35 ms·

Congratulations You’ve Been Fired

679 points by dcschelt 10y ago

467568985476 10y ago
It's the same Dan Lyons story about Hubspot that was on HN a week or two ago.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  It is slightly different. The old one was about ageism. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596
  - swampthinker 10y ago
    So he's trying to push his book. Great.
hartator 10y ago
> She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager that she had two weeks to get out. I think that's a bit funny that the author implies you can't be good as a manager at 28. Specially when you are writing an article about bias.
- pascalo 10y ago
  I think he doesn't need to imply it, firing someone without explanation is bad management, no matter how young or old you are.
  - golergka 10y ago
    This is correct. However, it's still strane to mention ages in this context. Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is. > She was white, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her latino manager that she had two weeks to get out.
    - halestock 10y ago
      Age implies wisdom and experience, which I think was the point he was trying to get across. Comparing it to race is just silly.
      - aianus 10y ago
        > Age implies wisdom and experience Age implies obsoleteness and poor health. (I can stereotype too!)
        Dylan16807 10y ago
        Not in your 30s. If you're trying to prove halestock wrong you're doing a poor job.
      - pascalo 10y ago
        The way I read it he used the age and gender info in his comment to illustrate that it would be harder for the person to get a job. Hence it being extra cruel to use the weird lingo and act like it wouldn't be hard for her.
      - golergka 10y ago
        It does. However, it's the matter of how strong that causation is and how hard are you going to rely on it. Because if you think that someone in their 30s is likely to be be significantly more experienced and wise, it also means that you should think that someone in their 50s is likely to be significantly burned out and slow. My point is: the correlation (and underlying causation) is there, but it's not strong enough, compared to differences between individuals.
    - k-mcgrady 10y ago
      >> "Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is." How is that in any way a sound analogy? Your age likely has an impact on your experience. More experience doesn't necessarily mean you're better at your job but it's a decent possibility. Race has no impact on performance at all.
  - musesum 10y ago
    Either that or proactive lawyers. California is a no-cause state. Only when you state a cause, can it be used against you for bias. [Edit] Don't know about other states.
    - pascalo 10y ago
      To provide an outside US perspective, it's not that easy to fire someone in Germany, the UK or Australia. Once you're past the probation period, you'd probably have to get one or multiple sorts of negative reviews and written warnings from HR or your superiors before being let go, otherwise you'd have ground to sue for unfair dismissal. That, or you'd be given a redundancy package.
      - UK-AL 10y ago
        There's no such thing as probation period in law. It's a company specific thing. The laws the same if your own a probation period or not.
        pascalo 10y ago
        In German law there is. In Australia unfair dismissal can only be claimed after 6 months of employment. Not really sure about the UK, but I am fairly sure it's not just cut throat firing like in the US, and you can claim unfair dismissal.
        DanBC 10y ago
        UK you can claim unfair dismissal after 2 years, unless there's Equalities Act stuff happening.
        krzyk 10y ago
        In Poland there is such thing as probation in law, so you should specify what country are you talking about.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    Giving an explanation publicly would harm their future employment chances. But people should be told privately why they're being fired, of course.
- rrss1122 10y ago
  I didn't get that from the article. The author's friend was 31 when she joined the company, not much older than her 28 year old manager. To me it illustrates the churn at the company. The 28-year old manager will probably be fired - excuse me I mean "graduated" - by a 20-something manager after a few years.
- josh_carterPDX 10y ago
  Having worked at a few startups I can relate to what the writer is saying (although I do agree the article is a bit slanted). It happens a lot in the tech world under the guise of "thinking differently" about management. I agree that age shouldn't matter, until you're 10-15 years older than your Manager who is completely out of their element, has no clue what they're doing, and you spend every day wondering how the fk they got the promotion in the first place.
  - BurningFrog 10y ago
    That sounds like it's more about the manager having no clue than their age.
    - josh_carterPDX 10y ago
      But what does it say about those that put these people in a position of power?
      - fleitz 10y ago
        I haven't see many places that that only have incompetent managers and no incompetent employees. :) Or alternatively, what does it say about people who have seen this culture for 4 years and are still there?
        josh_carterPDX 10y ago
        Yeah there's a balance. Everyone thinks a company has it all figured out until they work there and find out it's just like every other company struggling to figure stuff out.
        fleitz 10y ago
        Definitely, once you've been around the block a few times you realize that it's the same everywhere. Eventually, you just find the biggest pay cheque you can, and do the routine of putting on your coconut headphones, sit down at your tiki desk and chair and sip your mochas in peace as you wait for the morning calisthenics meeting to begin, wondering what exactly the difference between waterfall, agile, tdd, etc actually is because all you've ever seen anywhere is tiki driven development.
- reviseddamage 10y ago
  it's not in the least bit funny and the author is not implying that a 28 year old can't be a good manager. The author is comparing 1980's, 1990's tech work and now, and is making a point that amongst other observations, its also a new phenomenon for a younger person now in the tech world to be a manager to older staffers.
- bduerst 10y ago
  I think they were trying to imply that the 28 year old was an "undertrained" manager: >UNFORTUNATELY, working at a start-up all too often involves getting bossed around by undertrained (or untrained) managers and fired on a whim. Bias based on age, race and gender is rampant, as is sexual harassment.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  You can but it's extremely, extremely rare for the very simple fact that your primary skills as a manager is people skills and the ability to relate to other peoples situation. Something you normally won't be as developed at that point. At 28 you have more experience than a 18 year old, but not much and def not enough to be able to relate to a 35 year old person in most cases. So not sure I find it ironic. Rather I can relate as I have seen my share of managers and been myself for the last 22 years. And yes older managers have problems too :)
  - xzi 10y ago
    I agree with everything you say. However, in my personal experience, the best manager I've had was 25 when I was 30. This manager realized he didn't really know much. So he stayed out of my way and let me make the technical decisions while he ran interference with the directors and VPs. Never had a more smooth working environment before or since.
    - horsebattery 10y ago
      I think for average people, such as myself, age is definitely an advantage in being a manager. I tried it at 24 and hated it, felt totally out of my depth. Having been through and been humbled by many life experiences means I can show more empathy and understanding. On the other hand there are many very switched on young people, so like always we should ignore age and judge people on their merits.
    - bucma 10y ago
      He really understood his role well. Unfortunately, this is pretty rare now.
    - hcayless 10y ago
      Just about the worst handicap a manager can have is insecurity. And unfortunately this is something I've seen in most of the people I've seen promoted to management when young. The best managers don't assume they need to be "better" than the people they manage.
    - 10y ago
- luckydata 10y ago
  I'm not much older than that, but the average maturity of 28 year olds is not great. Putting lives in the hands of people that should still be learning the ropes is reckless and cruel. Young managers (and I used to be one too) are the worst part of the startup culture, people with no training, inclination or predisposition for people management making others unproductive and ruining careers. As a sector we should think hard about how we're handling ourselves because there will be nothing left a few years from now if we don't start working for the long run.
  - bb88 10y ago
    I, for one, would like to know if you screwed people over as a young manager. That would make rather a good blog post.
  - bb88 10y ago
    I, for one, would like to know if you screwed people over as a young manager. That would make rather a good blog post.
- x0x0 10y ago
  it seemed to me like Lyons is implying the manager is callow
- bb88 10y ago
  I don't think he was trying to imply that at all. The culture of youth means you're going to have some weird things like an older worker being fired by a younger one.
ianstormtaylor 10y ago
Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in that sense. Disclaimer: I really don't know anything about this story. Something just feels off. Maybe HubSpot really is that bad, who knows. [0]: http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/ http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyo... [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-companies-dont-even-bother-lie-dan-lyons https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-comp... --- Edit: After listening to the interview from @CPLX's response[2] I have to agree, he doesn't seem outlandish or anything. And all of the points he makes about HubSpot's content model being complete spam I agree with. I've definitely never liked interacting with HubSpot as a consumer, that much I know. I feel like in these scenarios he's incentivized to get outlandish PR for his book, so some of the things I'd take with a grain of salt--sentences like, "The offices bear a striking resemblance to the Montessori preschool that my kids attended: lots of bright basic colors, plenty of toys, and a nap room with a hammock and soothing palm tree murals on the wall." But there is probably a lot truth to his story as well. @ghaff also summed it up well: "That said, I find it's a cogent perspective even if it probably shouldn't be taken as literally accurate reportage." [2]: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa...
- CPLX 10y ago
  Yes he's doing PR for a book by telling bits and pieces of the same story in other media. That's what writers do for a living. If you genuinely want to get a read on the guy listen to this long form interview on Fresh Air from a couple days ago: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa... He comes across as quite lucid and nuanced in my opinion, and also credible, as he has been covering the tech industry for decades and has a sense of context (he was also fake Steve Jobs by the way) rather than a "look at these crazy start up kids" point of view.
skennedy 10y ago
> Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and you have an idea of what it’s like [working at a startup]. Is this an accurate description? I feel this might be more of the well funded ones but would not know.
- WalterSear 10y ago
  I've interviewed at a couple like that, but never worked at one. They are present, but there isn't enough of any 'one kind of place' for any description to be representative.
- adenverd 10y ago
  No, Lyons is drastically exaggerating and overstating. Perhaps that's what it was like at HubSpot, but I've worked for four different tech startups and only one of them has exhibited even an inkling of Lyons' description. Even there, I would never compare it to a frat house, kindergarten, or Scientology. More like management makes kool-aid and a handful of people think it's wine.
- joejev 10y ago
  Not all startups are like this, the author is bitter about his experience.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  There are many different kinds of startups.
- tikhonj 10y ago
  It's like claiming that all large companies are uniformly Dilbert-like hellholes full of pointy-haired bosses and despair. The elements are there, a handful of examples are that bad, but it's broadly exaggerated to push a specific point or to signal.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  It varies. Some years back, I interviewed at a San Diego startup that was flying in a dozen people a week, with a $300 reward just for showing up, to go through a five-day interview process, at the end of which perhaps one or two would be offered the chance to work for them...for $50k a year. In San Diego. Most of their employees lived together, 2-4 to an apartment, because they couldn't afford solo housing. The CEO gave a speech on the first day where he explained that they paid poorly on purpose, because they wanted people who cared more about striving for excellence (or some such buzzword) than petty concerns like money or stability. And people ate it up. So, yeah, some startups are totally run like ridiculous cults that prey on starry-eyed young tech grads. I'm sure there's many that are sane and reasonable, too. None of them have paid me to vacation in California, though.
kelukelugames 10y ago
There is glassdoor review for my last company about how they are saving money by hiring only from colleges. Any number of my colleagues could have written it. Or for any number of companies. :)
dataker 10y ago
The philosopher Slavoj Žižek explains this with the ‘postmodern’ boss: >Not a master but just a coordinator of our joint creative efforts; the first among equals. There should be no formalities among us, we should address him by his nickname, he shares a dirty joke with us… but in all this, HE REMAINS OUR MASTER.
- x5n1 10y ago
  Well if they are joint coordinators, they we should share equally in the fruits of our effort. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to swallow the empty rhetoric these sorts of people and corporations put out which is totally insincere. But you are in this relationship, you need the money and don't really have a choice in the matter of rejecting the culture or the values being pushed upon you without consideration for your needs.
