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I didnt really see anything here of any real substance, other than OP strangely thinks that twitter is private, and that the CEO rightly advised him to link to

I didnt really see anything here of any real substance, other than OP strangely thinks that twitter is private, and that the CEO rightly advised him to link to their own product instead of their competitors. I cant really see how thats a "run in" with the CEO. All the other cultural issues he seems to bemoaning are all consequences of growth in a startup. Information flow gets harder with more people. As far as the CMO moving on to github, that certainly doesn't seem to be all that sinister of an indictment. If you have experience in marketing a developer tool to developers and software businesses, you're probably going to leverage that experience getting a job marketing a developer tool to developers and software businesses. The one thing he's likely right about is that there probably isnt enough market to actually chase, github has a huge piece of it already and hasn't been able to liquidate, so its not obvious where their growth is going to come from besides eating away githubs marketshare. But thats probably why they seem to be pivoting more towards a holistic tool set that is bigger than version control (like the atlassian example). But only time, execution, and a whole lot of luck with show how it all pans out.

twinkletwinkle 10y ago
>As far as the CMO moving on to github I think the implication was the CMO was fired and that was a poor decision, highlighted by her being snapped up by their competitor.
- danpalmer 10y ago
  Either that or the CMO was obviously not happy at the company in some way.
- prh8 10y ago
  I've been in a company that repeatedly snapped up employees from a competitor, including the CMO at one point. Often times, it's about the hiring company wanting to steal employees because they think it will bring success (despite not being in a good position for it). It leads to bringing on a lot of people that shouldn't have been, for more money than they are worth.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Would love to know the company :-) $$$
    - prh8 10y ago
      Well they eventually had two rounds of layoffs, 40% and 30% of entire company (respectively)
hdhzy 10y ago
I think the run-in referred to something different than the tweet. > After the run-in happened, I decided to lay low and focus on the job. I even stopped posting on Twitter, because the CEO already had questioned me about what I was writing.
- neltnerb 10y ago
  From my reading of it, it was referring to OP's disagreement about the Service Engineer team taking on correcting the internet whenever someone is wrong about GitLab with a staff of five people. I still think they should have just taken the options... the idea that with a current $100M valuation they won't end up being worth at least $5M doesn't seem justified based only on just these anecdotes. I assume the contract didn't allow resale of the options to a third party.
  - underwater 10y ago
    Investors would have liquidation preferences, so the stock would be worthless once value drops low enough (e.g. less than funding received).
  - achompas 10y ago
    It's not the final valuation though, there are other factors. Time value of money, dilution through failed attempts to raise more money, etc. From OP's perspective, he could go to Japan with his wife now, or maybe get his money back years from now. I know many people who have bought stock at companies valued higher than $100M, only to either lose their money or make 0% return during the recent S&P500 boom. Complete waste of time.
barrkel 10y ago
CEO rightly advised I don't think it's right at all. What gives him that right? Why is it morally wrong to do otherwise? What kind of right are you talking about?
- exclusiv 10y ago
  It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab. Employees can be told what to do. You don't have to comply, but when you get a fair request and you make a big deal of it - you have to be prepared for the consequences. Contractors - no you can't do that stuff; you can't tell them when or how to work... they have a lot of protections. The CEO request to change the link wasn't unreasonable. Why would a CEO want employees that aren't going to be champions of their own company they work for? However, I do think the author made fair requests to the CEO (like hiring Community Managers) and he might have been booted for not "falling in line". That's messed up. At the same time - he should probably disconnect himself from the emotions regarding the stock options and ask himself if it's a good deal financially. Seems like it to me.
  - will_hughes 10y ago
    > It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab. This leads to situations like what Microsoft used to be (and perhaps still is) - that Everything Had To Be IE And Bing. There could be no acknowledgement of the other brand by name. > Employees can be told what to do. On company time, certainly. When representing the company, for sure. Even perhaps if it's sufficiently controversial where you're bringing the company into disrepute by association. But when none of that applies, then no.
    - exclusiv 10y ago
      It was a fair request. If you're CEO you try to rally your people. It wasn't a demand. The author had no reason to be stubborn about it. There were obviously other areas to be concerned about as I sided with the author on, but this wasn't one of them and it derails from the other arguments.
  - 10y ago
AvenueIngres 10y ago
CEO stalking employees, nothing to see here... When did this become ok?
- RamshackleJ 10y ago
  It became ok when emotionally frail tech CEO's needed to cope with nagging existential fears of _not_ actually making the world a better place, while at the same time frantically trying to succeed so that they won't be left with the horrific ignominy of not being successful _and_ making the world worse.
  - dang 10y ago
    Please don't use rant rhetoric here. It's bad for substantive discussion.
- Trundle 10y ago
  Stalk? The guy tagged gitlab.
annnnd 10y ago
> The one thing he's likely right about is that there probably isnt enough market to actually chase ... I agree completely with your last paragraph. Of course Atlassian's market is very lucrative and they execute poorly (Jira is simply awful), so this seems like a viable business strategy to me.

