8 ms·

Undisrupted: HubSpot's Reflections on “Disrupted”

91 points by bognition 11y ago

payne92 11y ago
As my mom says, class never goes out of style.
shockzzz 11y ago
Good response, I'll give him that. It succeeds it bringing focus away from the fact that they tried to kill the book before it got published ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- bognition 11y ago
  Trying to kill the book doesn't mean anything what company wouldn't try to kill a book like this?
  - shockzzz 11y ago
    Could you expand on that more? From my perspective, there are a lot of ethical concerns with silencing opposing viewpoints. In fact, one of the execs was publicly admonished and fired because he tried to do so: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-cto-discuss-firing-of-companys-third-founder-over-ethical-lapse/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-ct...
  - imron 11y ago
    > what company wouldn't try to kill a book like this? Perhaps you mean what company wouldn't kill for a book like this. All publicity is good publicity, yada, yada, yada. I'd never heard of HubSpot before all this fuss, and I'm sure there are plenty of others like me. I'd be surprised if the whole thing didn't generate new customers for them.
SFLemonade 11y ago
Really impressive response - they took the high road here and the data was nice. The whole time I was reading the book, I just felt like something was off. Like he was sort of out of touch and hypocritical in a lot of his arguments (like accusing the company of ageism, right after complaining that his manager was 28). It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book before even taking a job at the company. Too many low-ball shots and unsubstantiated stories of hearsay. Glad to see the other side of this.
- visakanv 11y ago
  > It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book before even taking a job at the company. This seems pretty likely to me.
  - ant6n 11y ago
    He worked at the company for 20 months. That's almost two years. If this was an undercover stunt, then he was pretty committed to this.
- apapli 11y ago
  I'd say 28 is still pretty young - when you look at the workforce ages between 20 and 60 odds are that individual is probably not even a quarter through their working life.
  - SFLemonade 11y ago
    And your point? Companies like this realize that promoting / rewarding on results and competency, rather than age and tenure, is much more effective. But this is honestly nothing new. It was surprising to me that the author just couldn't wrap his mind around it, despite going to such lengths to convince the audience that he was some amazing and prestigious tech journalist. With stuff like this, I think he was intentionally ignorant ("What?? A young manager?? He would be an assistant at my beloved, ironically extinct and thus irrelevant Newsweek"), so as to appeal to an audience that just isn't familiar with the tech scene beyond what they see on TV.
55555 11y ago
I'm only a quarter of the way into the book, and it's really pretty funny, but also insufferably harsh and cynical and misanthropic and holier-than-thou and self-righteous and downright mean. Oh, and I guess I should apologize to Dan for being 25 and therefore knowing nothing at all and being useless. In my opinion as a business owner, the world doesnt owe you a job and if you immediately think you hate the place maybe you should quit. I understand that he had twins though (and thus was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons). I guess I'm not used to reading something so mean-spirited. Disclaimer: I don't work at HubSpot and they do indeed sound like a stock-pumping cult that has a large boiler room selling average software.
- fleitz 11y ago
  Every sausage factory needs a salesman. People who don't like the way the sausage is made, especially don't like the way sausage is sold.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- DKnoll 11y ago
  I'm about halfway through. So far I find the book to be an amusing send up of startup culture. A bit like an updated version of Coupland's Microserfs with slightly more factual basis. Although, I am confused by his condemnation of HubSpot and his former colleagues for age discrimination when he regularly questions his colleagues for their own (lesser) age. Especially since many of his younger colleagues obviously had more industry experience since this was his first time working for and not writing about a tech company.
  - galtwho 11y ago
    Dan has written on Linkedin a summary of his experience as well. 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...
    - 11y ago
rl3 11y ago
Sounds like the book was just sour grapes because the author didn't receive a J.E.D.I. award despite having so much H.E.A.R.T. Using a 128-slide PowerPoint presentation to convey their culture is ironic at best.
- bognition 11y ago
  How so?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - rl3 11y ago