- overgard 10y ago
  I love some zizek, what piece did that come from?
  - distances 10y ago
    I seem to run to Žižek more and more often -- frankly he is the only currently alive philosopher I can name. I really should read something more from him.
    - Jimmy 10y ago
      Zizek has written a lot of really fun and interesting books. I'd definitely encourage you to check him out, but just a word of warning: if he's the only living philosopher you can name, then you probably don't know enough philosophy to really understand everything he's saying. He assumes a pretty thorough knowledge of a number of past thinkers, like Marx, Hegel, Lacan, etc. Do check him out anyway though, and also check out some general introductions to philosophy if you find yourself intrigued and wanting to learn more.
  - dataker 10y ago
cortesoft 10y ago
I am kinda getting sick of these Dan Lyons "pr for my book" pieces.
- smacktoward 10y ago
  If it helps, think of it as "growth hacking."
shadowfiend 10y ago
The interesting thing about this is that Lyons quotes Jeff Bezos's letter to shareholders, which some places described as ‘a very late response’ (http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-corporate-culture-comment-jeff-bezos http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-corporate-c...) to the NYT's own story from earlier this year… Lyons quotes it to demonstrate how Amazon is totally down for this exploitative culture he's trying to describe. But while I was pretty horrified reading the NYT's original story, Bezos responded—admittedly internally—shortly after the original article came out. He basically dismissed the idea of the type of culture Lyons is describing (‘I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.’), and that response was fairly widely circulated. To me, while I recognize some of the anecdotes that Lyons is describing as indeed representative of things that happen at startups, this is the kind of cherry picking that rapidly turns a potentially interesting book (or article) into total nonsense. If you can't choose your supporting arguments well, your main argument falls over. (Worth noting: Pretty sure these sundry* articles all just possibly-adapted excerpts from the book.)
gmantom 10y ago
Look startups aren't perfect. You will most certainly work harder than at a large established firm. Your life balance will be no where near as good as at a large firm. But why are you electing to work at a startup? 1) You are getting some options and have the possibility of a big upside which does not exist at a large firm. 2) You want more responsibility and you will certainly get it in the form of wearing many hats, but you will work harder. 3) If things are working out you will be promoted faster and move your career forward much quicker than most established firms. 4) There are many other points I could make here but arguably the most IMPORTANT reason to work at a startup is to LEARN, and learn you will. There are tradeoffs with working at a startup, startups aren't perfect. To say that they are much worse than large corps who are scared of key man risk and keep you at an arms length so they can fire and lay off thousands at a time is disingenuous. Corporations are generally only after profits big or small. You as an employee have a responsibility to make the right decisions for you. Edit: some spelling mistakes.
- pascalo 10y ago
  Would you say companies the size of Amazon, Netflix and HubSpot still fall into that bucket? To me they are large tech companies that have kept some sort of startup canon in place, and not in a good way.
  - gmantom 10y ago
    That's very fair. I can't speak about Amazon, because I've never worked there. You're right that some companies are hanging not on to that startup canon, at least from the outside it seems that way, even after they are large and it's not just Amazon but Amazon is probably the biggest. My comment generally holds true though that startups have tradeoffs to large corporations. If large corps are trying to take advantage of that then we, as top talent, need to stay away from them so they fail and this trend can go away.
- jasonlotito 10y ago
  Hubspot is not a startup. It's been around for 10 years. It has 700+ employees. > Corporations are generally only after profits big or small. Startups are generally only after growth, but only big.
vacri 10y ago
> Tech workers have no job security. To generalise in the same manner as the article, they also have no loyalty - job-hopping is more common in tech than any other industry I've seen, excluding perhaps hospitality. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.
- andyzweb 10y ago
  it's been that way since Noyce left Beckman/Shockley in the late 50's and formed Fairchild
JayHost 10y ago
Amazon is new Walmart. They don't care that you don't like their work environment.They have money; you need money and have little options. I think instead of being interested in recycling talent; Amazon is interested in those who will take the most abuse.
- Apocryphon 10y ago
  Who is the Costco in e-commerce?
  - w1ntermute 10y ago
    Jet
- deanCommie 10y ago
  Let's back off with the Amazon hate. Right below it on the same list is Google with an average tenure at 1.1 years. Nobody tries to use that as an argument that Google burns through workers who quit in dissatisfaction.
  - michaelt 10y ago
    I think part of the reason is working class employees traditionally have comparatively poor employment conditions[1] and Amazon has many more working class employees than Google does, because Amazon operates warehouses and call centres. Nobody's getting heatstroke in Google's fulfilment centres, because they don't exist. [1] http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7035742/office-job-vs-retail-job http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7035742/office-job-vs-retai...
  - pythonistic 10y ago
    They're up to 1.1 years now? Wow! They were at six months for developers for most of the time I was working there (2006-2010). At three years, I was in the top 25% of seniority ("old farts"). By comparison, Overstock.com averaged five years for developers between 2010-2013.
WalterBright 10y ago
> Given the choice, I think I’d rather make furniture. So go start making furniture.
- Scoundreller 10y ago
  Likewise, > Companies sell shares to the public while still losing money. Wealth is generated, but most of the loot goes to a handful of people at the top, the founders and venture capital investors. Then become a founder if it's such an easy way to generate wealth.
  - knz42 10y ago
    Wealth is generated by the employees. The founders channel that wealth to them. The challenge with being a founder is to find the right business plan at the moment then hire and maintain the right team to achieve it. It's a challenge indeed but this challenge does not deserve nor does it morally justify taking most of the wealth generated by the employees away from them.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      The difficulty with that theory is explaining why competitors don't spring up, copy the business plan, and entice the team away with higher pay.
jim-greer 10y ago
I don't know much about Hubspot, but Lyons should know that sudden firings without an explanation are not common. The norm is quarterly reviews, and firing only after you've had several negative ones. Extortion is obviously not common either... Content farms are also not common at solid companies - more typical of fly-by-night marketing-driven places without much real tech. The claim that there's a lot of pressure to perform is more valid, but that's not unique to tech at all. The bias problems are also there at many companies (though I think racial bias is less common than age or gender). Overall he seems to be generalizing from a company with an unusually bad culture. (The extortion charges: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-released-hubspot-probe-involving-author-dan-lyons/VZH4CN4kR5p7iyhsKEdwJI/story.htm https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-re...)
- ditonal 10y ago
  I've worked at several tech startups with sudden firing. The "norm" from my perspective tends to be a one month Performance Improvement Plan, usually just serving as a paper trail with very little hope of getting off of it, though I've seen people just suddenly walked out as well. I appreciate Dan Lyons cutting through the bullshit on tech startups and I recognize a lot of what he's talking about from my own experience. The thing that bothers me the most is the disingenuity of it all, the "we're a family" and "we're changing the world" when it really is all standard capitalism business practice, not so different from Wall St or Walmart. It's funny Netflix and Reed Fisher got brought up, because I at least respect Reed's honesty about the whole arrangement. The "we're a family" companies frighten me a lot more. These companies are also masters of PR and marketing. Many of these companies that are Kafkaesque places to work for are frequently cited on #1 best place to work etc, and you seem crazy to complain when you work at one. People don't realize that the ping-pong table doesn't make up for the uncompesated 24/7 PagerDuty rotations, how little job-security you have long term, how anxiety inducing a lot of the performance-driven culture and open-office plans can be, etc. So it's refreshing to see a different take.
  - jim-greer 10y ago
    So people get 1 month performance plans after positive or neutral reviews? Or are these places that don't do regular reviews? I've honestly never heard of that. Want to name names?
joesmo 10y ago
"Treating workers as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded is a central part of the revised relationship between employers and employees that techies proclaim is an innovation as important as chips and software." Really? I've never heard that and never met a single person who thinks this. I guess pieces like this just like to pull things out of thin air. It makes zero sense for any non-executive to think this way and most techies are not executives.
neurobuddha 10y ago
I have to wonder how many anti-Lyons comments in this thread are HubSpot employees in stealth mode. Doesn't HubSpot do 'Sentiment Analysis' and that sort of stuff?
- dlandis 10y ago
  I wonder the same thing. Last time there was a post about him here a couple weeks ago there were current and former HubSpot employees all over it. Apart from that, it is a shady company for sure though. It was less than a year ago that top executives were implicated by the fbi in trying to hack and extort Lyons during the lead up to the book. I think only one or two of the implicated executives ended up leaving the company as a result. Was their departures enough to fix the culture there?
- skewart 10y ago
  There may well be plenty. There are probably also a lot of people, like myself, with no connection to HubSpot who dislike Lyons's latest writing. Having read a few of the promotional articles for the book, I'm certainly not a fan. He seems like he went looking for the worst and is generalizing as broadly as possible to create a sensation. A publicly traded email marketing company founded by a couple of MBAs in Boston 10 years ago doesn't really represent all of Silicon Valley startup culture. Lyons does touch on some genuine problems. But he doesn't seem to approach ageism or problematic work cultures with much thoughtfulness, and he isn't contributing much to the conversation. At the same time, HubSpot doesn't seem like a great place to work. In fact it seems like they have (or have recently had) some serious issues they need to sort out.
- Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
  You really don't have to look far to find people who don't rate Dan Lyons. Daring Fireball is one pretty obvious example.
- dang 10y ago
  It's against HN's rules to accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling without evidence. If you're worried about it, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data and investigate (which we always do). But it's not ok to turn threads in that direction based on nothing more than opposing views. Few things are more destructive of civil discourse, and it's nearly always the case that opposing views are honestly held.
justin_vanw 10y ago
So does the author think that everyone is great at their job? What do you do when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are confident that they won't improve? Pointing out the age difference in the manager and the employee, and their sexes, is just baiting. Unless he wants to make the case that there was sexism or agism from the manager, or that the company engaged in sexism or agism, it is just a red herring. In fact, it's quite cowardly, since it implies something the author isn't willing to actually say. Finally, the fact that the person who was fired was with the company for 4 years doesn't mean anything at all unless we also get the context. It may be that this person struggled from the beginning, and they hesitated and didn't fire her for four long years. Or it may be that they hired her to do some specific job, and that job went away, and despite repeated attempts she just could not manage to learn anything else. The thesis that she was 'disposable' is just ludicrous. If she was good at her job, then the manager is just an idiot who is cutting his and the companies own throat, and we can't make a moral argument against stupidity. If she couldn't do the job then there is no reason to be discussing this. If she was borderline, we still can't make a moral case, since borderline situations are at worst slightly wrong. So once you cut through the left handed implications, I don't think there is any argument left.
- PhasmaFelis 10y ago
  > If she was good at her job, then the manager is just an idiot who is cutting his and the companies own throat, and we can't make a moral argument against stupidity. We can't? Why not? Being stupid does not exempt you from responsibility for your actions.
  - justin_vanw 10y ago
    When an investor puts money into a crappy company, and they lose their money, they have been held responsible. You can be responsible and face consequences without any moral failure.
- supercanuck 10y ago
  I came away with the impression that HubSpot's management was purposely divorced from reality, and so it is hard to take them at face value that she was unable to perform her job. The issue appears that she was too costly to the company due to biological reasons(1. being old and 2. being a woman). The other issue from the article was that there didn't seem to be an objective way of measuring performance so "graduations" become rather arbitrary, and when they are arbitrary with the appearance of objective, there isn't any reason not to cut out the more "costly Employees" This is the argument you seem to be missing in the article and maybe just too young to understand.
