch among others) for a side project I developed. For at least 6 months I got non-stop solicitation emails for outsourcing and 30 second promotional videos. I can only imagine if I got that same publicity tied to a business with known funding.
  - sytse 11y ago
    After announcing the GitLab's A round I'm getting two recruiting emails, one outsourcing and one investor email per day. Having a note on our jobs page https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/ doesn't seem to help.
    - watmough 11y ago
      Your job descriptions are the very model of clarity. I wouldn't normally comment, but it makes a great impression.
Alex3917 11y ago
> A lot of these anecdotes are the frustration with dealing with people that waste your time. Having been both a founder and an employee, these examples don't really ring true to me. At least personally I've seen a lot more employees and consultants wasting founders time than the other way around.

smcl 11y ago

The "less than half for cash" one is something I used to see from customers all the time when working in a bar. You'd say "£10.50, please" and they'd reply "£10 for cash?" as if I'd happily chip in 50p myself (till shortages need covered somehow) instead of having to accept a card payment. I never understood the mentality - it costs £x, so pay £x or go away

jacquesm 11y ago
They assumed that you'd simply pocket the 10 quid rather than book it officially so 'everybody would come out ahead'. Never mind that you'd be committing fraud.
- smcl 11y ago
  Ahh I never considered that option
- tedmiston 11y ago
  On a recent trip to Greece, I found this being asked by businesses, especially restaurants and bars, but down to my hotel that I reserved with a CC: "Could you please pay in cash instead?"
  - flippant 11y ago
    It might be because banks were forced to place a limit on withdrawals.
  - joezydeco 11y ago
    Thats kind of a different situation, isn't it? The Greeks are probably abandoning banks altogether and going to an under-the-table cash economy, given what happened this past summer.
  - jakub_g 11y ago
    It's not unheard of in Europe to get 2-3% discounts if paying by cash (particularly in computer stores). The reason is that in some countries, merchants pay that percentage of Visa/MC commission (and in case of Amex even more) plus a fixed fee per transaction. For that same reason bars usually accept cards only over a threshold of 5-10€ or so. Though if that happens in hotels indeed it is strange then.

cft 11y ago

Somebody who dedicates his time to publicly spew this toxic attitude will likely not archive success that is pleasant for him.

sohcahtoa 11y ago
This sentence sounds like an Evil Fortune Cookie.
- chvid 11y ago
  I like it!
logicallee 11y ago
you'd be bitter too if your idea of success consisted, in full, of convincing startups to pay you a rate you pulled out of thin air yet which somehow adequately captures the whole nuance of your existence and career ambitions. Especially if, like OP, you considered a cash offer for half this amount you've pulled out of thin air to be a damned, laughable insult, a ridiculous slight, completely amateurish, a clownshow run by idiots. (Although multiple of them have suggested this as an appropriate rate.) I wish everyone in life were as easy to please as OP. (Just pay him the number he wrote down on a piece of paper, approximately twice what he commands in that market.) Of course, you're never going to build something big with him, I would never try. I have no idea why he's applying to startups.
- logicallee 11y ago
  -4. Pray tell why this guy is applying to startups? Also his objection to someone getting an internship at a startup because they're a "beautiful 18yo girl" is the most sexist thing I've read in a while.
  - grkvlt 11y ago
    You may not have understood that properly. Hint: he isn't the one being sexist...

pyb 11y ago

I've had 2 of these exact interactions, in the London local startup scene, and that was just last week.

leroy_masochist 11y ago

> me: hi i'm here about the lead developer position > CEO: cool man lets grab a couple beers > me: (over beers) hi i'm here for the lead developer position > CEO: yeah dude but are you any good at foosball? > me: (over foosball) i'm here for the lead developer position This is surprisingly common and not just for hiring technical roles. I find it especially odd when founders do it in the process of hiring their first few employees....it's like dude, you don't even have a culture yet, why do you care about culture fit? It would be impossible to quantify but I wonder how many good ideas tackled by good founders never got off the ground because they were overly fixated on getting the first 10 hires EXACTLY right.

