13 ms·

Jason Calacanis at his finest

219 points by anderzole 17y ago

shrikant 17y ago
http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12440647847 http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12440647847 There's no way I'm doing more work tonight. I'm done. Have to quit kidding myself. 11:12 AM Apr 19th A day before he sent the resignation email.
rikthevik 17y ago
Classy.
lanstein 17y ago
You almost wonder if there's messages missing from this middle of this. Incredible.
crad 17y ago
This was posted on Evan Culver's blog and made it to the front page of hn the day after it happened. It was deleted off of HN shortly after being posted. It was originally on http://evanculver.posterous.com/ http://evanculver.posterous.com/ but he appears to have since removed it. Edit: Adding original link bit.
tlack 17y ago
I feel like if we knew who he quit to go work for, we'd have a better idea of why Mr. Calacanis was so upset. Must have been a powerful direct competitor - I hope..
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  We do know: Yahoo @evanculver Good luck at Yahoo, dude. It's not as dead as some say, as is evidenced by the excellent code they churn out. -- http://twitter.com/codeshaman/status/12584315658 http://twitter.com/codeshaman/status/12584315658 @codeshaman Thank you sir. I was going to delay the announcement, but you know, people do things that make you jumpy. -- http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12585519584 http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12585519584
  - mrkurt 17y ago
    That makes me wonder, has Yahoo laid off more or less employees (proportionally) than Mahalo?
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      No need to wonder, considerably more, but they've also hired considerably more.
      - brk 17y ago
        Of course they've hired considerably more, I think that's why the parent to your comment said "(proportionally)".
        jacquesm 17y ago
        I could have sworn that wasn't there when I first answered. /me needs glasses ?
        mrkurt 17y ago
        It's an eisenclarification! It was there. :)
        jacquesm 17y ago
        I believe you. But I've fallen in to the habit of quoting the bits I'm replying to just to make sure I'm not hallucinating, after the fact edits which make your comments look like you're an idiot happen all too often. Literal quoting seems to be a good protection against that.
  - Aetius 17y ago
    Yahoo is not only dead, it is a large, rotting carcass on the landscape of the web. To imply otherwise suggests a lack of critical thinking.
- prawn 17y ago
  What does he always say? 'Peace and love'? It's a really insightful and petulant reaction to what I thought was a perfectly nice resignation note from the Evan guy.
staunch 17y ago
I think it's best if this doesn't get killed for the 20th time. It's clearly not going to go away until it's had the usual rise and fall on HN.
MikeCapone 17y ago
This wasn't meant to be public, but then, lots of things that aren't meant to be public should be to deter people from being total jerks. I think this falls in this category. And I say this as someone who used to quite enjoy Calacanis's podcasts a few years ago.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  Actually just not wanting to be a jerk should deter one from being a jerk, public or not.
  - MikeCapone 17y ago
    If jerks thought like that, they wouldn't be jerks...
37prime 17y ago
Seriously, Jason Calacanis has not done anything considered smart since he sold Weblogs, Inc. to AOL. Other than that he's not a graceful entrepreneur and an attention seeker (I refrain myself from using a harsher term).
- jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
  1. Mahalo is a top 200 site, over 10M uniques and operationally profitable. 2. Open Angel Forum has been hosting in five cities in the first four months of 2010. 3. I've done seven angel investments including gdgt.com, gowalla.com and blippy.com. 4. TechCrunch50 has made millions of dollars, but more importantly launched amazing startups like Mint.com, Powerset and yammer. 5. This Week in Startups about to have it's one-year anniversary and advertising has been sold out for two years. Also, ThisWeekIn.com is closing a small angel round and have almost 10 shows. 6. ON the board of Savings.com, GDGT and another company not yet announced. I'd list ten more things... but it would start to get a little silly. I'm getting a lot done these days, but you are correct I'm far from graceful. I'm blunt and to the point... sometimes I say things in private, or public, that I shouldn't. A private thing that should have stayed private is now public. Yawn. There is more to the story, but I'm not going to comment HR issues publicly--that would not be professional. Part of me would love to unload however. best j
  - mrkurt 17y ago
    You already have been commenting on HR issues publicly. Why stop now?
  - tbrooks 17y ago
    "A private thing that should have stayed private is now public." Funny... Sam Odio thought the same thing. http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2010/03/confession-i-was-one-who-came-forward.php http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2010/03/confession-i-was-one-who...
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Touché, I'd completely forgotten about that little gem.
mg1313 17y ago
Funny how he is preaching one thing but does another...
ck2 17y ago
I've never worked at a company where I tried to be professional and gave 2 weeks notice and was NOT immediately shown the door (hence I learned to prepare and not be surprised). Does it really happen in this day and age? Don't companies lockout high value employees immediately as a matter of security and anti-sabotage?
- jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
  correct.
  - danudey 17y ago