mikehines 10y ago
Dan Lyons is just another gold rusher mining the gold rushers with papers and pencils.
Scoundreller 10y ago
> I joined the company in 2013 after spending 25 years in journalism and getting laid off from a top position at Newsweek. I thought working at a start-up would be great. The perks! The cool offices! > It turned out I’d joined a digital sweatshop, where people were packed into huge rooms, side by side, at long tables. It sounds like this journalist failed to investigate their new job before Day 1...
- fleitz 10y ago
  Yeah it's like those people who have been working with J2EE for 25 years at Big Company X that is now bankrupt, and constantly complain about the lack of GANNT charts, or whatever the hammer and chisel tools they use to make J2EE apps.
  - santaclaus 10y ago
    At least a hammer and chisel would have better performance than Eclipse...
  - themodelplumber 10y ago
    Gantt charts helped me and a group of subcontractors compete against some huge corporate teams. It's legit to complain about a lack of gantt charts.
    - sleepychu 10y ago
      The format is pretty unfriendly to the user though and rigid time planning is pretty pointless for problem solving exercises, IMO. What do you think makes gantt charts great?
      - ozim 10y ago
        Looks like they were able to coordinate with multiple teams using gantt charts. Probably taking into account fuzzy nature of time planning. So I would not think about gannt charts as rigid time planning it is just a tool so it depends on how you use it.
hvmonk 10y ago
And, being the top thread, he is doing a good job in getting the PR ship :)
aleyan 10y ago
Issues raised in the article aside, I am here to argue semantics. The article used the word start-up 3 times, plus one more in the title of his book. The company he worked for however, HubSpot is 10 years old and public and thus by definition is not a startup. Other two companies mentioned, Amazon and Netflix are both over a decade old and public and thus are not start-ups by any stretch of the imagination. Startups and tech companies are not synonymous and using them interchangeably is harmful to our discourse. If we can't agree on what words mean, how can we agree on deeper issues? PS. I also have issue with author's use of the word "tech worker" to describe telemarketers. I maybe wrong, but a "tech worker" to me is not someone who works for a tech company but rather is one who creating the tech.
- wcummings 10y ago
  >I maybe wrong, but a "tech worker" to me is not someone who works for a tech company but rather is one who creating the tech. You're wrong, if you work at a tech company you're a tech worker. Programmers like to think they're special, but you're the help just like the sales people, support people etc
- dmix 10y ago
  Indeed. I've also noticed that we (as engineers and designers) have a better lifestyle in terms of treatment, job security and pay at these startups/tech companies - compared to the marketing teams which consist of the people who typically write these negative articles. Countless of these articles critiquing the tech work culture pop on HN and it's rarely ever written by devs/management. The tone always comes off as criticism from 'outsiders' who worked within the company, who treat the pride taken in creating eccentric workplaces as somewhat alien to them. Maybe because they aren't truly insiders to the culture... especially in the sense that they aren't ever the creators/leaders or long term members. Only temporarily working within the environment before going back to more typical corporate environments from where they write their analysis with a certain level of cynicism.
  - hifier 10y ago
    While I agree that the author and others in the same role clearly do not feel apart of the culture, could you really expect them to? They don't have any equity, they don't make very much, they are monitored and evaluated like telemarketers, yet the management expects them to buy into the "change the world" mantra. I think you have to admit that it's demeaning. Why would they feel anything besides anger or jealousy?
deleted 10y ago
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kdamken 10y ago
I find companies that do the whole "we're a family, we're changing the world!" thing to be worse than your standard corporate gig that is more up front about you just being a cog in the machine. At least those companies are more honest about it, the other kind come off as fake and insincere. Companies do not care about you. At all. You are nothing but a business asset to them. They may value your work, but they do not act in your best interest - they're going to try and pay you the least amount they can to have you work there. This isn't actually a bad thing. Chances are, you don't really care about your company either, so it's kind of fair. It's good to keep in mind - you are your own business, and you need to make decisions that are best for you.
blisterpeanuts 10y ago
It seems to me that the author was generalizing from one specific experience he had, plus some anecdotal experiences he has gathered from others, to impugn the entire start-up community. There may be some validity to what he says; I'm inclined to agree that there's disproportionate age-ism and sexism and probably several other kinds of -ism's in the start-up community, perhaps because their founders tend to be younger and less well versed in mainstream corporate behavior which in recent decades has been moving away from discrimination. I don't see how a "glorified telemarketer" working on a desktop that watches him is a typical start-up tech worker, though. It sounds like tough and thankless work and I hope people get the message in the VC funding community that the way to build a high value company is not to treat people really badly and thus create this kind of bad press. At least, I hope it's not the way you create a good return on investment! Otherwise we're all in trouble. I'm curious as to whether the comments about Amazon are broadly valid. Have not worked there myself, but have interviewed over the phone in the past (very negative experience). Yet, as a customer, I admire Amazon and consider them one of America's great companies. Could they really have gotten to this point by treating their rank-and-file like a disposable commodity? Could Apple?
- riveracct 10y ago
  Really I have to say, are you that naive? Apple and Amazon absolutely treat their employees like crap. Actually the employees behave with each other like crap because these companies are publicly traded and everyone is a stakeholder. The good work comes out of the employees being in competition with one another. You might like this approach, but at this rate we will be left with an Earth full of impressive monuments but no people to view them.
codeddesign 10y ago
Can someone tell me why in the first paragraph age was brought up? The author initiates the argument by bringing up the age of the manager, as if there was an age requirement. If you are going to make a compelling argument, it's probably best that you don't begin by belittling others.
jsmith0295 10y ago
I have a hard time thinking of people making 6 figure salaries as being an instance of capital exploiting labor. Part of why the average length of employment is only around a year is probably that employees are choosing to go elsewhere for higher pay because the demand for good engineers is so high.
superswordfish 10y ago
Doing cold calls in a boiler-room is a shitty job. News at 11. > Tech workers have no job security. The bad ones have none. The decent ones might, it depends on circumstance. The good ones almost always have plenty. But don't call yourself a "tech worker" when you're making sales calls.
- luckydata 10y ago
  Classism much? They definitely are tech workers, what they are not is developers or engineers.
  - superswordfish 10y ago
    Would you consider somebody who sells cars an auto worker? I sure wouldn't. It has nothing to do with "class" (as if engineers constituted such a thing).
- eplanit 10y ago
  This is a fundamental fact that seems lost on most readers here. The article is a criticism of [modern day] _sales_ work.
- riveracct 10y ago
  This is fake drivel. The only ones having good job prospects are people managers, networkers and rote learners.
jondubois 10y ago
It's like stabbing someone with a rusty knife and then calling it "Iron supplement... Delivered intravenously."
cleandreams 10y ago
I dunno. I've worked at startups a lot and none are dismal in quite the way described here. They are dismal because the founders are irritating and have bad judgment. Or they are dismal because the idea flops. Or you run out of runway, etc. But I have never gotten deluged by this kind of b.s. Who has time? This sounds to me less like a tech startup than something dreamed up by marketers with fancy degrees and no sense.
facepalm 10y ago
I don't understand where employees get their sense of entitlement from. I don't like the working conditions in many companies either. But the correct answer is to try to establish a company with better working conditions. Nobody owes you anything. OK maybe society owes you a proper foundation, but individual companies don't owe you anything. Don't like them, quit, and don't buy their products.
chrisyeh 10y ago
For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration of a tour of duty depends on the mission the employee has agreed to tackle--tours of duty can be 6 months long, but then can also last for a decade (think of NASA scientists working on a deep space probe). 2) "Companies burn you out and churn you out when someone better, or cheaper, becomes available." This is purely Dan Lyons; the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company; what people really want is lifetime employability and career progress. We would consider companies that behaved like Lyons described as "breaking the Alliance," which would harm their reputation as an employer. 3) "In this new model of work, employees are expected to feel complete devotion and loyalty to their companies, even while the boss feels no such obligation in return." Once again, this is the exact opposite of what our book says. We believe that employers and employees need to recognize that employment is a voluntary, mutually beneficial alliance, and that managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career. Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas.
- eru 10y ago
  Interesting. This sounds like a viable way to play Diplomacy. (Eg http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html)
- PhantomGremlin 10y ago
  managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.
  - 10y ago
pj_mukh 10y ago
Unpopular opinion but current SV workplace culture is not the final refined product in the evolution of the workplace. It is a stepping stone. I consider it to be better than the drudgery of blue-chip, 9-5 (especially for the current generation). Most of these workers at the large firms (Amazon, Google etc.) are empowered enough to leave their jobs if they don't believe in the founders' mission. They remain long enough for the companies' viability. As for compensation (or "sharing of the riches") at all levels, most of SV's leadership have identified issues [1][2], as the culture evolves this will certainly get better. P.S: This is the first time I've heard of Hubspot's problems, but don't doubt them, rotten eggs abound. [1] http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity [2] http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-market.html http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-market.htm...
Mikeb85 10y ago
Interesting article, but this has nothing to do with startups. This is simply the new equilibrium in the job market. Employees have lost power. Unless you guys unionize or something, it'll only get worse from here...
- Gibbon1 10y ago
  I've noted as employee power has collapsed over the last 30-40 years that workers who still had some sort of market power would look down on those that had lost theirs and used such as a status marker. And then that became an impediment to action. Why would I work to give losers the same status as I have? You can also see this with doctors. For decades they thought their position was secure. Unlike nurses they never unionized, as such was beneath them. Now they find themselves being treated badly. And they are angry and confused.
bhewes 10y ago
Nassim Taleb's "How to Legally Own Another Person" or David Graeber's book The Utopia of Rules and now this article could be categorized as welcome to working in a bureaucracy. I grew up in corporate land and I am use to ex PGW, Deloitte, or McKinsey employees being called alumni. So it makes sense as the current generation of tech companies mature they become more bureaucratic. Hopefully this means we will see a new batch of startups hit the scene soon!
Kinnard 10y ago
I think I'd be significantly more interested in reading proposals about how to improve the nature of work and all working relationships.
arikrak 10y ago
> The average Amazonian lasts only about a year at the company, according to a 2013 report by PayScale. This study was very flawed, see https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-employee-turnover-so-high https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-employee-turnover-so-hi....
thetruthseeker1 10y ago
This article talks about how companies over inflate the value of the work tech workers are providing almost to the extent of feeling like being in a cult - which was something I was thinking all along but didn't want to say out of fear of being called a kill joy. While in many successful tech companies this might not be to the same degree, I bet the scale is tipped towards the direction of cult like indoctrination. My guess is the part of the problem is in many technology companies that are not seeing huge profits, there are no true metrics to measure the value of your work - so they can get away making bold corny claims
tobbyb 10y ago