tedmiston 11y ago
I don't know that grabbing beers and playing foosball necessarily equates to getting the hires "EXACTLY right". I feel like it's the litmus test for "Can I hang out with this person casually and for very extended periods of time?" Edit: Not sure why the down votes. For anyone that's worked in a seed/pre-seed startup, this is absolutely an essential thing.
- leroy_masochist 11y ago
  That's a valid point and I'm not sure why people are downvoting you. I think the litmus test should be, "do I not dislike spending a lot of time with this person", not "do I really like spending time with this person". Shooting the shit over beers and foosball is really testing for the latter, not the former. Plus let's face it, a lot of technically gifted and experienced people ain't exactly extroverts. And people act different when they know they're being evaluated anyway. So some founders' insistence on fratting it up for step one of the hiring process just strikes me as stupid. And by the way...I'm a tall, white, former college athlete male. I'm VERY comfortable in a "drinking beer in bars with dudes" environment; it's what I often do with my friends on my own time. I'd likely be even more opinionated about this if I were not as naturally comfortable in a bro-y environment.
  - supjeff 11y ago

meesterdude 11y ago

I loved these! I certainly have been through some of that nonsense. i would add: job offer: salary range $100-$130k interviewer: the max for this position is $80K interviewer: hello?

lucisferre 11y ago
I see this a lot with startups hiring on Angel List. Angel List makes them specify a salary range so they do, but always offer well below the minimum. At best they are blatantly insulting the candidate, at worst they are liars. Probably both.
- meesterdude 11y ago
  wow, they've all been from angel list for me too! i didn't realize the connection till now.
  - amitm 11y ago
    Sorry to hear about your experience. We take abuse like this seriously. If possible, could you email me the names of the companies at amit@angel.co?
    - lucisferre 11y ago
      I think it's awesome that you take this so seriously. I also think it's great that you ask companies to be upfront about compensation (I say this as an founder). It irks me when companies aren't forthright with potential hires.
    - sterl 11y ago
      Definitely replying to this, I've had this happen more than once at the offer stage.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 11y ago

ditonal 11y ago

Feel free to steal mine: #1 me: the candidate seemed pretty good, even if he made some mistakes. CEO: a false negative is better than a false positive! Better to reject and err on the side of caution! ...later CEO: we can't find people! There's a shortage! It's a crisis! #2 CEO: we only hire the best, smartest people in the world! me: OK I found one! He wants a high salary. CEO: welllll, average market salary is only $, but since "we're a startup" we can't even do that....

leroy_masochist 11y ago
Well, if it were actually one of the smartest people in the world then they'd understand the true value of a 0.5% equity stake vesting over four years :-/
- joezydeco 11y ago
  Which is exactly why he asked for a large cash salary. =)
- aaronem 11y ago
  Well, I'm not very smart, and even I understand that the true value of 0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero...
  - potatolicious 11y ago
    > "0.5% over four years is odds-on very likely to be zero..." More importantly, that even if you beat the odds and the company is a smashing success, 0.5% over four years is likely worth less money than the cash/stock bonuses major tech companies are handing out anyways, especially accounting for liquidation preferences and ratchets. The big lie in startup equity isn't how unlikely they are to succeed, it's how little you would walk away with even if they do.
    - paulddraper 11y ago
      Exactly. An 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of millions is different than an 80% chance of zero and 20% chance of 70k. And a lot of people fail to identify the difference.

pbreit 11y ago

Many/most seem more an indictment on engineer lack of understanding what it takes to get a startup off the ground.