    But you can do that without sounding like a jerkass. e.g. instead of 'never return, do not attempt to contact us', you could say 'We're sorry to see you go. Monday will be your last day, come in to pick up your belongings and say goodbye and we'll all go out for lunch.' Just because other companies do it doesn't mean you have to act like a jerk when you do it too.
  - benmathes 17y ago
    Planning on everyone else being a dick means you end up treating everyone like a dick. It might save you from the few people are _are_ dicks, but in the end you're just fucking yourself. With dicks.
- aidenn0 17y ago
  I've seen several people leave at places I've worked, but never seen one of them locked out. When people are asked to "resign" I've seen them told to finish out their paid term at home, but that's obviously a lot more confrontational than someone who chooses to leave.
  - ryanhuff 17y ago
    It happens all of the time. For many situations, there is considerable risk in letting somebody hang around for two weeks. The employee's mind is going to be elsewhere. He will be excited about the new job, and eager to talk to co-workers about the move. The employee may even decide to save some of his more valuable work to use in the next gig. The manager is almost always better off by letting the departing employee off immediately to hedge risk. You pay him for the two weeks, and let him sit at home. What I find most puzzling is why announce the resignation via email? This is almost always best done face to face, or at least via phone. Doing this electronically strikes me as immature.
jacquesm 17y ago
Suggested rewrite: Hey Evan, We're mighty sorry, but we understand. If things don't work out at yahoo! as planned we want you to know the door is always open to return, after all we hate to see you go. Please tell the rest of your team that you go with our blessing and that we look forward to seeing you do great things in the future. We all know if there is one thing they need over there it is quality people. Since we still owe you more vacation days than your severance we can of course not hold you to stay longer but we'd really appreciate it if you could somehow squeeze out an extra few days to transfer your duties to John, of course we'll compensate you for that. All the best! j
- hugh3 17y ago
  I think it would be legitimate to express some disappointment that the employee decided to tell you he was resigning via a mass email rather than in person or even via a phone call.
  - exit 17y ago
    a mass email to 3 addresses?
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Agreed, that would have been more classy. But as these emails go (and they do, I've been on the receiving end of a few of those) it's about as good as they get.
  - detst 17y ago
    Considering Jason's response, I would think Evan had good reason to think that a phone call might not offer him the opportunity to properly express why he's leaving and his appreciation for the job. He may also not want to subject himself to such treatment on the phone.
- endgame 17y ago
  That's good. It reminds me of TheDailyWTF's piece on a "culture of quitting": http://thedailywtf.com/articles/up-or-out-solving-the-it-turnover-crisis.aspx http://thedailywtf.com/articles/up-or-out-solving-the-it-tur... It would be ideal if an employee parting ways didn't seem like a betrayal or bad break-up.
misuba 17y ago
Takeaway: if it's email, it's on a server somewhere; if it's on a server somewhere, it's best to assume it'll be public record someday. If it's an outburst, maybe you should do it by phone.
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  No matter how many times people are reminded of this, they will continue to make the same mistake. And it will continue to be amusing gossip for the rest of us :)
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Someone a few days ago on here in another thread mentioned that the 'e' in email stands for evidence, I should probably tape that to my monitor.
jayliew 17y ago
Having been through a few conflicts myself, as an independent observer and as one of the parties in the conflict .. I'm not taking sides, but just wanting to note that although the employer definitely could have handled it better, I have a feeling we're only scratching the tip of the surface and we don't know much what really happened between the employer-employee. The "pack and get out now" is actually very standard upon resignation, but more so for sales people, less engineers, unless .. there's something going on (which obviously we don't know). Btw, as the employee: resigning via email is also not very classy, and could be done better: e.g. handing an official resignation letter in person to your direct superior face to face. Just a suggestion. Also, if you want to air your dirty laundry, come forth with the stuff that you didn't tell us about. There's 2 kinds of lies: (1) commission: you explicitly fabricate non-facts (2) omission: where you fail to mention details that matter Both are still lies. I think the employee knows how snowball started, but is refraining from telling the public. Which if that was the case, perhaps it shouldn't have been brought to light in the first place - because that'd mean the employee wants public to make a decision street-justice-style based on incomplete information.
- kwyjibo 17y ago
  Is 2 weeks notice common in the USA? Here in Europe it's 1 month or 3 months, depending on what contract you have.
  - jayliew 17y ago
    2 weeks is courtesy, and standard. In California, it's "at will" employment .. meaning, the employee can quit with or without notice, but the employee can also fire, with or without notice. That said, there's a lot of labor laws to comply with, so companies in practice don't just fire people at will (they can be sued by the now ex-employee). But yeah, in this part of the world, 2 weeks is courtesy. No courtesy is rude, and you're "burning the bridge".
    - joezydeco 17y ago
      Actually, it's the opposite. The moment you give the employee a reason, you open the door to a lawsuit. The best way to let someone go is simply say "your services are no longer required" and leave it at that.