    Overly verbose. Good culture isn't compromised of four-letter acronyms, or photos that suggest conflating professional and personal relationships is a good idea.
- santaclaus 11y ago
  I thought you were joking but the J.E.D.I. award is legit [1]. That slide deck is serious comedy gold. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-hubspot-culture-code-creating-a-company-we-love/82-exampleTHE_JEDI_AWARDAwarded_to_those http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-hubspot-culture-code-c...
  - chris_wot 11y ago
    "Delightion" - apparently it should be a word.
- ant6n 11y ago
  He should've been more G.S.D and have more one-plus-one-equals-three-y results.
gizmo 11y ago
This entire post is just PR spin. I looked for substance. Couldn't find any. Exactly the sort of response I should expect from a company as awful as claimed in the book. In 'Disrupted' Dan claims the company is cultlike, ageist, sexist, and whiter than a Klan meeting. The book argues HubSpot is cruel and the management engages in childish as well as grossly abusive behavior. In the postscript even criminal behavior is alleged. I'm not sure whether Dan is a reliable source (and he certainly has his share of character flaws), but the book is utterly damning of HubSpot as a company. Unless HubSpot figures out how to counter some of the claims their reputation is (perhaps irredeemably) tarnished.
- swampthinker 11y ago
  What do you mean by substance?
  - username223 11y ago
    Well, this is the opposite of "substance": > improving our margins by 12 percentage points in Q4 2015 (non-GAAP) i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other." The rest was pretty standard damage control lip-flapping. Here's another good bit: > When people were fired did you actually call it a graduation? Unfortunately, yes. In certain groups we used the term graduation to describe the event when someone was leaving the company, either because they resigned or we let them go. The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.
    - swampthinker 11y ago
      >i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other." Numbers don't lie: http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db-22b2-4d98-bf1a-6dc4537e2286.html# http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db... > The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers. Because not everyone is fired from a company, sometimes they leave on their own accord?
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I thought that was a solid response, take ownership of some of the more egregious things, re-contextualize some of the impressions. But I was pretty amazed at the 12.6% annual turnover? That is 126 people a year, it would be interesting to know the mean and median tenure length. Its very expensive to replace that many people a year.
- buchanaf 11y ago
  While not knowing too much about the company, if they are indeed hiring predominately younger, recent college graduates, then that number isn't too crazy. Just ask investments banks, accounting firms, consulting firms, and other premier tech companies their turnover rates. I bet they are the same or worse, especially for younger employees.
  - devishard 11y ago
    ...maybe because those places are also shitty places to work?
- itsdrewmiller 11y ago
  It depends on what % of their workforce is sales. The average turnover rate there is quite a bit higher than 12% as far as I know. In IT depending on who you ask it may also average higher than that. With average age 29 they probably have a lot of people doing the 2-and-out salary ramp strategy as well.
- devishard 11y ago
  Turnover rate is one of the best indicators of whether a place is a good place to work. You can game most indicators without significantly impacting people's quality of life. But ultimately if people don't like working at your company they'll leave. You can delay that a bit by having equity take a while to vest but that doesn't prevent some people from leaving and when it does, it really only delays the turnover by the vestment period, doesn't change the rate.
  - collyw 11y ago
swampthinker 11y ago
My 2 cents (Well, 1 cent really): Something that stuck out to me when reading an article about Hubspot that Dan posted: "Hubspot's offices were colored bright like a Montessori school" as some type of criticism. However, having walked around their offices all too many times, I can say that it's orange and white splattered around a brick-and-glass warehouse[1]. Pretty standard way to brand your own offices, and stark contrast to Newsweek's offices[2]. If Dan is making a fuss about something like this, I'm really not inclined to take him too seriously, despite the good points he makes. [1]https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-area.jpg https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-area.jp... [2]http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles-large-image/articles/images/000_arp2469692.jpg http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles...
- xiaoma 11y ago