kevinmobrien 11y ago
Agreed.
HiLo 11y ago
You're getting downvoted, but I have to agree to an extent. To be fair, many business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground. The irony is, I guess, that most people involved in a startup don't know what it takes to actually get it off the ground, because the formula they've been sold doesn't really actually work, and they don't have the business (or technical!) savvy to correct course.
- pbreit 11y ago
  "business/founder types also have a total lack of understanding of what it takes to get a startup off the ground" I would not totally disagree with this. But here's the thing: no-one really does. It's extremely difficult. If many people did know, it wouldn't be as lucrative. Being the boss is by far the hardest position in the whole endeavor.
fredkbloggs 11y ago
That might be part of it, but it also speaks to an extremely common mentality among founders that they can (and should) get a business off the ground with only a tiny fraction of the capital that's actually needed to do so. They're unwilling to bootstrap, but they also want to build a business that needs $25m of runway with $5m, and take the rest out of their employees' pockets. There are four parties to blame for this: 1. VCs, who refuse to adequately capitalize their portfolio companies. 2. The cultural environment that encourages this approach. 3. The founders, for their lack of business sense and willingness neither to bootstrap nor demand adequate startup capital. 4. The employees, for going along with it.
deleted 11y ago

padobson 11y ago

Based on my experience, there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the type of charismatic pitch founder capable of raising money and getting people to work for less than their market rate, and the bean counter-oversight founder capable of running an efficient business. But it's the former type that is able to raise money, so they find themselves in a position to have conversations like these.

kelukelugames 11y ago
Have you read Good to Great? The book describe those founders as rockstar CEOs. Very charismatic and good for morale, but not so much for business. http://amzn.to/1SVR48M http://amzn.to/1SVR48M
fredkbloggs 11y ago
That's fine, but if you're that kind of founder you have to know your limitations and hire a top-flight COO to handle that side of things. If you can't, or won't, you're just another shitty founder-CEO whose company is going to fail.

ninkendo 11y ago

-- me: sits through yet another mandatory hours-long meeting where the loudest two developers one-up each other to find the best hypothetical solution to the most convoluted problem they can imagine as it relates to the urgent, critical problem we currently face whose simple, plain solution goes entirely ignored and where no decision is made. -- I have trouble laughing at what I know is supposed to be humor, because of how tragically true this is and how much this affects me on a regular basis. But I don't work for a startup! I thought it was supposed to be different in that world. Perhaps some problems are just universal.

iolothebard 11y ago
It's amazing how many of these apply to the company I just quit. I emailed it to their lead developer. Hilarious and depressing at the same time.
ratsmack 11y ago
How about the meeting where the non-problems and false concerns are beaten like a dead horse by people without the knowledge or skill to be in the discussion. But you have to just sit there with your face in your palm because if you say anything to try and correct the misdirection, you will be considered not a "team player".
- ryanmarsh 11y ago
  This is the default for Fortune 500 work. Case in point, grossly expensive COTS implemtation requiring 80 consultants to build ETL pipeline to handle roughly 5,000-10,000 transactions A DAY simple XML files to DB rows. Told client a few smart devs could build this in a few months. Got the ಠ_ಠ
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- supjeff 11y ago
  If you're not the leader, you're waiting quietly for the leader to take action, but more often than not, the leader is enthralled by the exhilarating debate taking place before them. A non-technical leader takes it as an opportunity to learn, which is a great attitude to have, but the rest of us are dying. Other times they know they need to get things back on track, but they don't know how to stop the runaway train that is a developer ruminating on something that gets more convoluted with each syllable.

sohcahtoa 11y ago

Interviewer: We need someone with [describes soft skill set for my dream job] Me: Great career opportunity, I'd certainly be willing to move across country for this Interviewer, day 1: Here's your desk, now I'm going to assign you a ticket off the backlog. Let me know when you're done and I'll assign you another one. [pats me on the head and walks away] Bait'n'switch, and I fell for it. I think it's the only way they can get people to come to this no-good podunk town, with not a sushi bar for miles, and 19th century development practices. And yes, I am preparing my awesome flameout exit. I hope to hear the lamentation of their womenfolk.