This is an interesting perspective based on real life experience. The author also has decades of experience around the tech scene in general. I don't understand why he is being put on trial for sharing his experiences in a book or seeking to promote it via interviews. That's the way books are normally promoted. Reading this thread one would think its illegal. Hubspot is a campaign management and lead management tool like Eloqua, Marketo, Unica and dozes of other tools in this space. They are not remotely interesting unless you are interested in b2b marketing tools. One does not need to disparage hubspot, its a decent marketing tool. But it is not remotely world changing in any way. That is hubris so the author appears to be spot on with some of his observations. Everyone recognizes the fakery and dubiousness of empty and vacuous corporate slogans. A psychological tactic to induce frenzy and artificial value in your workforce is exploitative and disrespects other human beings. Surely there are more respectful and time tested ways to motivate your workforce without making a mockery of them to promoting your own interests. Repositioning a firing as a graduation is the stuff of comedy scripts, nearly Monty Pythonisque. With material like this anyone would be tempted to write a book. But this is not comedy, these guys are serious. In the real world this can only be interpreted as insensitive, grossly exploitative and dangerously disconnected from reality.
- riveracct 10y ago
  Getting fired sucks. I really hate corp doublespeak, but it's a little commendable that this corp is trying to soften the impact by calling it a graduation - which it is in a way because you get some time off to reskill and seek out other prospective jobs rather than doing the same thing everyday in your current job.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    > reskill I am pretty sure that's not a word. Which I only point out as using corporate newspeak to reply to a post about disingenuous corporate newspeak is an interesting conversational tactic.
bitwize 10y ago
Our tech business culture is officially turning into Logan's Run.
bikamonki 10y ago
This is from HubSpot's homepage: SALES SOFTWARE Stop cold calling. Start closing. Funny, uh?
capote 10y ago
Though I do understand most of the criticism this piece is getting in this thread, can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Culture aside, crying at your desk aside, spare me the extra layer of fake, pointless language to disguise what is happening. I expect professionalism and respect from an employer, and that involves being straightforward, respectful, and to the point.
- rwjwjuwjudf 10y ago
  Over my lifetime I feel like computers have gone from nerdy thing that nerds do to trendy thing that popular kids hire nerds to do badly and treat like garbage. I guess it's not really surprising that people known for poor social skills get taken advantage of like that, but still it bugs me because I identify with them.
  - bb88 10y ago
    Yeah... and the popular kids aren't that good at coding, just really good at being popular.
- BinaryIdiot 10y ago
  > can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Completely agree. If the person is leaving on their own? Sure sounds great! But firing or laying someone off? Seems borderline psychopathic to me.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- neurobuddha 10y ago
  It reminds me of Newspeak, the language in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
xiaopingguo 10y ago
>"like-minded people" This particularly obnoxious phrase seems to be coming up a lot more these days. Maybe it is just people admitting they really do not want diversity except in looks rather than substance. It seems to reflect a lack of ability or desire to deal with real world conflicts of opinion.
linkmotif 10y ago
to me it's not that you get fired willy nilly. that's fine imo. what's scary, though, is the doublespeak you find in these environments. people act like you're part of a family. which is weird, because you're just working for a company.
lsc 10y ago
so, what I find weird is that everyone seems to complain that companies treat them like mercenaries, while I have the opposite complaint. Whenever I interview, I feel like I have to pretend like I want to be there forever, or else I'm not dedicated enough. I mean, yes, of course they are going to let me go when they are done with me, and I'm okay with that. My problem is that they seem to expect me to pretend like this is the job I want or the company I want forever. They want me to pretend like we're family, rather than business associates. Hell, even as a contractor, half the time you have to pretend like you really want a full-time long-term job to get in. I find it pretty irritating.
pdkl95 10y ago
> when you got fired, it was called “graduation.” "Smile or Die" (RSA Animate) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo This seems to be a variation on the Wall Street style of magical thinking.
martin1975 10y ago
Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cause (or a person) that supersedes the workplace, an all in support to that cause by engineers/programmers alike. For as long as the pissing contests over languages, productivity, hubris, etc continues among intelligent people like programmers, their Jimmy Hoffa won't be born and their cause will lie with the company's objectives. In a nutshell, programmers -deserve- the Bezos and Hastings of this world. Keep thinking you are God's gift to programming and insure the demise of your own fellow programmers. I have zero sympathy toward programmers (having been one for 17+ years now) - not because I don't love the profession or the contribution we make, but because of the infinitely immature attitude and disunion that exists among engineers. If there's one thing that has motivated me to think of doing something else, it's that...
- martin1975 10y ago
  Case in point - someone already downrated my post... good job mate.
- ageofwant 10y ago
  Greetings comrade. I wholeheartedly concur. Its been a source of great confusion to me why otherwise intelligent and open-minded people are so steadfastly opposed to the one thing that can improve their earnings potential dramatically. I have observed a strong shift to the "left" in the last few years though, so I won't be surprised if this happens soon. I also expect that given the resources and capability inherent in a "programmer's union", the capacity and ability of such a movement would be very significant very early on. We built the modern world with its social and communications infrastructure, and we aught be able to exploit it for our personal betterment easier than most. Doctors, dentists, lawyers all benefit greatly from their "protected" professions, why not us ?
  - morgante 10y ago
passionstefani 10y ago
Passionstefani
drharby 10y ago
funny, I am on a second round interview at Hubspot...
BogusIKnow 10y ago
"She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager" What's the fuzz about the ages? Age discrimination by NYT author?
mark_l_watson 10y ago
I like the spirit of the article, but I think that Douglas Rushkoff makes these ideas more clear in his book "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" in which he nails workers vs. employers issues, growth of corporations, etc. That said, I also enjoyed the article.
beatpanda 10y ago
You know that old saying about playing poker, that if you're sitting at a table and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you? Well if you work in the SF Bay Area tech industry and this sentence doesn't ring true to you: "Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and you have an idea of what it’s like." Congratulations; you're the sucker.
partycoder 10y ago
Collective bargaining?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Create 10y ago
"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper on the Future of Particle Physics, Prestigious Discoveries at CERN 2003.
reuven 10y ago
I read this article and said, "Yup, that sounds like a lot of startups I've worked with." I should say with, and not for. I've been a freelancer for 20 years, and while I love to help my clients succeed, and I definitely work too many hours, I don't have someone standing over me, expecting that I'll work 60-hour weeks, be around for 7 p.m. meetings, or explicitly tell me that my needs are secondary to the company's needs. Startup employees -- and hi-tech employees in general -- are expected to work long hours, and to put family and friends aside, all in the name of... well, what? Sometimes it's lots of money, but too often it's because this is what they're expected to do in so many companies. It's true that tech companies are (and have always been) desperate for good talent, and people who are great can often get great salaries and benefits. But it's rare for a company to say, "Yeah, we'll pay you tons, give us access to our cafeteria, and offer on-site massages, and you don't have to be here more than 40 hours per week." I'm OK with asking employees to pitch in before a deadline, or in an emergency. But that should mean a few days every few months, not a few months out of each year. And those descriptions of "graduation" e-mails that Lyons mentions in the article just gave me the chills. Something is wrong if these are the expectations at lots of high-tech companies, and I have to wonder if Lyons is right, that we're looking at some very well-paid people who have little or no power, and move to a new job every year or two not just to get more money, but to get a bit more control over their own schedules, or some better work-life balance.
thieving_magpie 10y ago
I like the part where he shits all over software and romanticizes early 19th century woodworking in factories. Yes - I'm sure those were just lovely conditions to work in. We created laws to protect laborers and children as a direct result of those conditions - but let's all whine about how Amazon views its employees as a 'team' and not family.
yason 10y ago
And this would be all right if the pay would correlate with the possibility of enjoying this "graduation", much like CEOs get paid a lot for their work and paid a lot when sacked supposedly because the risk for a CEO to get fired is much larger than for normal workers.
devishard 10y ago
The problem here isn't that jobs don't provide job security, it's that they lie about it. How many times has someone called your company a "family"? Why is talking about a future in which you don't work for your company taboo? I'd have no problem working for a company that I knew wouldn't hesitate to fire me, except that there's no way to judge when that might happen. I'd appreciate hearing, "If we don't get this next round of funding, we might have to let you go," but instead the funding talks are done in secrecy while we go out for drinks and talk about how the company is such a family and how you're doing a good job, until suddenly someone is getting laid off. The flipside of this is that if you do have job stability, it's usually not worth it to stay anyway. I've always worked for companies who needed me more than I needed them, so I've never really had to worry about job security. Over the past decade I've switched jobs 7 times, each time getting a 10-20% increase in income. In 5 of those cases I wanted to stay at my employer, but when I asked for a 10%-ish raise and explained that I could get more than that by leaving, they came back with 4-5% answers. In two cases they noted that 3% was "standard" (which was true for them--I talk to my coworkers about pay). In many cases, never giving significant raises works for companies: I still know people working year after year at my previous employers and accepting their annual 3% raise. The underlying problem in both cases is that companies simply don't care about your goals. You're an equation to them, which can be tipped in their favor either by treating you like a liquid asset and firing you at their convenience, or by not paying you what you're worth. It's not an "alliance": that implies shared goals. It's companies using their workers for the company's goals, no matter what that entails, even if it means pretending that it's a family or an alliance when it's not.
iolothebard 10y ago
Imagine if the government did its job and protected labor instead of capital. What a world we could live in in the "richest" country in the world.
Evenjos 10y ago
Working at various tech companies, I've observed a major shift towards the fine art of bullshit. Employees constantly have to prove their worth and put a fresh spin on how valuable they are to the company. Talent and merit and work ethic is falling by the wayside. The top salaries go to people who make themselves sound talented and worthy, while the shove the actual work down the line. I've seen projects outsourced on nine levels. Everyone wants their cut.
Your_Creator 10y ago
while being upfront about employment terms is always a good thing, this sort of arrangement is unilateral in the company's favor. you sit there, churning out codes and solutions and they get to keep it after you leave. what do you get other than a pat on your back and some space filler on your resume? shares of the company? free software updates for life? a chance to preview new hardware before anyone else? how about free hardware? or at least the chance to buy it at cost? what about using whatever you help create, somewhere else? there are non-tech businesses that work this way and the morale is typically through the floor. you see this at brick and mortar businesses when there's no room for advancement within the company, because the company isn't expanding geographically they have one location and they like it that way. most of those companies, love these loopholes they can take advantage of, like less than full time hours so you don't get healthcare benefits and because the turnover rate is so high, no one ever really gets a raise. oh, they have protocols on the books, but no one makes it that long. it's like the rat box experiment - one box of rats has food and a way out - they spread out and flourish one box has no food, but a way out - they all leave one box has food and no way out - when the food runs out, so do they one box has no food and no way out - you end up with one really fat cannibal rat just because we humans like to pretend we are civilized, we are not immune to succumbing to our animal instincts. interestingly enough, this behavior can also be observed in neighborhoods in NYC where there are many NYCHA buildings grouped together like Queensbridge and Morrisania Houses. from their perspective there's no future, no food, no money, no hope - no discernible way out. so what do they do? they turn on each other. what do humans do where there is a massive blackout and we are suddenly back in the stone age? we behave like the animals we are. we've seen it time and time again. I recommend becoming well versed in IP law if this is a 'lifestyle choice' anyone wants to make. at least then, you can protect your own right to profit off of anything you create in these set ups.
sjg007 10y ago
Top Talent is a myth... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth
mbleigh 10y ago
I'm so glad Dan Lyons is here to tell us all how hard it is for middle aged white men.
majidben 10y ago
https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35 https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35
majidben 10y ago
https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35 https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35