run4yourlives 17y ago
I'm just going to ask a question to the 110 people that voted for this "story". Do we really think it's appropriate to air a company's dirty laundry and/or conflicts on Hacker News? I mean, that's the type of shit they do over at TMZ isn't it? Gossip about people? I don't care who's an ass, who's been wronged and who has sand in their ovaries today. I don't come to HN for this.
- ajg1977 17y ago
  Well said. Lately many of the items posted on HN seem to be more about drama than thought provoking subjects.
- hugh3 17y ago
  I think it's a valuable case study in employee relations gone wrong. Hopefully someday, in years to come, somebody on the verge of writing a similar email will suddenly remember this story and think better of it.
- whalesalad 17y ago
  I'm glad that this was posted. I applied to Mahalo a few days ago because it's a Django gig in southern California. I was hesitant to apply because of some of the stories I had heard about Jason. However, I try to judge things as I see them, and wanted to give it a shot. I'm glad that this came out, because it's given me some more perspective on Mahalo and Jason.
  - cookiecaper 17y ago
    I saw ads for Mahalo on CL in the last few days too and have purposely avoided them because I don't want the tarnishment of either Mahalo (a mass spammer) or Jason on my resume or psyche.
- _delirium 17y ago
  I guess I'd be happy to have an HN that was just technical content, with no VC/startup/funding/biz stuff at all. But if we're going to have it, might as well have the bad stuff too, not just the horn-tooting TechCrunch links...
pg 17y ago
Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath after hearing half of a story, then look like fools when the second half emerges. I don't like to think how many times I've been fooled myself, between Reddit and HN. It would be nice if Internet culture could evolve to reserve judgment when a story like this appeared, in the same way it has evolved not to trust any story that appears in a much-forwarded email. I would be proud if HN was the place that mutation began.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  > For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Line 46-48 in that email are pretty clear. Gracious and leaving, maybe in person would have been better, but as those emails come it is pretty good. It's not as though he was fired.
  - Element_ 17y ago
    Yes but for all you know he could have just spent thousands sending him to conferences or some other specialized training only to have him turn around and quit for a competitor. (I have no idea if that's the case but have seen things like that happen at other businesses) Either way it would be nice if hacker news didn't focus on this drama.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      I've been an employer, and even though stuff like that happens, that's life and you have to calculate that in. But Evan clearly does not seem to be aware of any reason like that, he's literally clearly confused about the amount of venom that gets thrown his way, for exercising a right that every employee has, to hand in their notice. To go to work for a large company like Yahoo and to be allowed to work on an open source project is in and off itself plenty of reason to switch and any mature employer would recognize that.
penang9 17y ago
This email exchange is the equivalent of breaking up with your girlfriend over a text message and letting her know that you will now start dating her roommate. Obviously, there is no right way of letting someone know that they are no longer what you desire, but sending an email at 10 o'clock at night is hardly the right approach. How about "Hey Jason, I have some rather bad news that I need to share with you, are you free for a cup of coffee right now; it's an urgent matter." At least have the decency to say it to you his face. I'm an undergraduate student at University of Texas with entrepreneurial ambitions who met Jason personally at SxSW for the first time. I am pretty much a nobody and yet he treated me with utmost respect and was a pleasure to talk to. Personal relationships are a delicate matter. You can't use a computer to solve all your issues.
- jayliew 17y ago
  are you from penang? ping me if so
jsz0 17y ago
If the point of the story is sometimes people say moderately unpleasant things I would fully agree. Some people choose to self-censor, some don't. Personal choice really.
jonknee 17y ago
At least everyone else at Mahalo now knows how to leave the company--no hints and fuck yous on the way out. Don't let Jason beat you to the punch. Bonus points if you quit during the most critical time of a time sensitive project.
alexro 17y ago
Jason shall not bother about employees. His money-making Spam-machine is already doing magics. And will probably continue to run even if all workers leave.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
theBobMcCormick 17y ago
It never ceases to amaze me the entitlement mentality that some employers have. When they decide to lay off a group of employees, it's just business. But when an employ quits to peruse other opportunities suddenly it's a big betrayal and "how could they be so disloyal". (obviously this only applies to some employers. I've worked for some employers who were very compassionate and mature for both layoffs and resignations).
c0d3c 17y ago
if he joins a competitor, he should be removed asap. it's bad for morale and company ip. who cares about jason cala... whatever the fuck his name is.
cookiecaper 17y ago
Link is dead. It says it will be back in a few minutes but hasn't been back for more than an hour. Anyone have a mirror?
- rokhayakebe 17y ago
  google cache
- omd 17y ago
  Google cache: http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:h1M0xdV67_EJ:pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0+pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0 http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:h1M0xdV67_EJ:pastebin.co...