eitally 11y ago
If you're in the Bay Area and want a new dream job, send me a note. I'm incubating new B2B/B2C products at Google and need a senior full stack dev* who's as comfortable talking with customers & biz execs as they are coding. * Google SWEs aren't typically swiss army knives. I need a swiss army knife, so this is not a SWE position, if that matters to you.
- jamespshields 11y ago
  Bay Area swiss army knife here. That sounds awesome! @jamespshields
rco8786 11y ago
Not sure what your dream job is. But pulling a few tickets off the backlog is a pretty normal way to ramp up new hires.
- sohcahtoa 11y ago
  I take your point, and I do that with new hires myself. I'm compressing things for comic effect, but I promise you the core of the story is true - I got suckered in by wonderful promises, and interviewing in the industry hot spot I was in is going to involve significant time and cash outlay.
x0x0 11y ago

kelukelugames 11y ago

YC helps young founders because of stereotypes against them. I wouldn't imply that someone lacks merit because she is 18 and attractive. There needs to be more context for that post.

moron4hire 11y ago
Who says this has anything to do with YC?
- kelukelugames 11y ago
  Hi. Thank you for asking. I should have clarified. The tumblr post is not related to YC. I cited YC's philosophy as an example of why we shouldn't judge people by their age.
  - supjeff 11y ago
    Funny thing is, this happened at a YC company.
supjeff 11y ago
I'm not implying that the intern lacks merit. She was brilliant. The thing is, this was a company of 5 very busy people working round-the-clock in a startup house while going through YC. We didn't have the bandwidth to offer a proper internship; one where we teach relevant skills at a beginner's pace. I intended for the readers to draw their own conclusions from my note of the founders' gender, orientation and marital status.
outworlder 11y ago
The implication is that they didn't need or even have the budget for an intern. And they hired an intern anyway, which just happened to be young and attractive. This should be enough as an illustration of "bullshit experiences".

Giorgi 11y ago

It's beyond me why would anyone would want to give away part of his/her company just because of some shitty development work, and most of developers do just that - write shitty code because they don't give a crap about quality As a founder you are better of paying some random developer do have viable product and then if it works - hire someone. NEVER GIVE AWAY EQUITY FOR JOB.

bm1362 11y ago
Uh, well you have to pay them. So either pay them cash or incentivize with equity? Aligning interests is essential for a startup.
fredkbloggs 11y ago
I actually agree, but you have to pay people. That means you need to have enough cash -- either in startup capital or revenue -- to pay a fair market wage for the work you're getting. If you do, then absolutely that's how you should compensate your work force; it's better for everyone. But too many founders take $400k in seed money to start a business that's going to need 12 months and 4 people's time to reach revenue and another 18 months to break even. How are those founders supposed to make that work? The right answer is not to accept the $400k because he really needs more like $2m, but that's not what people are doing, so the extra money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the employees' pockets.
hamburglar 11y ago
It seems like your "developers only produce crap" and "don't make offers that are favorable to developers" philosophies may be more related than you think.

mrcrassic 11y ago

this is amazing.

adeadb2bcompany 11y ago

Hi, so this is all happening at the startup I work at: #1 CEO: We just closed a XX million dollar Series C funding round! -- later at an a company wide meeting --- CEO: we have zero revenue. if we asked our customers to pay us, they would drop our product in a second... so, uh, we really don't have product market fit yet. me: ... CEO: no worries. we are attacking such a large market. surely we'll find something. and when we do it will be HUGE... it'll be... it'll be... it's so huge I'm having trouble even describing it! #2 -- at an important weekly product meeting -- CEO: okay it's been ten minutes. where is [cofounder] CTO: oh he's in china for the week. CEO: ... CTO: On vacation. everyone else: ... (your cofounder didn't tell you that?) #3 me: your company name "cadabra" sounds like cadaver. ceo: nah, dude. me: you had to spell it out when I asked you to pronounce it. ceo: nah, we just need to hire more marketing people. #4 wannabe designer: so tell me how you approach design. me: well I really like being apart of the process from start to finish, since I've also done UX wor-- designer: great, let me tell you how we do design here. i draw up the stuff and you do it, unless there's a technical problem. you can argue and you will be wrong, ha ha. me: you're joking right? designer: * proceeds to create barely passable UIs * And the list goes on. I have plenty of more stories to share but I am currently busy seeking employment elsewhere. Shameless plug: If you're looking for an American android developer (10,000+ install base on play store), or a front end web developer ( Tech Giant), a back python/java developer ( past startups ), let's talk shop at snarkyhackernewsuser@gmail.com.