679 points by dcschelt 10y ago

467568985476 10y ago

It's the same Dan Lyons story about Hubspot that was on HN a week or two ago.

minimaxir 10y ago
It is slightly different. The old one was about ageism. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430596
- swampthinker 10y ago
  So he's trying to push his book. Great.

hartator 10y ago

> She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager that she had two weeks to get out. I think that's a bit funny that the author implies you can't be good as a manager at 28. Specially when you are writing an article about bias.

pascalo 10y ago
I think he doesn't need to imply it, firing someone without explanation is bad management, no matter how young or old you are.
- golergka 10y ago
  This is correct. However, it's still strane to mention ages in this context. Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is. > She was white, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her latino manager that she had two weeks to get out.
  - halestock 10y ago
    Age implies wisdom and experience, which I think was the point he was trying to get across. Comparing it to race is just silly.
    - aianus 10y ago
      > Age implies wisdom and experience Age implies obsoleteness and poor health. (I can stereotype too!)
      - Dylan16807 10y ago
        Not in your 30s. If you're trying to prove halestock wrong you're doing a poor job.
    - pascalo 10y ago
      The way I read it he used the age and gender info in his comment to illustrate that it would be harder for the person to get a job. Hence it being extra cruel to use the weird lingo and act like it wouldn't be hard for her.
    - golergka 10y ago
      It does. However, it's the matter of how strong that causation is and how hard are you going to rely on it. Because if you think that someone in their 30s is likely to be be significantly more experienced and wise, it also means that you should think that someone in their 50s is likely to be significantly burned out and slow. My point is: the correlation (and underlying causation) is there, but it's not strong enough, compared to differences between individuals.
  - k-mcgrady 10y ago
    >> "Just replace age descriptions with race descriptions to see how weird and out of place that is." How is that in any way a sound analogy? Your age likely has an impact on your experience. More experience doesn't necessarily mean you're better at your job but it's a decent possibility. Race has no impact on performance at all.
- musesum 10y ago
  Either that or proactive lawyers. California is a no-cause state. Only when you state a cause, can it be used against you for bias. [Edit] Don't know about other states.
  - pascalo 10y ago
    To provide an outside US perspective, it's not that easy to fire someone in Germany, the UK or Australia. Once you're past the probation period, you'd probably have to get one or multiple sorts of negative reviews and written warnings from HR or your superiors before being let go, otherwise you'd have ground to sue for unfair dismissal. That, or you'd be given a redundancy package.
    - UK-AL 10y ago
      There's no such thing as probation period in law. It's a company specific thing. The laws the same if your own a probation period or not.
      - pascalo 10y ago
        In German law there is. In Australia unfair dismissal can only be claimed after 6 months of employment. Not really sure about the UK, but I am fairly sure it's not just cut throat firing like in the US, and you can claim unfair dismissal.
        DanBC 10y ago
        UK you can claim unfair dismissal after 2 years, unless there's Equalities Act stuff happening.
      - krzyk 10y ago
        In Poland there is such thing as probation in law, so you should specify what country are you talking about.
- wcummings 10y ago
  Giving an explanation publicly would harm their future employment chances. But people should be told privately why they're being fired, of course.
rrss1122 10y ago
I didn't get that from the article. The author's friend was 31 when she joined the company, not much older than her 28 year old manager. To me it illustrates the churn at the company. The 28-year old manager will probably be fired - excuse me I mean "graduated" - by a 20-something manager after a few years.
josh_carterPDX 10y ago
Having worked at a few startups I can relate to what the writer is saying (although I do agree the article is a bit slanted). It happens a lot in the tech world under the guise of "thinking differently" about management. I agree that age shouldn't matter, until you're 10-15 years older than your Manager who is completely out of their element, has no clue what they're doing, and you spend every day wondering how the fk they got the promotion in the first place.
- BurningFrog 10y ago
  That sounds like it's more about the manager having no clue than their age.
  - josh_carterPDX 10y ago
    But what does it say about those that put these people in a position of power?
    - fleitz 10y ago
      I haven't see many places that that only have incompetent managers and no incompetent employees. :) Or alternatively, what does it say about people who have seen this culture for 4 years and are still there?
      - josh_carterPDX 10y ago
        Yeah there's a balance. Everyone thinks a company has it all figured out until they work there and find out it's just like every other company struggling to figure stuff out.
        fleitz 10y ago
        Definitely, once you've been around the block a few times you realize that it's the same everywhere. Eventually, you just find the biggest pay cheque you can, and do the routine of putting on your coconut headphones, sit down at your tiki desk and chair and sip your mochas in peace as you wait for the morning calisthenics meeting to begin, wondering what exactly the difference between waterfall, agile, tdd, etc actually is because all you've ever seen anywhere is tiki driven development.
reviseddamage 10y ago
it's not in the least bit funny and the author is not implying that a 28 year old can't be a good manager. The author is comparing 1980's, 1990's tech work and now, and is making a point that amongst other observations, its also a new phenomenon for a younger person now in the tech world to be a manager to older staffers.
bduerst 10y ago
I think they were trying to imply that the 28 year old was an "undertrained" manager: >UNFORTUNATELY, working at a start-up all too often involves getting bossed around by undertrained (or untrained) managers and fired on a whim. Bias based on age, race and gender is rampant, as is sexual harassment.
ThomPete 10y ago
You can but it's extremely, extremely rare for the very simple fact that your primary skills as a manager is people skills and the ability to relate to other peoples situation. Something you normally won't be as developed at that point. At 28 you have more experience than a 18 year old, but not much and def not enough to be able to relate to a 35 year old person in most cases. So not sure I find it ironic. Rather I can relate as I have seen my share of managers and been myself for the last 22 years. And yes older managers have problems too :)
- xzi 10y ago
  I agree with everything you say. However, in my personal experience, the best manager I've had was 25 when I was 30. This manager realized he didn't really know much. So he stayed out of my way and let me make the technical decisions while he ran interference with the directors and VPs. Never had a more smooth working environment before or since.
  - horsebattery 10y ago
    I think for average people, such as myself, age is definitely an advantage in being a manager. I tried it at 24 and hated it, felt totally out of my depth. Having been through and been humbled by many life experiences means I can show more empathy and understanding. On the other hand there are many very switched on young people, so like always we should ignore age and judge people on their merits.
  - bucma 10y ago
    He really understood his role well. Unfortunately, this is pretty rare now.
  - hcayless 10y ago
    Just about the worst handicap a manager can have is insecurity. And unfortunately this is something I've seen in most of the people I've seen promoted to management when young. The best managers don't assume they need to be "better" than the people they manage.
  - 10y ago
luckydata 10y ago
I'm not much older than that, but the average maturity of 28 year olds is not great. Putting lives in the hands of people that should still be learning the ropes is reckless and cruel. Young managers (and I used to be one too) are the worst part of the startup culture, people with no training, inclination or predisposition for people management making others unproductive and ruining careers. As a sector we should think hard about how we're handling ourselves because there will be nothing left a few years from now if we don't start working for the long run.
- bb88 10y ago
  I, for one, would like to know if you screwed people over as a young manager. That would make rather a good blog post.
- bb88 10y ago
  I, for one, would like to know if you screwed people over as a young manager. That would make rather a good blog post.
x0x0 10y ago
it seemed to me like Lyons is implying the manager is callow
bb88 10y ago
I don't think he was trying to imply that at all. The culture of youth means you're going to have some weird things like an older worker being fired by a younger one.

ianstormtaylor 10y ago

Does anyone have more context on Dan Lyons? After reading this article, and the one from Fortune[0], and his post on LinkedIn[1], it feels like he's out there scraping together blatant PR for his new book. And it makes me honestly wonder whether he went to work for HubSpot looking for a story to write in the first place... and being a writer for the "Silicon Valley" TV series doesn't really help his credibility in that sense. Disclaimer: I really don't know anything about this story. Something just feels off. Maybe HubSpot really is that bad, who knows. [0]: http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyons/ http://fortune.com/disrupted-excerpt-hubspot-startup-dan-lyo... [1]: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-companies-dont-even-bother-lie-dan-lyons https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-comes-age-bias-tech-comp... --- Edit: After listening to the interview from @CPLX's response[2] I have to agree, he doesn't seem outlandish or anything. And all of the points he makes about HubSpot's content model being complete spam I agree with. I've definitely never liked interacting with HubSpot as a consumer, that much I know. I feel like in these scenarios he's incentivized to get outlandish PR for his book, so some of the things I'd take with a grain of salt--sentences like, "The offices bear a striking resemblance to the Montessori preschool that my kids attended: lots of bright basic colors, plenty of toys, and a nap room with a hammock and soothing palm tree murals on the wall." But there is probably a lot truth to his story as well. @ghaff also summed it up well: "That said, I find it's a cogent perspective even if it probably shouldn't be taken as literally accurate reportage." [2]: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa...

CPLX 10y ago
Yes he's doing PR for a book by telling bits and pieces of the same story in other media. That's what writers do for a living. If you genuinely want to get a read on the guy listen to this long form interview on Fresh Air from a couple days ago: http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journalist-joins-a-start-up-finds-its-part-frat-part-cult http://www.npr.org/2016/04/05/473097951/laid-off-tech-journa... He comes across as quite lucid and nuanced in my opinion, and also credible, as he has been covering the tech industry for decades and has a sense of context (he was also fake Steve Jobs by the way) rather than a "look at these crazy start up kids" point of view.

skennedy 10y ago

> Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and you have an idea of what it’s like [working at a startup]. Is this an accurate description? I feel this might be more of the well funded ones but would not know.

WalterSear 10y ago
I've interviewed at a couple like that, but never worked at one. They are present, but there isn't enough of any 'one kind of place' for any description to be representative.
adenverd 10y ago
No, Lyons is drastically exaggerating and overstating. Perhaps that's what it was like at HubSpot, but I've worked for four different tech startups and only one of them has exhibited even an inkling of Lyons' description. Even there, I would never compare it to a frat house, kindergarten, or Scientology. More like management makes kool-aid and a handful of people think it's wine.
joejev 10y ago
Not all startups are like this, the author is bitter about his experience.
BurningFrog 10y ago
There are many different kinds of startups.
tikhonj 10y ago
It's like claiming that all large companies are uniformly Dilbert-like hellholes full of pointy-haired bosses and despair. The elements are there, a handful of examples are that bad, but it's broadly exaggerated to push a specific point or to signal.
PhasmaFelis 10y ago
It varies. Some years back, I interviewed at a San Diego startup that was flying in a dozen people a week, with a $300 reward just for showing up, to go through a five-day interview process, at the end of which perhaps one or two would be offered the chance to work for them...for $50k a year. In San Diego. Most of their employees lived together, 2-4 to an apartment, because they couldn't afford solo housing. The CEO gave a speech on the first day where he explained that they paid poorly on purpose, because they wanted people who cared more about striving for excellence (or some such buzzword) than petty concerns like money or stability. And people ate it up. So, yeah, some startups are totally run like ridiculous cults that prey on starry-eyed young tech grads. I'm sure there's many that are sane and reasonable, too. None of them have paid me to vacation in California, though.

kelukelugames 10y ago

There is glassdoor review for my last company about how they are saving money by hiring only from colleges. Any number of my colleagues could have written it. Or for any number of companies. :)

dataker 10y ago

The philosopher Slavoj Žižek explains this with the ‘postmodern’ boss: >Not a master but just a coordinator of our joint creative efforts; the first among equals. There should be no formalities among us, we should address him by his nickname, he shares a dirty joke with us… but in all this, HE REMAINS OUR MASTER.

x5n1 10y ago
Well if they are joint coordinators, they we should share equally in the fruits of our effort. It takes a lot of cognitive dissonance to swallow the empty rhetoric these sorts of people and corporations put out which is totally insincere. But you are in this relationship, you need the money and don't really have a choice in the matter of rejecting the culture or the values being pushed upon you without consideration for your needs.
overgard 10y ago
I love some zizek, what piece did that come from?
- distances 10y ago
  I seem to run to Žižek more and more often -- frankly he is the only currently alive philosopher I can name. I really should read something more from him.
  - Jimmy 10y ago
    Zizek has written a lot of really fun and interesting books. I'd definitely encourage you to check him out, but just a word of warning: if he's the only living philosopher you can name, then you probably don't know enough philosophy to really understand everything he's saying. He assumes a pretty thorough knowledge of a number of past thinkers, like Marx, Hegel, Lacan, etc. Do check him out anyway though, and also check out some general introductions to philosophy if you find yourself intrigued and wanting to learn more.
- dataker 10y ago

cortesoft 10y ago

I am kinda getting sick of these Dan Lyons "pr for my book" pieces.