twinkletwinkle 10y ago

>As far as the CMO moving on to github I think the implication was the CMO was fired and that was a poor decision, highlighted by her being snapped up by their competitor.

danpalmer 10y ago
Either that or the CMO was obviously not happy at the company in some way.
prh8 10y ago
I've been in a company that repeatedly snapped up employees from a competitor, including the CMO at one point. Often times, it's about the hiring company wanting to steal employees because they think it will bring success (despite not being in a good position for it). It leads to bringing on a lot of people that shouldn't have been, for more money than they are worth.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Would love to know the company :-) $$$
  - prh8 10y ago
    Well they eventually had two rounds of layoffs, 40% and 30% of entire company (respectively)

hdhzy 10y ago

I think the run-in referred to something different than the tweet. > After the run-in happened, I decided to lay low and focus on the job. I even stopped posting on Twitter, because the CEO already had questioned me about what I was writing.

neltnerb 10y ago
From my reading of it, it was referring to OP's disagreement about the Service Engineer team taking on correcting the internet whenever someone is wrong about GitLab with a staff of five people. I still think they should have just taken the options... the idea that with a current $100M valuation they won't end up being worth at least $5M doesn't seem justified based only on just these anecdotes. I assume the contract didn't allow resale of the options to a third party.
- underwater 10y ago
  Investors would have liquidation preferences, so the stock would be worthless once value drops low enough (e.g. less than funding received).
- achompas 10y ago
  It's not the final valuation though, there are other factors. Time value of money, dilution through failed attempts to raise more money, etc. From OP's perspective, he could go to Japan with his wife now, or maybe get his money back years from now. I know many people who have bought stock at companies valued higher than $100M, only to either lose their money or make 0% return during the recent S&P500 boom. Complete waste of time.

barrkel 10y ago

CEO rightly advised I don't think it's right at all. What gives him that right? Why is it morally wrong to do otherwise? What kind of right are you talking about?

exclusiv 10y ago
It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab. Employees can be told what to do. You don't have to comply, but when you get a fair request and you make a big deal of it - you have to be prepared for the consequences. Contractors - no you can't do that stuff; you can't tell them when or how to work... they have a lot of protections. The CEO request to change the link wasn't unreasonable. Why would a CEO want employees that aren't going to be champions of their own company they work for? However, I do think the author made fair requests to the CEO (like hiring Community Managers) and he might have been booted for not "falling in line". That's messed up. At the same time - he should probably disconnect himself from the emotions regarding the stock options and ask himself if it's a good deal financially. Seems like it to me.
- will_hughes 10y ago
  > It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab. This leads to situations like what Microsoft used to be (and perhaps still is) - that Everything Had To Be IE And Bing. There could be no acknowledgement of the other brand by name. > Employees can be told what to do. On company time, certainly. When representing the company, for sure. Even perhaps if it's sufficiently controversial where you're bringing the company into disrepute by association. But when none of that applies, then no.
  - exclusiv 10y ago
    It was a fair request. If you're CEO you try to rally your people. It wasn't a demand. The author had no reason to be stubborn about it. There were obviously other areas to be concerned about as I sided with the author on, but this wasn't one of them and it derails from the other arguments.
- 10y ago

AvenueIngres 10y ago

CEO stalking employees, nothing to see here... When did this become ok?

RamshackleJ 10y ago
It became ok when emotionally frail tech CEO's needed to cope with nagging existential fears of _not_ actually making the world a better place, while at the same time frantically trying to succeed so that they won't be left with the horrific ignominy of not being successful _and_ making the world worse.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't use rant rhetoric here. It's bad for substantive discussion.
Trundle 10y ago
Stalk? The guy tagged gitlab.

annnnd 10y ago

> The one thing he's likely right about is that there probably isnt enough market to actually chase ... I agree completely with your last paragraph. Of course Atlassian's market is very lucrative and they execute poorly (Jira is simply awful), so this seems like a viable business strategy to me.