wpietri 11y ago
Ah, #1 is very familiar. Except that your CEO is slightly better in that he can admit they don't have product-market fit.
- adeadb2bcompany 11y ago
  Not completely honest however. Before I joined, she overstated the number by a factor of 2... without clearly defining that that the company was making no revenue. She's extremely stressed and there's a lot of pressure on her. I understand that and I commiserate-- the problem is that at this point, it's all just "playing house".

tdaltonc 11y ago

> married hetero male founders: we're thinking of getting an intern > me: okay but I don't see what we could offer. You know we're on a really tight > married hetero male founders: we're getting an intern. > intern: (beautiful 18yo girl) Young male intern --> Everyone assumes you're a Wunderkind. Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you. Startupbullshit

adeadb2bcompany 11y ago
for me at least, I would assume the young male intern got in through nepotism of some kind. Actually, I would say I would stereotype first on their credentials before their gender (since I would likely see their resume first before seeing them in person)
supjeff 11y ago
I hold founders' motives suspect. Not the relationship (which actually seems to have worked out) that resulted.
neilk 11y ago
Hells to the no. In my experience, if you see a useless young male intern, he's probably the nephew of the dumbest investor. But the pattern holds in one way, because to keep up appearances, we're supposed to put the useless male intern on coding projects. So he's more of a net negative.
bsder 11y ago
> Young female intern --> Everyone assumes that the CEO is having sex with you Well, to be fair, a young, attractive, competent female intern has far better opportunities than intern at a shitty startup.

l_stover 11y ago

Been hearing a lotta stories out there,but the truth is most of them arent certified! I came across a pretty good hacker some years ago,damn too good! Genius Hack with the email geniushack08@gmail.com He is the first of hackers i'll be recommending for any hacking service! Email hacks,banking hacks,school grade changes...

giis 11y ago

>Would you sign something saying you'll give me $250k in cash one year from now if I work for the company? this is classic ! :)

kevinthew 11y ago

happened to be recently: Manager: Hey you're here for the xx position right? You know, you sound like you'd be a really good fit for this new job that opened up, I just fired this guy, millennials amirite, so let's talk about that for the next hour.

giis 11y ago

--- During interview with founder: me : I believe 'honesty is the best policy' founder: Great! we need like-minded people like you. (after few months) founder: He creates negative environment within the team!

taurath 11y ago
Honesty is in general the best way to foster trust, but extreme honesty and off-the-cuff opinion-giving is a good way to make everyone afraid of giving honest assessments.

bflesch 11y ago

This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor level day in and out. I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind. As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors' management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying for three weeks, etc. I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves). We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in (his, kind of) round. They not once called him. So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.

colordrops 11y ago
The reason your comment is so highly rated is that your description of European VCs pretty much matches those of US and Asian VCs as well. Many VCs got where they were by being sociopaths that threw a lot of social convention out the window.
- puranjay 11y ago
  Social convention! How can you disrupt industries by following social convention! Always remember: nothing is impossible when you're an asshole. /s
- bflesch 11y ago
  This thought is often voiced, but I think on a partner level most of them are somehow nice and clever guys. What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards their partners / managers. Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off. Very anecdotal of course!

eitland 11y ago

Three of mine: Recruiting company: Someone needs a php developer for work in X industry. I work on the industry, take the test they give me, get a perfect score, never hear a word, no interview. Big company : I travel across the mountains to an interview, 15 minutes before arriving I get a call, "we can't meet you today, we will come back with another time". Startup: we need someone with strong cognitive skills and php and javascript experience (8 y ago, before everyone had 10 y javascript experience). In interview: you are one of two qualified, the otherone is from <other country, more than two hours away, by plane>, -goes on to advertise the position again, then after realizing there are no other goes on to offer me below market rates. I go on to learn Java in a better paid job with better well - everything.

