7 ms·

If we're going to celebrate failure can we at least fail with respect, humility, and maybe even a tiny bit of class? The word "sorry" does not appear in this p

If we're going to celebrate failure can we at least fail with respect, humility, and maybe even a tiny bit of class? The word "sorry" does not appear in this post. Instead of apologizing to investors, users, and employees for letting all of them down the CEO writes a contentless self-aggrandizing post. The CEO also doesn't bother to thank anyone despite being literally and metaphorically indebted to investors, users, and employees for getting as far as they did. [Update: there was "gratitude" - my mistake; sorry] Besides the self-aggrandizing "we did it first" tone of the whole post, here are a few more parts I'd love to see future farewell posts skip: > it’s often the pioneers who end up with arrows in their backs Unless your point is that you were a company who tried to take what wasn't yours and was punished for it... this phrase is awkward-at-best. > I called these “Friends of ClusterHQ” by the sobriquet “FoCkers” The use of "sobriquet" doesn't make your adolescent play on words classy. > The big successes are literally impossible without the many failures. Take a moment to think about that. What a ridiculous thing to tell your audience that includes employees looking for jobs, investors out of money, and users without a service they may have depended on. Out of those 3 groups only investors care about such things. The other 2 groups are collateral damage to your hubris.

cryptarch 10y ago
> I called these “Friends of ClusterHQ” by the sobriquet “FoCkers” To me this just sounds like a shot at irony by combining crudity with eloquence, fully agree with your sentiment though. Mark Davis is pretty tone-deaf, it reads like "hahaha good times, didn't we have a good run, FoCkers?" while the message is "here's a bunch of problems and you probably need to work overtime".
danpalmer 10y ago
> The CEO also doesn't bother to thank anyone despite being literally and metaphorically indebted to investors, users, and employees for getting as far as they did. "To all the employees, customers, users, investors, advisors, partners, competitors, consultants, analysts, and vendors who helped us – there are thousands of you, and you know who you are – please accept our enduring, deeply felt gratitude."
- schmichael 10y ago
  Missed that; thanks for correcting me. So at least there's one line of "thanks"
hoodoof 10y ago
Unless an investor additionally gave a loan, there is no debt owed in any way to investors - that's the point, they made a decision to invest at risk and presumably did due diligence based on accurate information.
- Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
  Errr, wait what? Firstly, to say there's no debt, monetary or otherwise, to someone who believed in your company enough to hand over their own money (or money in their control) to back you is just pure arrogance. Secondly, there absolutely is debt. When a company goes into administration the assets are sold to pay out those who hold equity in the company. They're literally owed debt. EDIT: To clarify for those responding saying that equity does not constitute debt... Creditors and investors are different, absolutely. It is also correct that investors are typically paid last during administration (although investors may form agreements to come before other investors). Nonetheless, during administration, the administrator determines how much money the investors are "owed", which is literally the definition of debt.
  - stevewilhelm 10y ago
    > When a company goes into administration the assets are sold to pay out those who hold equity in the company. They're literally owed debt. This is incorrect. Please see the differences between equity and debt. [1] [1] http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/business-finances/debt-vs-equity-advantages-and-disadvantages.html http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/business-finances/debt-vs-e...
  - dexterdog 10y ago
    They're not owed debt. They own a piece of the company. When the assets are liquidated they will get their share unless they are on the shit-end of a liquidation preference clause.
  - mark212 10y ago
    not to quibble, but no, they're not literally owed debt. The assets of the company are used to pay off any actual debt (payroll taxes, outstanding invoices to vendors, etc). Only then is any remaining money distributed to the equity holders. They take absolutely last.
cookiecaper 10y ago
I think he's trying to keep his employees optimistic and happy. Like the investors, surely they knew that getting involved in an early-stage company was risky, but they were willing to do it because they were excited by the prospects, committed to the vision, or similar. While it is clear that the post was not written by a management professional, as a completely uninvolved individual, I personally didn't find the authentic, human tone jarring. I understand more directly involved people may feel differently. I don't know what ClusterHQ did, but presumably they may have some users for whom the abrupt shutdown is inconvenient at best, especially if their company depended on whatever this is in production and now they have to try to fix it 3 days before Xmas with 40% of the company's staff on leave and the remaining 60% mentally checked out. I think that's the only group that this post disrespects. It would've been nice if he could have at least offered some alternatives, announced the shutdown ahead of time, or given some sort of migration path.
closeparen 10y ago
Is there a service that's shutting down? As I understand it, Flocker is an open source product you're meant to self-host.
stevelandiss 10y ago
Dude, chill.