  Wait, so you think orange and white is more standard for an office than wood colored and white? The Newsweek office looks like it could be anywhere. There's nothing even remotely non-conventional about it. The Hubspot one screams pretentious start-up, probably in SF or someplace in the US following its lead.
  - swampthinker 11y ago
    Didn't say it was a standard office. I can appreciate a company doing something different like painting their walls orange. But to critique a company based on its colors just comes off as childish. Boohoo, the office is branded and colorful.
    - jbdigriz 11y ago
      It wasn't just colors - it's toys and candy walls and obvious childish behavior
      - swampthinker 11y ago
        Well then color me childish. Almost all co-working spaces in Boston have had free snacks and candy for years. Hubspot grew out of the CIC in Kendall, who are well known locally for having free candy and food. And I'm a happy camper here too.
762236 11y ago
Remember that this book is entertainment, and Lyons advertises it as entertainment. I have already forgotten everyone's names, and would have forgotten the company's name had it not come up in the news recently over this book. But the book has valid revelations about the industry (one reason I read the book was to hear this, since I am a software developer with lots of startup experience and now some big-company experience); and it also has sad material about poor inter-personal interactions with lots of covert aggression (which can happen in any industry, but it will be mitigated or exacerbated by company culture and the quality of the role models --- which is one reason you want elders in your company, for if you don't have role models and coaches, you are in for a sorry life). To make a book entertaining, you need material. This startup and some of the employees gave him lots of material that he didn't want. I think that Lyons would have been much happier if the startup had provided a flourishing environment rather than material for writing such a book. I do not think that he sought this out --- I've experienced a languishing environment and it is punishing. The irony is that (based on his telling of the story) people used quite a bit of covert aggression towards him, assuming that he would be some powerless guy out of fear of losing his job due to his age, yet he has power through an audience that will read his books, and the aggressors walked right into it with poor behavior.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  A similar thing happened to the Australian comedian Judith Lucy when she was a breakfast DJ for 2DayFM. She turned the experience into a stand up comedy tour called I Failed. http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--i-failed/2006/04/14/1144521489741.html http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--i-fa...
notajuggalo 11y ago
No mention in these comments or in the blog post of the FBI probe. How'd that fit in with their "culture" deck?
rdl 11y ago
I read the book on Sunday. I think there was a lot of selection bias -- a company which would hire a random journalist at a high salary to write blogspam, badly, and not fire him for underperformance, is the kind of company which will have asshats in various management roles, too. You end up with the bozo explosion. Imagine that book if he had gotten hired into a meaningful role at a company like SpaceX. I suppose that is ultimately what happened -- joined a great writing team at HBO and performed as well as the team.
- pjc50 11y ago
  Well, yes, that's the point of the book - war stories from an awful workplace.
cplease 11y ago
They are pleased that, to their knowledge, they employ over 100 parents. First of all, it's fricking telling that a company isn't even aware whether or not its own employees have kids, and has to resort to eyeballing insurance numbers. That kind of screams "doesn't give a crap," especially for a company which otherwise seems to feel a need to invade every aspect of its employees' lives. Google says HubSpot has 785 employees. i.e. 12.7% of their workforce has children. 75% of U.S. adults have children and only 5% do not want children. Granted that number might be lower in Singapore, but it's higher in Ireland. So this is basically a definitive admission that HubSpot is a workforce that is incompatible with having children, hostile to them, and in all likelihood actively discriminating against parents. And it doesn't take much probing to see why. Mr. Shah editorializes on the "over 40" statistic that it "needs work," but apparently not the fact that only 12% of its workforce is managing to raise a family (at least for the time being).
chris_wot 11y ago
"We were pulled into the process". Yeah, kicking and screaming, I'll bet!
obelix74 11y ago
The book is the "Liar's poker" for startups. Biased, cynical take, but worth a read if you are into startups / > 30 / work for an unicorn startup. I am disappointed with the post above, they did not address the FBI part of the question. What did Cranium do to get fired? How badly did they mess up Dan Lyons' life?

