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,

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.