cryptarch 10y ago

> I called these “Friends of ClusterHQ” by the sobriquet “FoCkers” To me this just sounds like a shot at irony by combining crudity with eloquence, fully agree with your sentiment though. Mark Davis is pretty tone-deaf, it reads like "hahaha good times, didn't we have a good run, FoCkers?" while the message is "here's a bunch of problems and you probably need to work overtime".

danpalmer 10y ago

> The CEO also doesn't bother to thank anyone despite being literally and metaphorically indebted to investors, users, and employees for getting as far as they did. "To all the employees, customers, users, investors, advisors, partners, competitors, consultants, analysts, and vendors who helped us – there are thousands of you, and you know who you are – please accept our enduring, deeply felt gratitude."

schmichael 10y ago
Missed that; thanks for correcting me. So at least there's one line of "thanks"

hoodoof 10y ago

Unless an investor additionally gave a loan, there is no debt owed in any way to investors - that's the point, they made a decision to invest at risk and presumably did due diligence based on accurate information.

Benjamin_Dobell 10y ago
Errr, wait what? Firstly, to say there's no debt, monetary or otherwise, to someone who believed in your company enough to hand over their own money (or money in their control) to back you is just pure arrogance. Secondly, there absolutely is debt. When a company goes into administration the assets are sold to pay out those who hold equity in the company. They're literally owed debt. EDIT: To clarify for those responding saying that equity does not constitute debt... Creditors and investors are different, absolutely. It is also correct that investors are typically paid last during administration (although investors may form agreements to come before other investors). Nonetheless, during administration, the administrator determines how much money the investors are "owed", which is literally the definition of debt.
- stevewilhelm 10y ago
  > When a company goes into administration the assets are sold to pay out those who hold equity in the company. They're literally owed debt. This is incorrect. Please see the differences between equity and debt. [1] [1] http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/business-finances/debt-vs-equity-advantages-and-disadvantages.html http://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/business-finances/debt-vs-e...
- dexterdog 10y ago
  They're not owed debt. They own a piece of the company. When the assets are liquidated they will get their share unless they are on the shit-end of a liquidation preference clause.
- mark212 10y ago
  not to quibble, but no, they're not literally owed debt. The assets of the company are used to pay off any actual debt (payroll taxes, outstanding invoices to vendors, etc). Only then is any remaining money distributed to the equity holders. They take absolutely last.

cookiecaper 10y ago

I think he's trying to keep his employees optimistic and happy. Like the investors, surely they knew that getting involved in an early-stage company was risky, but they were willing to do it because they were excited by the prospects, committed to the vision, or similar. While it is clear that the post was not written by a management professional, as a completely uninvolved individual, I personally didn't find the authentic, human tone jarring. I understand more directly involved people may feel differently. I don't know what ClusterHQ did, but presumably they may have some users for whom the abrupt shutdown is inconvenient at best, especially if their company depended on whatever this is in production and now they have to try to fix it 3 days before Xmas with 40% of the company's staff on leave and the remaining 60% mentally checked out. I think that's the only group that this post disrespects. It would've been nice if he could have at least offered some alternatives, announced the shutdown ahead of time, or given some sort of migration path.

closeparen 10y ago

Is there a service that's shutting down? As I understand it, Flocker is an open source product you're meant to self-host.

stevelandiss 10y ago

Dude, chill.