91 points by bognition 11y ago

As my mom says, class never goes out of style.

Good response, I'll give him that. It succeeds it bringing focus away from the fact that they tried to kill the book before it got published ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

bognition 11y ago
Trying to kill the book doesn't mean anything what company wouldn't try to kill a book like this?
- shockzzz 11y ago
  Could you expand on that more? From my perspective, there are a lot of ethical concerns with silencing opposing viewpoints. In fact, one of the execs was publicly admonished and fired because he tried to do so: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-cto-discuss-firing-of-companys-third-founder-over-ethical-lapse/ http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/07/30/hubspot-ceo-and-ct...
- imron 11y ago
  > what company wouldn't try to kill a book like this? Perhaps you mean what company wouldn't kill for a book like this. All publicity is good publicity, yada, yada, yada. I'd never heard of HubSpot before all this fuss, and I'm sure there are plenty of others like me. I'd be surprised if the whole thing didn't generate new customers for them.

SFLemonade 11y ago

Really impressive response - they took the high road here and the data was nice. The whole time I was reading the book, I just felt like something was off. Like he was sort of out of touch and hypocritical in a lot of his arguments (like accusing the company of ageism, right after complaining that his manager was 28). It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book before even taking a job at the company. Too many low-ball shots and unsubstantiated stories of hearsay. Glad to see the other side of this.

visakanv 11y ago
> It seemed like Dan may have wanted to write this book before even taking a job at the company. This seems pretty likely to me.
- ant6n 11y ago
  He worked at the company for 20 months. That's almost two years. If this was an undercover stunt, then he was pretty committed to this.
apapli 11y ago
I'd say 28 is still pretty young - when you look at the workforce ages between 20 and 60 odds are that individual is probably not even a quarter through their working life.
- SFLemonade 11y ago
  And your point? Companies like this realize that promoting / rewarding on results and competency, rather than age and tenure, is much more effective. But this is honestly nothing new. It was surprising to me that the author just couldn't wrap his mind around it, despite going to such lengths to convince the audience that he was some amazing and prestigious tech journalist. With stuff like this, I think he was intentionally ignorant ("What?? A young manager?? He would be an assistant at my beloved, ironically extinct and thus irrelevant Newsweek"), so as to appeal to an audience that just isn't familiar with the tech scene beyond what they see on TV.

55555 11y ago

I'm only a quarter of the way into the book, and it's really pretty funny, but also insufferably harsh and cynical and misanthropic and holier-than-thou and self-righteous and downright mean. Oh, and I guess I should apologize to Dan for being 25 and therefore knowing nothing at all and being useless. In my opinion as a business owner, the world doesnt owe you a job and if you immediately think you hate the place maybe you should quit. I understand that he had twins though (and thus was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons). I guess I'm not used to reading something so mean-spirited. Disclaimer: I don't work at HubSpot and they do indeed sound like a stock-pumping cult that has a large boiler room selling average software.

fleitz 11y ago
Every sausage factory needs a salesman. People who don't like the way the sausage is made, especially don't like the way sausage is sold.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
DKnoll 11y ago
I'm about halfway through. So far I find the book to be an amusing send up of startup culture. A bit like an updated version of Coupland's Microserfs with slightly more factual basis. Although, I am confused by his condemnation of HubSpot and his former colleagues for age discrimination when he regularly questions his colleagues for their own (lesser) age. Especially since many of his younger colleagues obviously had more industry experience since this was his first time working for and not writing about a tech company.
- galtwho 11y ago
  Dan has written on Linkedin a summary of his experience as well. 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...
  - 11y ago

rl3 11y ago

Sounds like the book was just sour grapes because the author didn't receive a J.E.D.I. award despite having so much H.E.A.R.T. Using a 128-slide PowerPoint presentation to convey their culture is ironic at best.

bognition 11y ago
How so?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- rl3 11y ago
  Overly verbose. Good culture isn't compromised of four-letter acronyms, or photos that suggest conflating professional and personal relationships is a good idea.
santaclaus 11y ago
I thought you were joking but the J.E.D.I. award is legit [1]. That slide deck is serious comedy gold. [1] http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-hubspot-culture-code-creating-a-company-we-love/82-exampleTHE_JEDI_AWARDAwarded_to_those http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-hubspot-culture-code-c...
- chris_wot 11y ago
  "Delightion" - apparently it should be a word.
ant6n 11y ago
He should've been more G.S.D and have more one-plus-one-equals-three-y results.