219 points by anderzole 17y ago

http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12440647847 http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12440647847 There's no way I'm doing more work tonight. I'm done. Have to quit kidding myself. 11:12 AM Apr 19th A day before he sent the resignation email.

rikthevik 17y ago

Classy.

lanstein 17y ago

You almost wonder if there's messages missing from this middle of this. Incredible.

crad 17y ago

This was posted on Evan Culver's blog and made it to the front page of hn the day after it happened. It was deleted off of HN shortly after being posted. It was originally on http://evanculver.posterous.com/ http://evanculver.posterous.com/ but he appears to have since removed it. Edit: Adding original link bit.

tlack 17y ago

I feel like if we knew who he quit to go work for, we'd have a better idea of why Mr. Calacanis was so upset. Must have been a powerful direct competitor - I hope..

Frazzydee 17y ago
We do know: Yahoo @evanculver Good luck at Yahoo, dude. It's not as dead as some say, as is evidenced by the excellent code they churn out. -- http://twitter.com/codeshaman/status/12584315658 http://twitter.com/codeshaman/status/12584315658 @codeshaman Thank you sir. I was going to delay the announcement, but you know, people do things that make you jumpy. -- http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12585519584 http://twitter.com/evanculver/status/12585519584
- mrkurt 17y ago
  That makes me wonder, has Yahoo laid off more or less employees (proportionally) than Mahalo?
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    No need to wonder, considerably more, but they've also hired considerably more.
    - brk 17y ago
      Of course they've hired considerably more, I think that's why the parent to your comment said "(proportionally)".
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        I could have sworn that wasn't there when I first answered. /me needs glasses ?
        mrkurt 17y ago
        It's an eisenclarification! It was there. :)
        jacquesm 17y ago
        I believe you. But I've fallen in to the habit of quoting the bits I'm replying to just to make sure I'm not hallucinating, after the fact edits which make your comments look like you're an idiot happen all too often. Literal quoting seems to be a good protection against that.
- Aetius 17y ago
  Yahoo is not only dead, it is a large, rotting carcass on the landscape of the web. To imply otherwise suggests a lack of critical thinking.
prawn 17y ago
What does he always say? 'Peace and love'? It's a really insightful and petulant reaction to what I thought was a perfectly nice resignation note from the Evan guy.

staunch 17y ago

I think it's best if this doesn't get killed for the 20th time. It's clearly not going to go away until it's had the usual rise and fall on HN.