smacktoward 10y ago
If it helps, think of it as "growth hacking."

shadowfiend 10y ago

The interesting thing about this is that Lyons quotes Jeff Bezos's letter to shareholders, which some places described as ‘a very late response’ (http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-corporate-culture-comment-jeff-bezos http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/5/11373438/amazon-corporate-c...) to the NYT's own story from earlier this year… Lyons quotes it to demonstrate how Amazon is totally down for this exploitative culture he's trying to describe. But while I was pretty horrified reading the NYT's original story, Bezos responded—admittedly internally—shortly after the original article came out. He basically dismissed the idea of the type of culture Lyons is describing (‘I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.’), and that response was fairly widely circulated. To me, while I recognize some of the anecdotes that Lyons is describing as indeed representative of things that happen at startups, this is the kind of cherry picking that rapidly turns a potentially interesting book (or article) into total nonsense. If you can't choose your supporting arguments well, your main argument falls over. (Worth noting: Pretty sure these sundry* articles all just possibly-adapted excerpts from the book.)

gmantom 10y ago

Look startups aren't perfect. You will most certainly work harder than at a large established firm. Your life balance will be no where near as good as at a large firm. But why are you electing to work at a startup? 1) You are getting some options and have the possibility of a big upside which does not exist at a large firm. 2) You want more responsibility and you will certainly get it in the form of wearing many hats, but you will work harder. 3) If things are working out you will be promoted faster and move your career forward much quicker than most established firms. 4) There are many other points I could make here but arguably the most IMPORTANT reason to work at a startup is to LEARN, and learn you will. There are tradeoffs with working at a startup, startups aren't perfect. To say that they are much worse than large corps who are scared of key man risk and keep you at an arms length so they can fire and lay off thousands at a time is disingenuous. Corporations are generally only after profits big or small. You as an employee have a responsibility to make the right decisions for you. Edit: some spelling mistakes.

pascalo 10y ago
Would you say companies the size of Amazon, Netflix and HubSpot still fall into that bucket? To me they are large tech companies that have kept some sort of startup canon in place, and not in a good way.
- gmantom 10y ago
  That's very fair. I can't speak about Amazon, because I've never worked there. You're right that some companies are hanging not on to that startup canon, at least from the outside it seems that way, even after they are large and it's not just Amazon but Amazon is probably the biggest. My comment generally holds true though that startups have tradeoffs to large corporations. If large corps are trying to take advantage of that then we, as top talent, need to stay away from them so they fail and this trend can go away.
jasonlotito 10y ago
Hubspot is not a startup. It's been around for 10 years. It has 700+ employees. > Corporations are generally only after profits big or small. Startups are generally only after growth, but only big.

vacri 10y ago

> Tech workers have no job security. To generalise in the same manner as the article, they also have no loyalty - job-hopping is more common in tech than any other industry I've seen, excluding perhaps hospitality. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem.

andyzweb 10y ago
it's been that way since Noyce left Beckman/Shockley in the late 50's and formed Fairchild

JayHost 10y ago

Amazon is new Walmart. They don't care that you don't like their work environment.They have money; you need money and have little options. I think instead of being interested in recycling talent; Amazon is interested in those who will take the most abuse.

Apocryphon 10y ago
Who is the Costco in e-commerce?
- w1ntermute 10y ago
  Jet
deanCommie 10y ago
Let's back off with the Amazon hate. Right below it on the same list is Google with an average tenure at 1.1 years. Nobody tries to use that as an argument that Google burns through workers who quit in dissatisfaction.
- michaelt 10y ago
  I think part of the reason is working class employees traditionally have comparatively poor employment conditions[1] and Amazon has many more working class employees than Google does, because Amazon operates warehouses and call centres. Nobody's getting heatstroke in Google's fulfilment centres, because they don't exist. [1] http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7035742/office-job-vs-retail-job http://www.collegehumor.com/post/7035742/office-job-vs-retai...
- pythonistic 10y ago
  They're up to 1.1 years now? Wow! They were at six months for developers for most of the time I was working there (2006-2010). At three years, I was in the top 25% of seniority ("old farts"). By comparison, Overstock.com averaged five years for developers between 2010-2013.

WalterBright 10y ago

> Given the choice, I think I’d rather make furniture. So go start making furniture.

Scoundreller 10y ago
Likewise, > Companies sell shares to the public while still losing money. Wealth is generated, but most of the loot goes to a handful of people at the top, the founders and venture capital investors. Then become a founder if it's such an easy way to generate wealth.
- knz42 10y ago
  Wealth is generated by the employees. The founders channel that wealth to them. The challenge with being a founder is to find the right business plan at the moment then hire and maintain the right team to achieve it. It's a challenge indeed but this challenge does not deserve nor does it morally justify taking most of the wealth generated by the employees away from them.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    The difficulty with that theory is explaining why competitors don't spring up, copy the business plan, and entice the team away with higher pay.

jim-greer 10y ago

I don't know much about Hubspot, but Lyons should know that sudden firings without an explanation are not common. The norm is quarterly reviews, and firing only after you've had several negative ones. Extortion is obviously not common either... Content farms are also not common at solid companies - more typical of fly-by-night marketing-driven places without much real tech. The claim that there's a lot of pressure to perform is more valid, but that's not unique to tech at all. The bias problems are also there at many companies (though I think racial bias is less common than age or gender). Overall he seems to be generalizing from a company with an unusually bad culture. (The extortion charges: https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-released-hubspot-probe-involving-author-dan-lyons/VZH4CN4kR5p7iyhsKEdwJI/story.htm https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/03/23/documents-re...)

ditonal 10y ago
I've worked at several tech startups with sudden firing. The "norm" from my perspective tends to be a one month Performance Improvement Plan, usually just serving as a paper trail with very little hope of getting off of it, though I've seen people just suddenly walked out as well. I appreciate Dan Lyons cutting through the bullshit on tech startups and I recognize a lot of what he's talking about from my own experience. The thing that bothers me the most is the disingenuity of it all, the "we're a family" and "we're changing the world" when it really is all standard capitalism business practice, not so different from Wall St or Walmart. It's funny Netflix and Reed Fisher got brought up, because I at least respect Reed's honesty about the whole arrangement. The "we're a family" companies frighten me a lot more. These companies are also masters of PR and marketing. Many of these companies that are Kafkaesque places to work for are frequently cited on #1 best place to work etc, and you seem crazy to complain when you work at one. People don't realize that the ping-pong table doesn't make up for the uncompesated 24/7 PagerDuty rotations, how little job-security you have long term, how anxiety inducing a lot of the performance-driven culture and open-office plans can be, etc. So it's refreshing to see a different take.
- jim-greer 10y ago
  So people get 1 month performance plans after positive or neutral reviews? Or are these places that don't do regular reviews? I've honestly never heard of that. Want to name names?

joesmo 10y ago

"Treating workers as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded is a central part of the revised relationship between employers and employees that techies proclaim is an innovation as important as chips and software." Really? I've never heard that and never met a single person who thinks this. I guess pieces like this just like to pull things out of thin air. It makes zero sense for any non-executive to think this way and most techies are not executives.

neurobuddha 10y ago

I have to wonder how many anti-Lyons comments in this thread are HubSpot employees in stealth mode. Doesn't HubSpot do 'Sentiment Analysis' and that sort of stuff?

dlandis 10y ago
I wonder the same thing. Last time there was a post about him here a couple weeks ago there were current and former HubSpot employees all over it. Apart from that, it is a shady company for sure though. It was less than a year ago that top executives were implicated by the fbi in trying to hack and extort Lyons during the lead up to the book. I think only one or two of the implicated executives ended up leaving the company as a result. Was their departures enough to fix the culture there?
skewart 10y ago
There may well be plenty. There are probably also a lot of people, like myself, with no connection to HubSpot who dislike Lyons's latest writing. Having read a few of the promotional articles for the book, I'm certainly not a fan. He seems like he went looking for the worst and is generalizing as broadly as possible to create a sensation. A publicly traded email marketing company founded by a couple of MBAs in Boston 10 years ago doesn't really represent all of Silicon Valley startup culture. Lyons does touch on some genuine problems. But he doesn't seem to approach ageism or problematic work cultures with much thoughtfulness, and he isn't contributing much to the conversation. At the same time, HubSpot doesn't seem like a great place to work. In fact it seems like they have (or have recently had) some serious issues they need to sort out.
Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
You really don't have to look far to find people who don't rate Dan Lyons. Daring Fireball is one pretty obvious example.
dang 10y ago
It's against HN's rules to accuse other users of astroturfing or shilling without evidence. If you're worried about it, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com so we can look at the data and investigate (which we always do). But it's not ok to turn threads in that direction based on nothing more than opposing views. Few things are more destructive of civil discourse, and it's nearly always the case that opposing views are honestly held.

justin_vanw 10y ago

So does the author think that everyone is great at their job? What do you do when you have an employee that can't do the work and you are confident that they won't improve? Pointing out the age difference in the manager and the employee, and their sexes, is just baiting. Unless he wants to make the case that there was sexism or agism from the manager, or that the company engaged in sexism or agism, it is just a red herring. In fact, it's quite cowardly, since it implies something the author isn't willing to actually say. Finally, the fact that the person who was fired was with the company for 4 years doesn't mean anything at all unless we also get the context. It may be that this person struggled from the beginning, and they hesitated and didn't fire her for four long years. Or it may be that they hired her to do some specific job, and that job went away, and despite repeated attempts she just could not manage to learn anything else. The thesis that she was 'disposable' is just ludicrous. If she was good at her job, then the manager is just an idiot who is cutting his and the companies own throat, and we can't make a moral argument against stupidity. If she couldn't do the job then there is no reason to be discussing this. If she was borderline, we still can't make a moral case, since borderline situations are at worst slightly wrong. So once you cut through the left handed implications, I don't think there is any argument left.

PhasmaFelis 10y ago
> If she was good at her job, then the manager is just an idiot who is cutting his and the companies own throat, and we can't make a moral argument against stupidity. We can't? Why not? Being stupid does not exempt you from responsibility for your actions.
- justin_vanw 10y ago
  When an investor puts money into a crappy company, and they lose their money, they have been held responsible. You can be responsible and face consequences without any moral failure.
supercanuck 10y ago
I came away with the impression that HubSpot's management was purposely divorced from reality, and so it is hard to take them at face value that she was unable to perform her job. The issue appears that she was too costly to the company due to biological reasons(1. being old and 2. being a woman). The other issue from the article was that there didn't seem to be an objective way of measuring performance so "graduations" become rather arbitrary, and when they are arbitrary with the appearance of objective, there isn't any reason not to cut out the more "costly Employees" This is the argument you seem to be missing in the article and maybe just too young to understand.

mikehines 10y ago

Dan Lyons is just another gold rusher mining the gold rushers with papers and pencils.