bsg75 11y ago

Has anyone done the math to show if your odds are better at the typical startup vs the typical craps table? Equivalents of time and money, and the odds of wasting it all on chance?

huac 11y ago
craps is expected value of ~0.96 of what you put in. i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds'
- bsg75 11y ago
  > i don't know how you want to quantify 'startup odds' Perhaps, a sampling of people who took the option to work for equity, and the ratio of those whose investment in time made the equity valuable, over those who would have had a better income with a typical salary.

tonecluster 11y ago

Here's one (not solely experienced in startups, however): manager: "Since you're single, can you work through the holidays and cover the systems/push this feature/go the extra mile so that the people with families can spend time with them?"

mrbill 11y ago
Being that guy before, and with family an 8-hour drive away, I've volunteered to do that more than once. Earns goodwill from the people with families, the boss has one less thing to worry about at end of year, and the holidays are usually "dead time" so I got a lot of slack time in.
- tonecluster 11y ago
  Volunteering is one thing, and very cool to do to take some of the stress off of people with children. But asking an employee is quite another (IMO). It's a form of soft discrimination, though not intended as such I'm sure. (Though, thinking about it, I was told once "Yeah, well, you don't have kids, so this [the holiday] isn't that important for you." that wasn't a startup, however, that was a F100)

velox_io 11y ago

It's quite scary how many startups treat Lean Startup as the gospel and follow it word for word.

Jean-Philipe 11y ago

I had this: young male intern: talks a lot but is not working young female intern: does all the work of the male intern, gets half the pay me: why? ceo: because the male intern is from some important school!

mziel 11y ago
Not trying to start a flame, but what difference does it make that they're male or female? The difference is as you said "some important school".
- Jean-Philipe 11y ago
  Okay, I actually consider that a valid question. The thing was: all the female employees in that team got half (!) the pay of the guys. The guys of that team didn't work, but the women were much more productive. The fact that he's "from some important school" wich in this case didn't provide any value at all, was just a lame excuse for "he has a p*nis". Another excuse I heard from that CEO, when one of the underpaid team members asked him about the difference in pay, was this: "It's your market value!" which reads quite clearly as "You earn less because you're a woman" PS: Had a lot of these cases in that company and the gender was the only common denominator. I'm glad I left. Meanwhile they have a new CEO, and things have improved.
MertsA 11y ago
And this right here is one of the biggest reasons why I decided to go back to college.

nlh 11y ago

A lot of these appear to stem from inexperience -- the founder/CEO/CTO doing and saying what they think they're supposed to do or because "that's what successful people do." I'm going to be slightly reverse-ageist for a moment: I'm at a startup where the average age is over 40, the founder is deeply experienced as both an engineer and a manager, and I can honestly say that NONE of this stuff happens. I took my reading these anecdotes to appreciate how nice (and apparently rare?) this is.

stanleydrew 11y ago
The anecdotes show inexperience on both sides. If you are taking interviews with so many bad startup founders that you are able to compile a list like this, maybe you should work on your own filtering mechanism to stop talking to people who will waste your time.
supjeff 11y ago
Can you say which company this is? I feel like I should try to work there

cinquemb 11y ago

After a round of interviews/ in person with a public software company in Boston (who just acquired last pass): Company recruiting lead: The team enjoyed meeting you. They felt you are very smart and personable. [VP of engineering] liked your work with machine learning. At this time, they feel you are a bit junior for the team. I had to laugh, glad I dogged a bullet.