MikeCapone 17y ago

This wasn't meant to be public, but then, lots of things that aren't meant to be public should be to deter people from being total jerks. I think this falls in this category. And I say this as someone who used to quite enjoy Calacanis's podcasts a few years ago.

nfnaaron 17y ago
Actually just not wanting to be a jerk should deter one from being a jerk, public or not.
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  If jerks thought like that, they wouldn't be jerks...

37prime 17y ago

Seriously, Jason Calacanis has not done anything considered smart since he sold Weblogs, Inc. to AOL. Other than that he's not a graceful entrepreneur and an attention seeker (I refrain myself from using a harsher term).

jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
1. Mahalo is a top 200 site, over 10M uniques and operationally profitable. 2. Open Angel Forum has been hosting in five cities in the first four months of 2010. 3. I've done seven angel investments including gdgt.com, gowalla.com and blippy.com. 4. TechCrunch50 has made millions of dollars, but more importantly launched amazing startups like Mint.com, Powerset and yammer. 5. This Week in Startups about to have it's one-year anniversary and advertising has been sold out for two years. Also, ThisWeekIn.com is closing a small angel round and have almost 10 shows. 6. ON the board of Savings.com, GDGT and another company not yet announced. I'd list ten more things... but it would start to get a little silly. I'm getting a lot done these days, but you are correct I'm far from graceful. I'm blunt and to the point... sometimes I say things in private, or public, that I shouldn't. A private thing that should have stayed private is now public. Yawn. There is more to the story, but I'm not going to comment HR issues publicly--that would not be professional. Part of me would love to unload however. best j
- mrkurt 17y ago
  You already have been commenting on HR issues publicly. Why stop now?
- tbrooks 17y ago
  "A private thing that should have stayed private is now public." Funny... Sam Odio thought the same thing. http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2010/03/confession-i-was-one-who-came-forward.php http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2010/03/confession-i-was-one-who...
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    Touché, I'd completely forgotten about that little gem.

mg1313 17y ago

Funny how he is preaching one thing but does another...

ck2 17y ago

I've never worked at a company where I tried to be professional and gave 2 weeks notice and was NOT immediately shown the door (hence I learned to prepare and not be surprised). Does it really happen in this day and age? Don't companies lockout high value employees immediately as a matter of security and anti-sabotage?

jasonmcalacanis 17y ago
correct.
- danudey 17y ago
  But you can do that without sounding like a jerkass. e.g. instead of 'never return, do not attempt to contact us', you could say 'We're sorry to see you go. Monday will be your last day, come in to pick up your belongings and say goodbye and we'll all go out for lunch.' Just because other companies do it doesn't mean you have to act like a jerk when you do it too.
- benmathes 17y ago
  Planning on everyone else being a dick means you end up treating everyone like a dick. It might save you from the few people are _are_ dicks, but in the end you're just fucking yourself. With dicks.
aidenn0 17y ago
I've seen several people leave at places I've worked, but never seen one of them locked out. When people are asked to "resign" I've seen them told to finish out their paid term at home, but that's obviously a lot more confrontational than someone who chooses to leave.
- ryanhuff 17y ago
  It happens all of the time. For many situations, there is considerable risk in letting somebody hang around for two weeks. The employee's mind is going to be elsewhere. He will be excited about the new job, and eager to talk to co-workers about the move. The employee may even decide to save some of his more valuable work to use in the next gig. The manager is almost always better off by letting the departing employee off immediately to hedge risk. You pay him for the two weeks, and let him sit at home. What I find most puzzling is why announce the resignation via email? This is almost always best done face to face, or at least via phone. Doing this electronically strikes me as immature.