Scoundreller 10y ago

> I joined the company in 2013 after spending 25 years in journalism and getting laid off from a top position at Newsweek. I thought working at a start-up would be great. The perks! The cool offices! > It turned out I’d joined a digital sweatshop, where people were packed into huge rooms, side by side, at long tables. It sounds like this journalist failed to investigate their new job before Day 1...

fleitz 10y ago
Yeah it's like those people who have been working with J2EE for 25 years at Big Company X that is now bankrupt, and constantly complain about the lack of GANNT charts, or whatever the hammer and chisel tools they use to make J2EE apps.
- santaclaus 10y ago
  At least a hammer and chisel would have better performance than Eclipse...
- themodelplumber 10y ago
  Gantt charts helped me and a group of subcontractors compete against some huge corporate teams. It's legit to complain about a lack of gantt charts.
  - sleepychu 10y ago
    The format is pretty unfriendly to the user though and rigid time planning is pretty pointless for problem solving exercises, IMO. What do you think makes gantt charts great?
    - ozim 10y ago
      Looks like they were able to coordinate with multiple teams using gantt charts. Probably taking into account fuzzy nature of time planning. So I would not think about gannt charts as rigid time planning it is just a tool so it depends on how you use it.

hvmonk 10y ago

And, being the top thread, he is doing a good job in getting the PR ship :)

aleyan 10y ago

Issues raised in the article aside, I am here to argue semantics. The article used the word start-up 3 times, plus one more in the title of his book. The company he worked for however, HubSpot is 10 years old and public and thus by definition is not a startup. Other two companies mentioned, Amazon and Netflix are both over a decade old and public and thus are not start-ups by any stretch of the imagination. Startups and tech companies are not synonymous and using them interchangeably is harmful to our discourse. If we can't agree on what words mean, how can we agree on deeper issues? PS. I also have issue with author's use of the word "tech worker" to describe telemarketers. I maybe wrong, but a "tech worker" to me is not someone who works for a tech company but rather is one who creating the tech.

wcummings 10y ago
>I maybe wrong, but a "tech worker" to me is not someone who works for a tech company but rather is one who creating the tech. You're wrong, if you work at a tech company you're a tech worker. Programmers like to think they're special, but you're the help just like the sales people, support people etc
dmix 10y ago
Indeed. I've also noticed that we (as engineers and designers) have a better lifestyle in terms of treatment, job security and pay at these startups/tech companies - compared to the marketing teams which consist of the people who typically write these negative articles. Countless of these articles critiquing the tech work culture pop on HN and it's rarely ever written by devs/management. The tone always comes off as criticism from 'outsiders' who worked within the company, who treat the pride taken in creating eccentric workplaces as somewhat alien to them. Maybe because they aren't truly insiders to the culture... especially in the sense that they aren't ever the creators/leaders or long term members. Only temporarily working within the environment before going back to more typical corporate environments from where they write their analysis with a certain level of cynicism.
- hifier 10y ago
  While I agree that the author and others in the same role clearly do not feel apart of the culture, could you really expect them to? They don't have any equity, they don't make very much, they are monitored and evaluated like telemarketers, yet the management expects them to buy into the "change the world" mantra. I think you have to admit that it's demeaning. Why would they feel anything besides anger or jealousy?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kdamken 10y ago

I find companies that do the whole "we're a family, we're changing the world!" thing to be worse than your standard corporate gig that is more up front about you just being a cog in the machine. At least those companies are more honest about it, the other kind come off as fake and insincere. Companies do not care about you. At all. You are nothing but a business asset to them. They may value your work, but they do not act in your best interest - they're going to try and pay you the least amount they can to have you work there. This isn't actually a bad thing. Chances are, you don't really care about your company either, so it's kind of fair. It's good to keep in mind - you are your own business, and you need to make decisions that are best for you.

blisterpeanuts 10y ago

It seems to me that the author was generalizing from one specific experience he had, plus some anecdotal experiences he has gathered from others, to impugn the entire start-up community. There may be some validity to what he says; I'm inclined to agree that there's disproportionate age-ism and sexism and probably several other kinds of -ism's in the start-up community, perhaps because their founders tend to be younger and less well versed in mainstream corporate behavior which in recent decades has been moving away from discrimination. I don't see how a "glorified telemarketer" working on a desktop that watches him is a typical start-up tech worker, though. It sounds like tough and thankless work and I hope people get the message in the VC funding community that the way to build a high value company is not to treat people really badly and thus create this kind of bad press. At least, I hope it's not the way you create a good return on investment! Otherwise we're all in trouble. I'm curious as to whether the comments about Amazon are broadly valid. Have not worked there myself, but have interviewed over the phone in the past (very negative experience). Yet, as a customer, I admire Amazon and consider them one of America's great companies. Could they really have gotten to this point by treating their rank-and-file like a disposable commodity? Could Apple?

riveracct 10y ago
Really I have to say, are you that naive? Apple and Amazon absolutely treat their employees like crap. Actually the employees behave with each other like crap because these companies are publicly traded and everyone is a stakeholder. The good work comes out of the employees being in competition with one another. You might like this approach, but at this rate we will be left with an Earth full of impressive monuments but no people to view them.

codeddesign 10y ago

Can someone tell me why in the first paragraph age was brought up? The author initiates the argument by bringing up the age of the manager, as if there was an age requirement. If you are going to make a compelling argument, it's probably best that you don't begin by belittling others.

jsmith0295 10y ago

I have a hard time thinking of people making 6 figure salaries as being an instance of capital exploiting labor. Part of why the average length of employment is only around a year is probably that employees are choosing to go elsewhere for higher pay because the demand for good engineers is so high.

superswordfish 10y ago

Doing cold calls in a boiler-room is a shitty job. News at 11. > Tech workers have no job security. The bad ones have none. The decent ones might, it depends on circumstance. The good ones almost always have plenty. But don't call yourself a "tech worker" when you're making sales calls.

luckydata 10y ago
Classism much? They definitely are tech workers, what they are not is developers or engineers.
- superswordfish 10y ago
  Would you consider somebody who sells cars an auto worker? I sure wouldn't. It has nothing to do with "class" (as if engineers constituted such a thing).
eplanit 10y ago
This is a fundamental fact that seems lost on most readers here. The article is a criticism of [modern day] _sales_ work.
riveracct 10y ago
This is fake drivel. The only ones having good job prospects are people managers, networkers and rote learners.

jondubois 10y ago

It's like stabbing someone with a rusty knife and then calling it "Iron supplement... Delivered intravenously."

cleandreams 10y ago

I dunno. I've worked at startups a lot and none are dismal in quite the way described here. They are dismal because the founders are irritating and have bad judgment. Or they are dismal because the idea flops. Or you run out of runway, etc. But I have never gotten deluged by this kind of b.s. Who has time? This sounds to me less like a tech startup than something dreamed up by marketers with fancy degrees and no sense.

facepalm 10y ago

I don't understand where employees get their sense of entitlement from. I don't like the working conditions in many companies either. But the correct answer is to try to establish a company with better working conditions. Nobody owes you anything. OK maybe society owes you a proper foundation, but individual companies don't owe you anything. Don't like them, quit, and don't buy their products.

chrisyeh 10y ago

For the record, I'm one of the co-authors of "The Alliance," which Dan Lyons refers to in his op ed. Dan refers to our book and quotes a single sentence fragment: "Your company is not your family." Everything else he writes in that section of the piece has nothing to do with the content of the book. 1) "You’re serving a “tour of duty” that might last a year or two" Actually, the book makes it clear that the duration of a tour of duty depends on the mission the employee has agreed to tackle--tours of duty can be 6 months long, but then can also last for a decade (think of NASA scientists working on a deep space probe). 2) "Companies burn you out and churn you out when someone better, or cheaper, becomes available." This is purely Dan Lyons; the point we make in the book is that few employees expect or want lifetime employment at a single company; what people really want is lifetime employability and career progress. We would consider companies that behaved like Lyons described as "breaking the Alliance," which would harm their reputation as an employer. 3) "In this new model of work, employees are expected to feel complete devotion and loyalty to their companies, even while the boss feels no such obligation in return." Once again, this is the exact opposite of what our book says. We believe that employers and employees need to recognize that employment is a voluntary, mutually beneficial alliance, and that managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career. Dan Lyons certainly has right to his opinions, but he shouldn't have a right to misrepresent our ideas.

eru 10y ago
Interesting. This sounds like a viable way to play Diplomacy. (Eg http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html http://diplom.org/Zine/S1998R/Ohlman/TrueBlue.html)
PhantomGremlin 10y ago
managers should be explicit about how an employee's job assignment is going to help develop his or her career That's interesting. I've had a number of managers in my career and never, not even once, has one of them espoused anything resembling such a position. It's always what can the employee do for the company, not what's mutually beneficial.
- 10y ago

pj_mukh 10y ago

Unpopular opinion but current SV workplace culture is not the final refined product in the evolution of the workplace. It is a stepping stone. I consider it to be better than the drudgery of blue-chip, 9-5 (especially for the current generation). Most of these workers at the large firms (Amazon, Google etc.) are empowered enough to leave their jobs if they don't believe in the founders' mission. They remain long enough for the companies' viability. As for compensation (or "sharing of the riches") at all levels, most of SV's leadership have identified issues [1][2], as the culture evolves this will certainly get better. P.S: This is the first time I've heard of Hubspot's problems, but don't doubt them, rotten eggs abound. [1] http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity [2] http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-market.html http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/does-yelp-pay-at-market.htm...

Mikeb85 10y ago

Interesting article, but this has nothing to do with startups. This is simply the new equilibrium in the job market. Employees have lost power. Unless you guys unionize or something, it'll only get worse from here...

Gibbon1 10y ago
I've noted as employee power has collapsed over the last 30-40 years that workers who still had some sort of market power would look down on those that had lost theirs and used such as a status marker. And then that became an impediment to action. Why would I work to give losers the same status as I have? You can also see this with doctors. For decades they thought their position was secure. Unlike nurses they never unionized, as such was beneath them. Now they find themselves being treated badly. And they are angry and confused.

bhewes 10y ago

Nassim Taleb's "How to Legally Own Another Person" or David Graeber's book The Utopia of Rules and now this article could be categorized as welcome to working in a bureaucracy. I grew up in corporate land and I am use to ex PGW, Deloitte, or McKinsey employees being called alumni. So it makes sense as the current generation of tech companies mature they become more bureaucratic. Hopefully this means we will see a new batch of startups hit the scene soon!