gizmo 11y ago

This entire post is just PR spin. I looked for substance. Couldn't find any. Exactly the sort of response I should expect from a company as awful as claimed in the book. In 'Disrupted' Dan claims the company is cultlike, ageist, sexist, and whiter than a Klan meeting. The book argues HubSpot is cruel and the management engages in childish as well as grossly abusive behavior. In the postscript even criminal behavior is alleged. I'm not sure whether Dan is a reliable source (and he certainly has his share of character flaws), but the book is utterly damning of HubSpot as a company. Unless HubSpot figures out how to counter some of the claims their reputation is (perhaps irredeemably) tarnished.

swampthinker 11y ago
What do you mean by substance?
- username223 11y ago
  Well, this is the opposite of "substance": > improving our margins by 12 percentage points in Q4 2015 (non-GAAP) i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other." The rest was pretty standard damage control lip-flapping. Here's another good bit: > When people were fired did you actually call it a graduation? Unfortunately, yes. In certain groups we used the term graduation to describe the event when someone was leaving the company, either because they resigned or we let them go. The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.
  - swampthinker 11y ago
    >i.e. not "Generally Accepted Accounting Practices," i.e. "we made up two numbers, and one of them was 12% larger than the other." Numbers don't lie: http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db-22b2-4d98-bf1a-6dc4537e2286.html# http://d1lge852tjjqow.cloudfront.net/CIK-0001404655/1ca8a3db... > The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers.The curse upon the undead creature which wrote this would not let the words "Yes, we called firing someone 'graduation'" pass its fingers. Because not everyone is fired from a company, sometimes they leave on their own accord?

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I thought that was a solid response, take ownership of some of the more egregious things, re-contextualize some of the impressions. But I was pretty amazed at the 12.6% annual turnover? That is 126 people a year, it would be interesting to know the mean and median tenure length. Its very expensive to replace that many people a year.

buchanaf 11y ago
While not knowing too much about the company, if they are indeed hiring predominately younger, recent college graduates, then that number isn't too crazy. Just ask investments banks, accounting firms, consulting firms, and other premier tech companies their turnover rates. I bet they are the same or worse, especially for younger employees.
- devishard 11y ago
  ...maybe because those places are also shitty places to work?
itsdrewmiller 11y ago
It depends on what % of their workforce is sales. The average turnover rate there is quite a bit higher than 12% as far as I know. In IT depending on who you ask it may also average higher than that. With average age 29 they probably have a lot of people doing the 2-and-out salary ramp strategy as well.
devishard 11y ago
Turnover rate is one of the best indicators of whether a place is a good place to work. You can game most indicators without significantly impacting people's quality of life. But ultimately if people don't like working at your company they'll leave. You can delay that a bit by having equity take a while to vest but that doesn't prevent some people from leaving and when it does, it really only delays the turnover by the vestment period, doesn't change the rate.
- collyw 11y ago

swampthinker 11y ago

My 2 cents (Well, 1 cent really): Something that stuck out to me when reading an article about Hubspot that Dan posted: "Hubspot's offices were colored bright like a Montessori school" as some type of criticism. However, having walked around their offices all too many times, I can say that it's orange and white splattered around a brick-and-glass warehouse[1]. Pretty standard way to brand your own offices, and stark contrast to Newsweek's offices[2]. If Dan is making a fuss about something like this, I'm really not inclined to take him too seriously, despite the good points he makes. [1]https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-area.jpg https://media.glassdoor.com/l/48/40/0b/62/new-lounge-area.jp... [2]http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles-large-image/articles/images/000_arp2469692.jpg http://www.dc4mf.org/sites/default/files/imagecache/articles...