jacquesm 17y ago

Suggested rewrite: Hey Evan, We're mighty sorry, but we understand. If things don't work out at yahoo! as planned we want you to know the door is always open to return, after all we hate to see you go. Please tell the rest of your team that you go with our blessing and that we look forward to seeing you do great things in the future. We all know if there is one thing they need over there it is quality people. Since we still owe you more vacation days than your severance we can of course not hold you to stay longer but we'd really appreciate it if you could somehow squeeze out an extra few days to transfer your duties to John, of course we'll compensate you for that. All the best! j

hugh3 17y ago
I think it would be legitimate to express some disappointment that the employee decided to tell you he was resigning via a mass email rather than in person or even via a phone call.
- exit 17y ago
  a mass email to 3 addresses?
- jacquesm 17y ago
  Agreed, that would have been more classy. But as these emails go (and they do, I've been on the receiving end of a few of those) it's about as good as they get.
- detst 17y ago
  Considering Jason's response, I would think Evan had good reason to think that a phone call might not offer him the opportunity to properly express why he's leaving and his appreciation for the job. He may also not want to subject himself to such treatment on the phone.
endgame 17y ago
That's good. It reminds me of TheDailyWTF's piece on a "culture of quitting": http://thedailywtf.com/articles/up-or-out-solving-the-it-turnover-crisis.aspx http://thedailywtf.com/articles/up-or-out-solving-the-it-tur... It would be ideal if an employee parting ways didn't seem like a betrayal or bad break-up.

misuba 17y ago

Takeaway: if it's email, it's on a server somewhere; if it's on a server somewhere, it's best to assume it'll be public record someday. If it's an outburst, maybe you should do it by phone.

Frazzydee 17y ago
No matter how many times people are reminded of this, they will continue to make the same mistake. And it will continue to be amusing gossip for the rest of us :)
jacquesm 17y ago
Someone a few days ago on here in another thread mentioned that the 'e' in email stands for evidence, I should probably tape that to my monitor.

jayliew 17y ago

Having been through a few conflicts myself, as an independent observer and as one of the parties in the conflict .. I'm not taking sides, but just wanting to note that although the employer definitely could have handled it better, I have a feeling we're only scratching the tip of the surface and we don't know much what really happened between the employer-employee. The "pack and get out now" is actually very standard upon resignation, but more so for sales people, less engineers, unless .. there's something going on (which obviously we don't know). Btw, as the employee: resigning via email is also not very classy, and could be done better: e.g. handing an official resignation letter in person to your direct superior face to face. Just a suggestion. Also, if you want to air your dirty laundry, come forth with the stuff that you didn't tell us about. There's 2 kinds of lies: (1) commission: you explicitly fabricate non-facts (2) omission: where you fail to mention details that matter Both are still lies. I think the employee knows how snowball started, but is refraining from telling the public. Which if that was the case, perhaps it shouldn't have been brought to light in the first place - because that'd mean the employee wants public to make a decision street-justice-style based on incomplete information.

kwyjibo 17y ago
Is 2 weeks notice common in the USA? Here in Europe it's 1 month or 3 months, depending on what contract you have.
- jayliew 17y ago
  2 weeks is courtesy, and standard. In California, it's "at will" employment .. meaning, the employee can quit with or without notice, but the employee can also fire, with or without notice. That said, there's a lot of labor laws to comply with, so companies in practice don't just fire people at will (they can be sued by the now ex-employee). But yeah, in this part of the world, 2 weeks is courtesy. No courtesy is rude, and you're "burning the bridge".
  - joezydeco 17y ago
    Actually, it's the opposite. The moment you give the employee a reason, you open the door to a lawsuit. The best way to let someone go is simply say "your services are no longer required" and leave it at that.

run4yourlives 17y ago

I'm just going to ask a question to the 110 people that voted for this "story". Do we really think it's appropriate to air a company's dirty laundry and/or conflicts on Hacker News? I mean, that's the type of shit they do over at TMZ isn't it? Gossip about people? I don't care who's an ass, who's been wronged and who has sand in their ovaries today. I don't come to HN for this.

