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The contrasting perspectives at the end of the article stand out (I'm sure that's the intent of the reporter): "There's only so much wiggle room as a publi

The contrasting perspectives at the end of the article stand out (I'm sure that's the intent of the reporter): "There's only so much wiggle room as a public company," said Mr. Stinchcomb, the early employee. "If you really want to build a company that works for people and the planet, capitalism isn’t the solution." ... "To all the people who say taking Etsy public was a mistake, I say that's ridiculous," Mr. Wilson said. "There are some people who will say, 'Well, it’s not right for me. I like the old culture.' Well, I'm sorry about that. Going public was the best thing that ever happened to this company." Mr. Wilson, the investor, is unwilling to accept that there may be other value systems besides his own, and other definitions of "best".

heymijo 9y ago
I would not want Fred Wilson within 100 miles of the board of any company I cared about. There are many reasons Twitter is a mess as a public company today and Fred Wilson as a disastrous early board member is one of them. People learn from their mistakes, but apparently Fred has not. "I have heard from quite a few founders that they read the book Hatching Twitter and came away thinking that they would not want to work with me. That sucks for me but I don’t regret anything I did or said in the events that were described in that book." [0] [0] https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatching-Twitter https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatc...
mcfunley 9y ago
I'm as ambivalent about capitalism as the next person. But Etsy is a lousy counterexample to the premise of combining success in business and progressive values. Current and former employees conflating the two is disappointing. Etsy grew rapidly and organically for a decade, and never figured out how to grow intentionally in an ROI-positive way. As a private company it was not particularly concerned with revenue per employee, and headcount expanded like a gas to fill available revenue. After going public it was way too slow to realize that this wasn't going to fool the public market. I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. n.b. I worked for Etsy from 2007-2014. My own values force me to own this.
- ghaff 9y ago
  Expenses rising to meet revenue is a pretty common pattern everywhere. (Except for many VC-backed companies where they rise to exceed revenue in the name of growth.) It's a pretty natural tendency because there are always people you want to hire, amenities that seem eminently reasonable, investments you think will pay off, and gear/services that will make work easier/faster.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
    Additionally, profits are taxed / expenses aren't, so it makes sense for a business to spend money in an effort to grow, or just generally flail about.
- wils1245 9y ago
  >>I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. To me it feels like a byproduct of an overemphasis on a certain kind of inclusiveness, in which people are elevated based on how long they’ve been around and how much buyin there is into the mission. Everyone’s opinion is valued, everyone wants resources, everyone wants to be promoted. If there’s not money constraints or a sense of practicality driving decisions, everyone gets headcount and promotions, driving bloat. My last job was with a very mission driven startup. We were short on money so headcount wasn’t bloated, but we were plagued by “managers” with no one under them who’d been around since the beginning and didn’t contribute much. The product drifted, and we wasted a lot of time. I switched to a new, more unapologetically capitalist company, and my team has been subject to some absolutely cold blooded re-orgs. It’s a much less friendly place, but much, much better run in terms of getting stuff done. Not sure what the moral is. I made some great friends at the first company, not so much at the second. But the new place is in many ways a much less frustrating place to work.
- trafficlight 9y ago
  >> I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. There's a certain bay area company that has a large developer office here in my rural state. They've been hiring as fast as they can for the past few years. From all my friends who work there, I get the impression that there are way more people now than there is actual work to do. And yet they continue to hire because I assume head count alone is primary metric.
useranme 9y ago
> "Well, I'm sorry about that. Going public was the best thing that ever happened to this company." I'd be curious to learn Fred Wilson's explanation why going public was the best thing that ever happened to Etsy.
- sgt101 9y ago
  This is a good lesson on perspectives. I've had a few encounters that have brought it home to me. Here's a list of experiences... - A hated executive team that wreaked absolute havoc in the lives of thousands of people for the sake of a thought experiment which failed, which had failed elsewhere, and could have been implemented in a sensitive and non damaging way anyway. I met a member of this cabal socially years later, and because of personal connections and the need for social smoothness (I have a family and a mortgage so I can't just flounce about) I was compelled to play nice and chat. Over the course of the conversation I realised that this team believed that they had been on a mission to save the company and that they had succeeded, that they were loved by the people they had maimed (many of whom would have had to be restrained had they been in earshot of the conversation) and that they had been removed and denied the credit by "dark forces"! - Employees who when asked opinions about strategic decisions articulate positions that are the polar opposite of the agreed corporate position and sound lunatic (initially) but on reflection, well it turns out that these positions are absolutely as consistent and coherent as the product of 100 slide decks. - Retired colleagues who ask about some initiative or team that is now entirely forgotten in the corporate body, but when it is mentioned I suddenly realise that it was hugely important and significant, but like Stalin's victims, it's been airbrushed out of history! - Execs who's focus is on trivial aspects of the business and / or who openly articulate conspiracy theories about grass root business units "I bet they're itching to..." From Wilson's point of view the pressures and outcomes that he observes are likely significantly resolved and mitigated by the IPO that they did. He probably reflects over a view that moved from immanent displacement and forced illiquidity (due to investors refusing to wave conditions and covenants in agreements that would then mean that no new cash could be generated) to a sunlit upland of board freedom (now threatened by asset strippers). This is not a perspective shared by the founders or employees or even customers, but Wilson almost certainly hasn't spent the considerable cognition required to get that idea. And this is the problem, even relatively little companies like Etsy are staggeringly complex, there's just too much to consider for a human to fit the required views in. To get the view you have to constantly review and consider and check.. leaving no time to do, and do is needed! Roll on corporate AI!