xiaoma 11y ago
Wait, so you think orange and white is more standard for an office than wood colored and white? The Newsweek office looks like it could be anywhere. There's nothing even remotely non-conventional about it. The Hubspot one screams pretentious start-up, probably in SF or someplace in the US following its lead.
- swampthinker 11y ago
  Didn't say it was a standard office. I can appreciate a company doing something different like painting their walls orange. But to critique a company based on its colors just comes off as childish. Boohoo, the office is branded and colorful.
  - jbdigriz 11y ago
    It wasn't just colors - it's toys and candy walls and obvious childish behavior
    - swampthinker 11y ago
      Well then color me childish. Almost all co-working spaces in Boston have had free snacks and candy for years. Hubspot grew out of the CIC in Kendall, who are well known locally for having free candy and food. And I'm a happy camper here too.

762236 11y ago

Remember that this book is entertainment, and Lyons advertises it as entertainment. I have already forgotten everyone's names, and would have forgotten the company's name had it not come up in the news recently over this book. But the book has valid revelations about the industry (one reason I read the book was to hear this, since I am a software developer with lots of startup experience and now some big-company experience); and it also has sad material about poor inter-personal interactions with lots of covert aggression (which can happen in any industry, but it will be mitigated or exacerbated by company culture and the quality of the role models --- which is one reason you want elders in your company, for if you don't have role models and coaches, you are in for a sorry life). To make a book entertaining, you need material. This startup and some of the employees gave him lots of material that he didn't want. I think that Lyons would have been much happier if the startup had provided a flourishing environment rather than material for writing such a book. I do not think that he sought this out --- I've experienced a languishing environment and it is punishing. The irony is that (based on his telling of the story) people used quite a bit of covert aggression towards him, assuming that he would be some powerless guy out of fear of losing his job due to his age, yet he has power through an audience that will read his books, and the aggressors walked right into it with poor behavior.

chris_wot 11y ago
A similar thing happened to the Australian comedian Judith Lucy when she was a breakfast DJ for 2DayFM. She turned the experience into a stand up comedy tour called I Failed. http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--i-failed/2006/04/14/1144521489741.html http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts-reviews/judith-lucy--i-fa...

notajuggalo 11y ago

No mention in these comments or in the blog post of the FBI probe. How'd that fit in with their "culture" deck?

rdl 11y ago

I read the book on Sunday. I think there was a lot of selection bias -- a company which would hire a random journalist at a high salary to write blogspam, badly, and not fire him for underperformance, is the kind of company which will have asshats in various management roles, too. You end up with the bozo explosion. Imagine that book if he had gotten hired into a meaningful role at a company like SpaceX. I suppose that is ultimately what happened -- joined a great writing team at HBO and performed as well as the team.

pjc50 11y ago
Well, yes, that's the point of the book - war stories from an awful workplace.

cplease 11y ago

They are pleased that, to their knowledge, they employ over 100 parents. First of all, it's fricking telling that a company isn't even aware whether or not its own employees have kids, and has to resort to eyeballing insurance numbers. That kind of screams "doesn't give a crap," especially for a company which otherwise seems to feel a need to invade every aspect of its employees' lives. Google says HubSpot has 785 employees. i.e. 12.7% of their workforce has children. 75% of U.S. adults have children and only 5% do not want children. Granted that number might be lower in Singapore, but it's higher in Ireland. So this is basically a definitive admission that HubSpot is a workforce that is incompatible with having children, hostile to them, and in all likelihood actively discriminating against parents. And it doesn't take much probing to see why. Mr. Shah editorializes on the "over 40" statistic that it "needs work," but apparently not the fact that only 12% of its workforce is managing to raise a family (at least for the time being).

chris_wot 11y ago

"We were pulled into the process". Yeah, kicking and screaming, I'll bet!

obelix74 11y ago

The book is the "Liar's poker" for startups. Biased, cynical take, but worth a read if you are into startups / > 30 / work for an unicorn startup. I am disappointed with the post above, they did not address the FBI part of the question. What did Cranium do to get fired? How badly did they mess up Dan Lyons' life?