sijoe 11y ago

Been thinking about doing the customer version of this. [after a long indepth technical discussion with a qualified opportunity, quoting, resources allocated, ready to pull the trigger on a large project] me: So we are ready to go, waiting on the PO them: Sure, just working through our process (falls off internets, doesn't respond to phone calls/emails/rejects visits) Months go by them: We set up an RFP and bought from someone else. me: Er ... you used our confidential material (marked as such) to set up a public RFP, that you didn't even invite us to, or respond to our queries? Seriously? them: Yes. [bangs head on table, but it gets better ... no ... the other thing] them: the system we bought (not yours), isn't performing nearly as well as your system that we POCed on. me: So? Why not call your vendor and have them help you? them: they aren't able to. They don't know this stuff as well as you do. me: So, let me get this right ... you want me to provide consulting services to help a competitor of ours ... compete ... with us? them: Not so much consulting, as free advice and guidance. Like you did during the POC. [resumes banging head on table] them: hello? whats that noise? [years pass] them: we need to rethink our strategy, it was an order of magnitude slower than your unit at about 2-3x the cost. me: no kidding Sherlock them: we want to start this process again .... me: (fits of laughter) uh ... no.

supjeff 11y ago
This is my worst nightmare.
odonnellryan 11y ago
I had a client who was curious why I was charging him to draw up quotes as a sub-contractor. Weeks went by after they proposed the project. Later, I found out in a slightly roundabout way they went to another developer (overseas, cheaper) after sharing my quote and spec with the client :)
drodgers 11y ago
The customer version already exists: http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/
caseysoftware 11y ago
Years back, I was on the other side of this. They didn't like my mockups but they liked my price, so they took the other company's comps and handed them to me. Their logo, "confidential" and the like were still on them. I told the customer I wanted a written release from the other company to use their stuff, especially since some of it would end up in our promo/marketing info. They called me "not a team player" and cut my team loose from the project. Six months later they fired many of the senior staff for missing funds and a lawsuit from that other company. Karma is a bitch.

Jemaclus 11y ago

me: I'm here for the engineering manager position them: great, can you come in for a front-end developer interview at 2? me: I'm here for the engineering manager position them: here's an offer for a front-end position making below-average $ me: thanks for your time them: ??????? CEO: Why won't anyone work for us? them: we offered them a job!

hwstar 11y ago

Problems are not just limited to startups. Here's some of the shenanigans which went on in the last company I worked for: Company is constantly on credit hold. Engineers receive calls from suppliers stating that they haven't been paid and no one in accounts payable is returning their calls. Company does layoffs on a recurring basis, and then hires different people for a new project. In one case they hired back the same people they laid off a year ago and paid them signing bonuses. CEO shows gross indifference when someone leaves the company. Just shrugs it off. CEO walks into VP of HR's office with someone and states that you're fired, and this is your replacement. CEO constantly worrying about getting delisted from NASDAQ. CEO and VP Engineering "chum" thinking they know the price of components and stating that that should cost $5, when everyone supplying stated item is asking $15.

mrbill 11y ago

Reminds me a lot of http://clientsfromhell.net/ http://clientsfromhell.net/

rcurry 11y ago

Startup: We need an experienced Foo programmer. Me: Those are easy to find. Startup: Our lead developer keeps shooting them down because they don't know (obscure keyword). Me: How long would it take an experienced programmer to learn (obscure keyword)? Startup: I don't know, maybe an hour? Me: How long have you been hiring for this position? Startup: About six months. Me: Would it help if I sent you a transcript of this call? Startup: What? Me: Never mind...

chrisbennet 11y ago
I might have down voted you by accident. Was trying to up vote you, little arrows/big thumbs/mobile. Sorry.

tonecluster 11y ago

So many... so many. me: (up all night fixing bugs in production due to technical debt and mistakes from overworked and tired devs. Sleep from 5am to 9am, show up to office at 10am) CEO (sales background), walking by as he sees me enter the office: "Hey tone, I want butts in seats, including yours. We have a culture of hard work here. Set an example." ... CTO: "We don't need to hire expensive devs. Just hire from overseas and promise them an H1B. They'll work for the minimum." me: "That's not only unsustainable, it's unethical. H1B is a lottery, we can't promise that!" CTO: "I don't expect them to know that, and you're not going to tell them! Get them on-boarded and working a.s.a.p." me: (goes home, writes resignation email)

spinlock 11y ago

Am I the only one who would have really appreciated a trigger warning?