Kinnard 10y ago

I think I'd be significantly more interested in reading proposals about how to improve the nature of work and all working relationships.

arikrak 10y ago

> The average Amazonian lasts only about a year at the company, according to a 2013 report by PayScale. This study was very flawed, see https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-employee-turnover-so-high https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Googles-employee-turnover-so-hi....

thetruthseeker1 10y ago

This article talks about how companies over inflate the value of the work tech workers are providing almost to the extent of feeling like being in a cult - which was something I was thinking all along but didn't want to say out of fear of being called a kill joy. While in many successful tech companies this might not be to the same degree, I bet the scale is tipped towards the direction of cult like indoctrination. My guess is the part of the problem is in many technology companies that are not seeing huge profits, there are no true metrics to measure the value of your work - so they can get away making bold corny claims

tobbyb 10y ago

This is an interesting perspective based on real life experience. The author also has decades of experience around the tech scene in general. I don't understand why he is being put on trial for sharing his experiences in a book or seeking to promote it via interviews. That's the way books are normally promoted. Reading this thread one would think its illegal. Hubspot is a campaign management and lead management tool like Eloqua, Marketo, Unica and dozes of other tools in this space. They are not remotely interesting unless you are interested in b2b marketing tools. One does not need to disparage hubspot, its a decent marketing tool. But it is not remotely world changing in any way. That is hubris so the author appears to be spot on with some of his observations. Everyone recognizes the fakery and dubiousness of empty and vacuous corporate slogans. A psychological tactic to induce frenzy and artificial value in your workforce is exploitative and disrespects other human beings. Surely there are more respectful and time tested ways to motivate your workforce without making a mockery of them to promoting your own interests. Repositioning a firing as a graduation is the stuff of comedy scripts, nearly Monty Pythonisque. With material like this anyone would be tempted to write a book. But this is not comedy, these guys are serious. In the real world this can only be interpreted as insensitive, grossly exploitative and dangerously disconnected from reality.

riveracct 10y ago
Getting fired sucks. I really hate corp doublespeak, but it's a little commendable that this corp is trying to soften the impact by calling it a graduation - which it is in a way because you get some time off to reskill and seek out other prospective jobs rather than doing the same thing everyday in your current job.
- CPLX 10y ago
  > reskill I am pretty sure that's not a word. Which I only point out as using corporate newspeak to reply to a post about disingenuous corporate newspeak is an interesting conversational tactic.

bitwize 10y ago

Our tech business culture is officially turning into Logan's Run.

bikamonki 10y ago

This is from HubSpot's homepage: SALES SOFTWARE Stop cold calling. Start closing. Funny, uh?

capote 10y ago

Though I do understand most of the criticism this piece is getting in this thread, can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Culture aside, crying at your desk aside, spare me the extra layer of fake, pointless language to disguise what is happening. I expect professionalism and respect from an employer, and that involves being straightforward, respectful, and to the point.

rwjwjuwjudf 10y ago
Over my lifetime I feel like computers have gone from nerdy thing that nerds do to trendy thing that popular kids hire nerds to do badly and treat like garbage. I guess it's not really surprising that people known for poor social skills get taken advantage of like that, but still it bugs me because I identify with them.
- bb88 10y ago
  Yeah... and the popular kids aren't that good at coding, just really good at being popular.
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
> can we at least agree that all that bullshit about being a star and "graduating" is total bullshit? What a total slap in the face. Completely agree. If the person is leaving on their own? Sure sounds great! But firing or laying someone off? Seems borderline psychopathic to me.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
neurobuddha 10y ago
It reminds me of Newspeak, the language in Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak

xiaopingguo 10y ago

>"like-minded people" This particularly obnoxious phrase seems to be coming up a lot more these days. Maybe it is just people admitting they really do not want diversity except in looks rather than substance. It seems to reflect a lack of ability or desire to deal with real world conflicts of opinion.

linkmotif 10y ago

to me it's not that you get fired willy nilly. that's fine imo. what's scary, though, is the doublespeak you find in these environments. people act like you're part of a family. which is weird, because you're just working for a company.

lsc 10y ago

so, what I find weird is that everyone seems to complain that companies treat them like mercenaries, while I have the opposite complaint. Whenever I interview, I feel like I have to pretend like I want to be there forever, or else I'm not dedicated enough. I mean, yes, of course they are going to let me go when they are done with me, and I'm okay with that. My problem is that they seem to expect me to pretend like this is the job I want or the company I want forever. They want me to pretend like we're family, rather than business associates. Hell, even as a contractor, half the time you have to pretend like you really want a full-time long-term job to get in. I find it pretty irritating.

pdkl95 10y ago

> when you got fired, it was called “graduation.” "Smile or Die" (RSA Animate) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5um8QWWRvo This seems to be a variation on the Wall Street style of magical thinking.

martin1975 10y ago

Programmers are still operating under the delusion that they are so much better (or worse) than the guy working next to them. It is this kind of egotistical thinking that probably gets in the way of them unionizing. You want to give a large caliber a-hole like Bezos the finger while working in his own company? It takes balls to do that - stage a walk out and strike. It takes camaraderie, intimacy and loyalty to a cause (or a person) that supersedes the workplace, an all in support to that cause by engineers/programmers alike. For as long as the pissing contests over languages, productivity, hubris, etc continues among intelligent people like programmers, their Jimmy Hoffa won't be born and their cause will lie with the company's objectives. In a nutshell, programmers -deserve- the Bezos and Hastings of this world. Keep thinking you are God's gift to programming and insure the demise of your own fellow programmers. I have zero sympathy toward programmers (having been one for 17+ years now) - not because I don't love the profession or the contribution we make, but because of the infinitely immature attitude and disunion that exists among engineers. If there's one thing that has motivated me to think of doing something else, it's that...

martin1975 10y ago
Case in point - someone already downrated my post... good job mate.
ageofwant 10y ago
Greetings comrade. I wholeheartedly concur. Its been a source of great confusion to me why otherwise intelligent and open-minded people are so steadfastly opposed to the one thing that can improve their earnings potential dramatically. I have observed a strong shift to the "left" in the last few years though, so I won't be surprised if this happens soon. I also expect that given the resources and capability inherent in a "programmer's union", the capacity and ability of such a movement would be very significant very early on. We built the modern world with its social and communications infrastructure, and we aught be able to exploit it for our personal betterment easier than most. Doctors, dentists, lawyers all benefit greatly from their "protected" professions, why not us ?
- morgante 10y ago

passionstefani 10y ago

Passionstefani

drharby 10y ago

funny, I am on a second round interview at Hubspot...

BogusIKnow 10y ago

"She was 35, had been with the company for four years, and was told without explanation by her 28-year-old manager" What's the fuzz about the ages? Age discrimination by NYT author?

mark_l_watson 10y ago

I like the spirit of the article, but I think that Douglas Rushkoff makes these ideas more clear in his book "Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus" in which he nails workers vs. employers issues, growth of corporations, etc. That said, I also enjoyed the article.

beatpanda 10y ago

You know that old saying about playing poker, that if you're sitting at a table and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you? Well if you work in the SF Bay Area tech industry and this sentence doesn't ring true to you: "Imagine a frat house mixed with a kindergarten mixed with Scientology, and you have an idea of what it’s like." Congratulations; you're the sucker.

partycoder 10y ago

Collective bargaining?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Create 10y ago

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" -- H. Schopper on the Future of Particle Physics, Prestigious Discoveries at CERN 2003.

reuven 10y ago

I read this article and said, "Yup, that sounds like a lot of startups I've worked with." I should say with, and not for. I've been a freelancer for 20 years, and while I love to help my clients succeed, and I definitely work too many hours, I don't have someone standing over me, expecting that I'll work 60-hour weeks, be around for 7 p.m. meetings, or explicitly tell me that my needs are secondary to the company's needs. Startup employees -- and hi-tech employees in general -- are expected to work long hours, and to put family and friends aside, all in the name of... well, what? Sometimes it's lots of money, but too often it's because this is what they're expected to do in so many companies. It's true that tech companies are (and have always been) desperate for good talent, and people who are great can often get great salaries and benefits. But it's rare for a company to say, "Yeah, we'll pay you tons, give us access to our cafeteria, and offer on-site massages, and you don't have to be here more than 40 hours per week." I'm OK with asking employees to pitch in before a deadline, or in an emergency. But that should mean a few days every few months, not a few months out of each year. And those descriptions of "graduation" e-mails that Lyons mentions in the article just gave me the chills. Something is wrong if these are the expectations at lots of high-tech companies, and I have to wonder if Lyons is right, that we're looking at some very well-paid people who have little or no power, and move to a new job every year or two not just to get more money, but to get a bit more control over their own schedules, or some better work-life balance.

thieving_magpie 10y ago

I like the part where he shits all over software and romanticizes early 19th century woodworking in factories. Yes - I'm sure those were just lovely conditions to work in. We created laws to protect laborers and children as a direct result of those conditions - but let's all whine about how Amazon views its employees as a 'team' and not family.

yason 10y ago

And this would be all right if the pay would correlate with the possibility of enjoying this "graduation", much like CEOs get paid a lot for their work and paid a lot when sacked supposedly because the risk for a CEO to get fired is much larger than for normal workers.

devishard 10y ago

The problem here isn't that jobs don't provide job security, it's that they lie about it. How many times has someone called your company a "family"? Why is talking about a future in which you don't work for your company taboo? I'd have no problem working for a company that I knew wouldn't hesitate to fire me, except that there's no way to judge when that might happen. I'd appreciate hearing, "If we don't get this next round of funding, we might have to let you go," but instead the funding talks are done in secrecy while we go out for drinks and talk about how the company is such a family and how you're doing a good job, until suddenly someone is getting laid off. The flipside of this is that if you do have job stability, it's usually not worth it to stay anyway. I've always worked for companies who needed me more than I needed them, so I've never really had to worry about job security. Over the past decade I've switched jobs 7 times, each time getting a 10-20% increase in income. In 5 of those cases I wanted to stay at my employer, but when I asked for a 10%-ish raise and explained that I could get more than that by leaving, they came back with 4-5% answers. In two cases they noted that 3% was "standard" (which was true for them--I talk to my coworkers about pay). In many cases, never giving significant raises works for companies: I still know people working year after year at my previous employers and accepting their annual 3% raise. The underlying problem in both cases is that companies simply don't care about your goals. You're an equation to them, which can be tipped in their favor either by treating you like a liquid asset and firing you at their convenience, or by not paying you what you're worth. It's not an "alliance": that implies shared goals. It's companies using their workers for the company's goals, no matter what that entails, even if it means pretending that it's a family or an alliance when it's not.

iolothebard 10y ago

Imagine if the government did its job and protected labor instead of capital. What a world we could live in in the "richest" country in the world.

Evenjos 10y ago

Working at various tech companies, I've observed a major shift towards the fine art of bullshit. Employees constantly have to prove their worth and put a fresh spin on how valuable they are to the company. Talent and merit and work ethic is falling by the wayside. The top salaries go to people who make themselves sound talented and worthy, while the shove the actual work down the line. I've seen projects outsourced on nine levels. Everyone wants their cut.

Your_Creator 10y ago

while being upfront about employment terms is always a good thing, this sort of arrangement is unilateral in the company's favor. you sit there, churning out codes and solutions and they get to keep it after you leave. what do you get other than a pat on your back and some space filler on your resume? shares of the company? free software updates for life? a chance to preview new hardware before anyone else? how about free hardware? or at least the chance to buy it at cost? what about using whatever you help create, somewhere else? there are non-tech businesses that work this way and the morale is typically through the floor. you see this at brick and mortar businesses when there's no room for advancement within the company, because the company isn't expanding geographically they have one location and they like it that way. most of those companies, love these loopholes they can take advantage of, like less than full time hours so you don't get healthcare benefits and because the turnover rate is so high, no one ever really gets a raise. oh, they have protocols on the books, but no one makes it that long. it's like the rat box experiment - one box of rats has food and a way out - they spread out and flourish one box has no food, but a way out - they all leave one box has food and no way out - when the food runs out, so do they one box has no food and no way out - you end up with one really fat cannibal rat just because we humans like to pretend we are civilized, we are not immune to succumbing to our animal instincts. interestingly enough, this behavior can also be observed in neighborhoods in NYC where there are many NYCHA buildings grouped together like Queensbridge and Morrisania Houses. from their perspective there's no future, no food, no money, no hope - no discernible way out. so what do they do? they turn on each other. what do humans do where there is a massive blackout and we are suddenly back in the stone age? we behave like the animals we are. we've seen it time and time again. I recommend becoming well versed in IP law if this is a 'lifestyle choice' anyone wants to make. at least then, you can protect your own right to profit off of anything you create in these set ups.

sjg007 10y ago

Top Talent is a myth... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Talent_Myth

mbleigh 10y ago

I'm so glad Dan Lyons is here to tell us all how hard it is for middle aged white men.

majidben 10y ago

https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35 https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35

majidben 10y ago

https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35 https://mobile.facebook.com/maya.hariri.35