ajg1977 17y ago
Well said. Lately many of the items posted on HN seem to be more about drama than thought provoking subjects.
hugh3 17y ago
I think it's a valuable case study in employee relations gone wrong. Hopefully someday, in years to come, somebody on the verge of writing a similar email will suddenly remember this story and think better of it.
whalesalad 17y ago
I'm glad that this was posted. I applied to Mahalo a few days ago because it's a Django gig in southern California. I was hesitant to apply because of some of the stories I had heard about Jason. However, I try to judge things as I see them, and wanted to give it a shot. I'm glad that this came out, because it's given me some more perspective on Mahalo and Jason.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  I saw ads for Mahalo on CL in the last few days too and have purposely avoided them because I don't want the tarnishment of either Mahalo (a mass spammer) or Jason on my resume or psyche.
_delirium 17y ago
I guess I'd be happy to have an HN that was just technical content, with no VC/startup/funding/biz stuff at all. But if we're going to have it, might as well have the bad stuff too, not just the horn-tooting TechCrunch links...

pg 17y ago

Let's be fair here. For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Or not. But if he did, Jason couldn't say so. We just don't know. But what we do know is that this is exactly the kind of half-story that gets people going on forums: an antagonist everyone loves to hate, and structural reasons why we're probably not getting the whole story. Many, many times I've seen users on a forum go on the warpath after hearing half of a story, then look like fools when the second half emerges. I don't like to think how many times I've been fooled myself, between Reddit and HN. It would be nice if Internet culture could evolve to reserve judgment when a story like this appeared, in the same way it has evolved not to trust any story that appears in a much-forwarded email. I would be proud if HN was the place that mutation began.

jacquesm 17y ago
> For all we know, the guy might have done something quite bad. Line 46-48 in that email are pretty clear. Gracious and leaving, maybe in person would have been better, but as those emails come it is pretty good. It's not as though he was fired.
- Element_ 17y ago
  Yes but for all you know he could have just spent thousands sending him to conferences or some other specialized training only to have him turn around and quit for a competitor. (I have no idea if that's the case but have seen things like that happen at other businesses) Either way it would be nice if hacker news didn't focus on this drama.
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I've been an employer, and even though stuff like that happens, that's life and you have to calculate that in. But Evan clearly does not seem to be aware of any reason like that, he's literally clearly confused about the amount of venom that gets thrown his way, for exercising a right that every employee has, to hand in their notice. To go to work for a large company like Yahoo and to be allowed to work on an open source project is in and off itself plenty of reason to switch and any mature employer would recognize that.

penang9 17y ago

This email exchange is the equivalent of breaking up with your girlfriend over a text message and letting her know that you will now start dating her roommate. Obviously, there is no right way of letting someone know that they are no longer what you desire, but sending an email at 10 o'clock at night is hardly the right approach. How about "Hey Jason, I have some rather bad news that I need to share with you, are you free for a cup of coffee right now; it's an urgent matter." At least have the decency to say it to you his face. I'm an undergraduate student at University of Texas with entrepreneurial ambitions who met Jason personally at SxSW for the first time. I am pretty much a nobody and yet he treated me with utmost respect and was a pleasure to talk to. Personal relationships are a delicate matter. You can't use a computer to solve all your issues.

jayliew 17y ago
are you from penang? ping me if so

jsz0 17y ago

If the point of the story is sometimes people say moderately unpleasant things I would fully agree. Some people choose to self-censor, some don't. Personal choice really.

jonknee 17y ago

At least everyone else at Mahalo now knows how to leave the company--no hints and fuck yous on the way out. Don't let Jason beat you to the punch. Bonus points if you quit during the most critical time of a time sensitive project.

alexro 17y ago

Jason shall not bother about employees. His money-making Spam-machine is already doing magics. And will probably continue to run even if all workers leave.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

theBobMcCormick 17y ago

It never ceases to amaze me the entitlement mentality that some employers have. When they decide to lay off a group of employees, it's just business. But when an employ quits to peruse other opportunities suddenly it's a big betrayal and "how could they be so disloyal". (obviously this only applies to some employers. I've worked for some employers who were very compassionate and mature for both layoffs and resignations).

c0d3c 17y ago

if he joins a competitor, he should be removed asap. it's bad for morale and company ip. who cares about jason cala... whatever the fuck his name is.

cookiecaper 17y ago

Link is dead. It says it will be back in a few minutes but hasn't been back for more than an hour. Anyone have a mirror?

rokhayakebe 17y ago
google cache
omd 17y ago
Google cache: http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:h1M0xdV67_EJ:pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0+pastebin.com/PSY4iYZ0 http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:h1M0xdV67_EJ:pastebin.co...