heymijo 9y ago

I would not want Fred Wilson within 100 miles of the board of any company I cared about. There are many reasons Twitter is a mess as a public company today and Fred Wilson as a disastrous early board member is one of them. People learn from their mistakes, but apparently Fred has not. "I have heard from quite a few founders that they read the book Hatching Twitter and came away thinking that they would not want to work with me. That sucks for me but I don’t regret anything I did or said in the events that were described in that book." [0] [0] https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatching-Twitter https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatc...

mcfunley 9y ago

I'm as ambivalent about capitalism as the next person. But Etsy is a lousy counterexample to the premise of combining success in business and progressive values. Current and former employees conflating the two is disappointing. Etsy grew rapidly and organically for a decade, and never figured out how to grow intentionally in an ROI-positive way. As a private company it was not particularly concerned with revenue per employee, and headcount expanded like a gas to fill available revenue. After going public it was way too slow to realize that this wasn't going to fool the public market. I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. n.b. I worked for Etsy from 2007-2014. My own values force me to own this.

ghaff 9y ago
Expenses rising to meet revenue is a pretty common pattern everywhere. (Except for many VC-backed companies where they rise to exceed revenue in the name of growth.) It's a pretty natural tendency because there are always people you want to hire, amenities that seem eminently reasonable, investments you think will pay off, and gear/services that will make work easier/faster.
- TheSpiceIsLife 9y ago
  Additionally, profits are taxed / expenses aren't, so it makes sense for a business to spend money in an effort to grow, or just generally flail about.
wils1245 9y ago
>>I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. To me it feels like a byproduct of an overemphasis on a certain kind of inclusiveness, in which people are elevated based on how long they’ve been around and how much buyin there is into the mission. Everyone’s opinion is valued, everyone wants resources, everyone wants to be promoted. If there’s not money constraints or a sense of practicality driving decisions, everyone gets headcount and promotions, driving bloat. My last job was with a very mission driven startup. We were short on money so headcount wasn’t bloated, but we were plagued by “managers” with no one under them who’d been around since the beginning and didn’t contribute much. The product drifted, and we wasted a lot of time. I switched to a new, more unapologetically capitalist company, and my team has been subject to some absolutely cold blooded re-orgs. It’s a much less friendly place, but much, much better run in terms of getting stuff done. Not sure what the moral is. I made some great friends at the first company, not so much at the second. But the new place is in many ways a much less frustrating place to work.
trafficlight 9y ago
>> I feel deranged pointing this out, but hiring triple the headcount you need to run your business is not a progressive social value. I don't know what it is. There's a certain bay area company that has a large developer office here in my rural state. They've been hiring as fast as they can for the past few years. From all my friends who work there, I get the impression that there are way more people now than there is actual work to do. And yet they continue to hire because I assume head count alone is primary metric.

useranme 9y ago

> "Well, I'm sorry about that. Going public was the best thing that ever happened to this company." I'd be curious to learn Fred Wilson's explanation why going public was the best thing that ever happened to Etsy.

sgt101 9y ago
This is a good lesson on perspectives. I've had a few encounters that have brought it home to me. Here's a list of experiences... - A hated executive team that wreaked absolute havoc in the lives of thousands of people for the sake of a thought experiment which failed, which had failed elsewhere, and could have been implemented in a sensitive and non damaging way anyway. I met a member of this cabal socially years later, and because of personal connections and the need for social smoothness (I have a family and a mortgage so I can't just flounce about) I was compelled to play nice and chat. Over the course of the conversation I realised that this team believed that they had been on a mission to save the company and that they had succeeded, that they were loved by the people they had maimed (many of whom would have had to be restrained had they been in earshot of the conversation) and that they had been removed and denied the credit by "dark forces"! - Employees who when asked opinions about strategic decisions articulate positions that are the polar opposite of the agreed corporate position and sound lunatic (initially) but on reflection, well it turns out that these positions are absolutely as consistent and coherent as the product of 100 slide decks. - Retired colleagues who ask about some initiative or team that is now entirely forgotten in the corporate body, but when it is mentioned I suddenly realise that it was hugely important and significant, but like Stalin's victims, it's been airbrushed out of history! - Execs who's focus is on trivial aspects of the business and / or who openly articulate conspiracy theories about grass root business units "I bet they're itching to..." From Wilson's point of view the pressures and outcomes that he observes are likely significantly resolved and mitigated by the IPO that they did. He probably reflects over a view that moved from immanent displacement and forced illiquidity (due to investors refusing to wave conditions and covenants in agreements that would then mean that no new cash could be generated) to a sunlit upland of board freedom (now threatened by asset strippers). This is not a perspective shared by the founders or employees or even customers, but Wilson almost certainly hasn't spent the considerable cognition required to get that idea. And this is the problem, even relatively little companies like Etsy are staggeringly complex, there's just too much to consider for a human to fit the required views in. To get the view you have to constantly review and consider and check.. leaving no time to do, and do is needed! Roll on corporate AI!