the_cat_kittles 11y ago

love the equity one. imagine asking "what is the expected value of the equity?", getting a number, and then saying "ok, pay me that when it vests instead of giving me the equity".

doctorpangloss 11y ago

It's probably unfair to pin all the sexism stuff on startups. If you've ever been to a big company, you'd know that the pink collar workforce idea is way worse. There are a lot of women in junior or administrative positions who can only really interact with their bosses and immediate peers professionally but whom the entire organization, from CEO to lowly PA, tries to hit on.

htaunay 11y ago

CEO: We gonna need to do some crunch time the next 2/3 weeks. Unfortunately, we fell behind schedule and we can't let this next delivery be late. We can't pay any of you overtime because we are already on a tight budget, as you know, but to raise moral after we deliver the company is going to take everyone out to this great restaurant + drinks to raise our morale and toast of the future of this great and promising business! The team: Ok. Not what we expected, but we have some equity, its a tough market, and we have been working on this for a while. Let's hope it pays off in the future. Three weeks - working from Sunday to Sunday - later... The Team: Yes! I can't believe we delivered! We are more motivated than ever! Now let's celebrate! CEO: Yeah, sorry, no time for that. Here's a $40 dollar check for each of you to go out and grab a bite. Oh, and by the look of our roadmap we might need to crunch some more next month. The Team: [starts quitting one by one]

junkilo 11y ago

one from the devops/sre trenches... > (devops guy) hi, im here for the lead devops role > (CTO) awesome, you'd be a great fit here. can you write a sudoku solver in ruby real quick? > (devops guy) [writes solver in ruby] > (CTO) wow looks great... when can you start? do you have any questions for me? > (devops guy) I do have a question: how do you shard your bigdata installations and what is it built on? > (CTO) oh I wrote my own, we call it redisbigtable -- its the worlds first CAP compliant data store. oh, and we shard by customer. > (devops guy) thank you for your time.

dlitz 11y ago
> (CTO) Look, we're a startup; we don't have time for the perfect solution here. You should consider being more pragmatic...
killface 11y ago
to be pedantically fair, most people who use the CAP theorem to describe a system aren't following the academic usages of C, A, and P, and thus are probably describing the system incorrectly. Look at this discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156359 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4156359

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michaeloblak 11y ago

This is so true! Awesome (and sad)!

randycupertino 11y ago

My first startup's CEO practiced "The Game" and used to bring the dev team out in SF to practice peacocking, negging and other ridiculous seduction techniques on unsuspecting women. I'm in an ltr and dreaded having to go, but didn't want to be left out so I would tag along. It was horrible.

pzone 11y ago
That is absolutely horrifying. How could someone like that possibly make sound business decisions?
- randycupertino 11y ago
  Yeah. It was kinda a joke-ish type thing but then it started being totally not a joke because he and his buddies were really taking it very seriously. He had a bunch of fratstar intern types and they just encouraged the behavior even more. I'm so glad I got out of there and went to a real company.
JBReefer 11y ago
How many sexual harassment lawsuits were there? Why would anyone think this is OK?
- randycupertino 11y ago
  Ugh I don't know. I've since gotten a new job but he's still there as a figurehead CEO... the COO makes all the decisions/runs the show from what I've heard. Glad I got out. It was just one of many many juvenile actions from that boss.

b123400 11y ago

We are working in a coworking space, but the CTO doesn't seems to like this idea at all, he keeps asking people in the common area to shut up.

fny 11y ago

COO: We need to crush the MVP, so unfortunately we'll be working weekends now. Designer: ... COO: Don't worry everything will cool down after Thanksgiving! Designer: Fine... (Week before Thanksgiving) COO: Finish everything? Like is X, Y, Z all good to go? Designer: Yep, everything's finished! COO: Awesome! Unfortunately, we're going to have to let you go...